Speaker Name: Paul Pickering, Intercultural Workplace Program Coordinator at ISANS (Immigrant Services Association of Nova Scotia)

Date: July 9th, 2025 (Wednesday)

Time: 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM

Location: Microsoft Teams Webinar

Engineers encounter a range of specialized circumstances when working cross-culturally, as well as engaging with the same aspects of culture and cultural differences as any other industry.  This is a 60-minute dive into intercultural interactions from a high and low context perspective.  We identify what these terms mean, what some circumstances look like, and how we can get better at recognizing and negotiating them, whether we are engineers ourselves, whether we have a support function for engineers, or whether we are just looking for another lens to improve our intercultural skills.
 

All programming from the Intercultural Workplace Program (IWP) at ISANS, seeks to raise intercultural awareness, knowledge and skills so employers can better attract and retain employees, regardless of whether they are Canadian-born, or from another nation in the world.  Improved retention is a proven money -saver and is the foundation for organizational ability to provide the services and products it is designed to do.  When retention is higher, our work-life and work culture is better.
 

Through a slide presentation, discussion, guided activity and a question & answer session, participants will gain practical tools for navigating intercultural interactions in diverse professional settings; particularly within an engineering environment.

Webinar Schedule:

12:00 PM – Welcome & Introduction

12:05 PM – Presentation by Paul Pickering

12:50 PM – Q&A session

12:55 PM – Closing Remarks

01:00 PM – Session concluded

Key Takeaways Include:

• A clear understanding of high and low context communication and how it impacts workplace interactions.
• Practical strategies for improving communication with colleagues from diverse cultural backgrounds.
• Tools to recognize and respond to intercultural misunderstandings in real time.
• Increased confidence in navigating complex team dynamics across cultures.
• Insight into how improved communication supports employee retention and team cohesion.

Speaker Background:

Paul Pickering has been living and working as an immigrant since 1995, in South Korea, Czechia, Estonia, England and since 2011, Canada.  He has degrees in Cultural Anthropology and Communication Studies from the University of Maine, USA, and a certificate in Adult Learning Methodology from Cities and Guilds, London, England.  He has developed and delivered the Intercultural Workplace Program for ISANS since it began in 2013, and loves expanding the ways to support Nova Scotian employers.

These sessions are FREE to Engineers Nova Scotia Registrants (P.ENG., EIT, and Student Registrants). Attendees will enhance their professional growth and earn (1) Professional Development Hour (PDH) under the Communications and Leadership Learning towards the Engineers Nova Scotia CPD program. 

Online registration will close at noon on July 7th. After that time, please reach out to events@engineersnovascotia.ca to register for the session. Registrants will receive a reminder email two days prior to the event with the link to access the webinar.

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