First-ever collaboration sends Cigna employees to Indonesia as international volunteers
BOSTON, MA (May 2015) – With the goal of assisting non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to support their host national communities while helping private sector companies and their employees navigate new cultures and international workplaces with greater sensitivity and finesse,Northeastern University’s D’Amore-McKim School of Business and the National Peace Corps Association (NPCA) have teamed up to develop the Cultural Agility Leadership Lab (CALL).
Founded and directed by Dr. Paula M. Caligiuri, author and a Distinguished Professor in International Business and Strategy at Northeastern, CALL is the first-ever collaboration between two top pioneers in the field: Northeastern, a leading university specializing in student experiential learning, and the NPCA, an unparalleled leader in international volunteerism working in the private sector and alongside the federally-funded Peace Corps.
CALL’s first cohort of employees from Cigna’s information technology department in Bloomfield, CT just returned to work May 1 after spending two weeks in Indonesia at two local nonprofit organizations: East Bali Poverty Project (www.eastbalipovertyproject.org) and the ROLE Foundation.
“I am thrilled and honored to be working with Dr. Paula Caligiuri, Northeastern University, and the Peace Corps community to pilot the CALL program with eight high potential leaders at Cigna,” said John Staines, Cigna’s Human Resources Officer for its Global Information Technology organization. “Cigna has a significant and growing presence in Southeast Asia and building cultural agility through volunteerism makes all the sense in the world, for achieving our goals of developing global leaders while supporting the communities we work in.”
The CALL program is the implementation partner for companies to send employees from a variety of functional areas – marketing, technology, strategic and financial planning, supply chain, information technology, and other areas of expertise – abroad to work for up to a month with NGOs in other countries.
Not only is there an exchange of information, but employees return with a higher level of understanding about different cultures, languages, work environments, and the changing business climate worldwide. Employees gain a greater sense of humility, social responsibility, and with a greater tolerance for ambiguity. Retention rates increase. A feeling of engagement returns, core competencies build, and employeesoften feel more loyal to their employers and companies. On the other side, CALL provides a cost-effective, efficient, well-conceived way for companies to offer employees international work experiences that many could not supply on their own. Finally, NGOs receiving the skilled assistance of American corporate experts will have access to resources and talent that will help enable them to achieve their goals. Dr. Caligiuri sees it as a “win-win-win.”
By partnering with the NPCA, CALL has access to some 220,000returned Peace Corps volunteers who have served in140 countries where CALL volunteers are headed so they join them as cultural coaches on site. “We’re excited. This is an opportunity to engage the private sector with the Peace Corps community for greater collective impact,” said Glenn Blumhorst, president and CEO of the NPCA. “Corporations will benefit by sending employees into service-oriented positions in the marketplace to give them a greater world view, while helping development NGOs achieve their goals.”
The NPCA’s cultural coaches add value to the experience, he said, because they have lived in these countriesand want to help corporate volunteers understand the culture in a more nuanced way. The partnership also extends the experience for returned Peace Corps volunteers beyond their two-year stints. “Our mission is to champion a lifelong commitment to Peace Corps ideals. These individuals are always involved in something to make the world a better place,” Blumhorst said.
Having the International Business Program at Northeastern University involved means that CALL is being studied and analyzed to ensure that work experience findings are backed by solid research. A prolific author, researcher, and media commentator, Dr. Caligiuricomes to this new venture as an author and co-author of several articles and books, including Managing the Global Workforce (2010) and Cultural Agility: Building a Pipeline of Successful Global Professionals (2012) in addition to numerous academic publications.
ABOUT CALL:
Cultural Agility Leadership Lab (CALL), a new international corporate volunteer program, is the result of an exclusive partnership between Northeastern University’s D’Amore-McKim School of Business in Boston and the National Peace Corps Association (NPCA) in Washington, D.C. Bringing together leading experts in experiential student learning – Northeastern University – and international volunteerism – the Peace Corps community through the NPCA – CALL is providing a turn-key solution for companies seeking leadership training, expatriate volunteerism, and global pro bono advisory opportunities for employees while delivering technical expertise to support non-governmental organizations’ (NGO) development objectives.
As the implementation partner for their international volunteerism program, CALL helps their clients’ participating employees build their cultural agility as they learn to work in different countries and with people from different cultures. The result, confirmed by research, is that international volunteerism programs develop core cross-cultural competencies, while fostering employee engagement, and job satisfaction. http://www.damore-mckim.northeastern.edu/en/business-community/executive-education/engagements/cultural-agility-leadership-lab/
