CROSS CULTURAL MANAGEMENT

Cross Cultural Management- Eurotunnel

Cross Cultural Management- Eurotunnel

Eurotunnel has a 99-year lease to operate the Channel Tunnel link between Britain and France. It has a complex structure consisting of two legal entities to meet requirements in the UK and France. The company is owned by private shareholdings in both countries. Eurotunnel employs a total 3,400 staff, with approximately 1,400 based in Britain on UK contracts. The UK head office is in Folkestone (Longport) with a separate office nearby for some administration activities and the call centre.

Question) Examine the issues and common difficulties of cross-cultural communications that threatens to derail Eurotunnel

The Eurotunnel call centre workforce is largely female - 74 per cent are women. 82 per cent work full time with the rest part-time. Overall, some 71 per cent of operators (124 staff) are Eurotunnel employees and on average 29 per cent are agency staff. The call centre operation has a mix of nationalities and cultures to meet its language requirements. There are five main nationalities working in the call centre - British, French, Dutch, Belgian and German. Appropriately 50 per cent of calls are in English. The average length of service in the call centre is 21 months (for permanent staff). These numbers were relatively consistent during the period of research. All recruits must go through two weeks' training and already have two to six months' experience of working in a call centre.

Another debate raised by the research into call centres is the impact of the feminisation of the call centre workforce and the challenges facing unions in trying to organise female employees in such a workplace environment. It is argued that the lack of interest in unions and traditional forms of collective representation is attributed to high staff turnover, low investment in training and greater family responsibilities. It is also claimed that women tend to have a less combative “culture” of trade unions.

Another characteristic of Eurotunnel is the wide cultural diversity in the call centre operations, calling into question the appropriateness of the current company-wide consultation and representation structures. Moreover, the service-based nature of the call centre operations is unique within Eurotunnel, which is a largely engineering and operationally based business, thus highlighting the complexity of operating a uniform consultation structure in a highly diverse workforce. Potentially, this may have important implications for the appropriateness of the existing collective consultation and representation structures in a call centre environment.

Different Communication Styles

The way people communicate varies widely between, and even within, cultures. One aspect of communication style is language usage. Across cultures, some words and phrases are used in different ways. For example, even in countries that share the English language, the meaning of "yes" varies from "maybe, I'll consider it" to "definitely so," with many shades in between.

Another major aspect of communication style is the degree of importance given to non-verbal communication. Non-verbal communication includes not only facial expressions and gestures; it also involves seating arrangements, personal distance, and sense of ...