ISANS - Intercultural Workplace Program (Ongoing)
Sep 10, 2025 - Nov 13, 2025
Online
Intercultural Workplace Program (IWP)
The ISANS Intercultural Workplace Program (IWP) is a taxpayer-funded resource for any employer with a presence in Nova Scotia. ISANS clients come from 186 countries of origin, and our Nova Scotian workplaces are increasingly reflecting this diversity as we provide excellent services to our customers.
The IWP focus on improved retention through intercultural competence rests on a DEIA foundation, communication skills, and HR practices with robust recruitment and retention ideas and actions. When you hire – we help you retain. We believe that every employee in Nova Scotia, from any national origin (including Canada!), ought to have workplaces where they want to stay and contribute their talents.
About the IWP Program
We are practical, realistic and focused on the winning balance between employer requirements and employee talent. We guide and support workplace interactions that are respectful and interculturally skilled. All our services and products are built with an Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Accessibility (EDIA) framework and we add our unique Intercultural expertise that makes our training relevant and engaging. Collaborating with you, we address intercultural miscommunication, differing work expectations and barriers due to stereotyping, biases, and misperceptions. The IWP is the bridge you can cross to take you from “What do we do?” to “Now we know.”
What we do
We provide you with support through a pathway of virtual workshops. We expand this with in-person and virtual customized learning programs, and full-access consultation. We conduct ongoing research, collaborate with you, extensively use feedback, and share best practices. We get you to higher job satisfaction and higher retention rates across the entire workforce.
Virtual Workshop Details and Registration
Our live-virtual workshops are 90 minutes each. These can be accessed in any order, and we recommend starting with Gateway and the two Intercultural Aspects and Skills workshops to benefit the most from the material. The four workshops in our “focused” series build and expand knowledge and skills with hiring and retention. These are facilitated and not recorded. They use the group dynamics with regular breakout rooms and ongoing points of Q/A. Registration link is below the schedule.
Fall 2025 Virtual Workshop Schedule:
- Gateway to an Intercultural Workplace
We dive into the foundations of intercultural challenges. We show you cultures’ pivotal roles in interactions, explore contrasting communication styles, and grasp the benefits of “cultural add.” Using mini “learning cohorts” and debriefing in plenary, you can deepen your appreciation for the practical benefits of an interculturally diverse workplace.
September 10, 2025,Wednesday 10:00 - 11:30 am
October 16, 2025,Thursday 1:00 - 2:30 pm
- Intercultural Aspects for a Resilient Workforce (Skills part 1)
Join us to develop essential intercultural communication skills for an increasingly diverse work environment. We identify and unpack six key intercultural dimensions and use interactive activities to help you apply your new-found approaches to real-world scenarios.
September 19, 2025,Thursday 10:00 - 11:30 am
- Intercultural Skills for a Resilient Workforce (Skills part 2)
With part two we utilize the cultural aspects or “dimensions” and identify specific skills or“competencies” to use to great result. As with part 1, you have significant opportunity to work in breakout rooms with real-life examples, and we spend time debriefing and learning.
October 2, 2025,Thursday 2:30 – 4:00 pm
- Improving Recruitment: Overcoming Systemic Biases & Barriers
Here we deep dive into the types of barriers we encounter when dealing with recruitment: the resumes, job postings and the range of interculturally loaded assumptions and expectations we bring. We work together to identify the biases and how to correct them. Everybody learns a lot here!
October 8, 2025,Wednesday 2:00 – 3:30 pm
- Interviewing with Intercultural Aspects and Skills
This is a practically minded interactive tour of what can improve interviews. We explore direct and indirect communication styles, body language and commonly misread non-verbal cues, small talk, punctuality, and great practices! Join us and ramp up your game!
October 23, 2025,Thursday 2:00 – 3:30 pm
- Onboarding with Intercultural Aspects and Skills
The place to make the biggest gains for your organization. We review the phases of onboarding, we provide examples of challenges and solutions, and all attendees have many opportunities to share with each other the frustrations, barriers, and ideas to improve your workplaces!
October 29, 2025,Wednesday 2:30-4:00 pm
- Retention with Intercultural Aspects and Skills
This is the silver bullet, the panacea, the course you have been waiting for! Here we identify barriers and solutions to challenges of retention: “how do we get our talented our people to stay?” We identify specific issues, bring in specific solutions, get real, and connect to a pool of engaged colleagues!
November 13, 2025,Thursday 11:00 am - 12:30 pm
A week before the workshop, we provide you with an MS Teams webinar link and any documents we use on the day.
Registration closes the day prior to each workshop. After the workshop we provide a pdf version of the slides.
Customize your Journey
Once you have attended our foundational workshops, we recommend our customized services. You will be well positioned to ask us detailed, informed questions that are specific to your situation. For customized services, we conduct a preliminary needs analysis, identify timelines and priorities, and together determine optimal services for you.
In customized programs, we also collaborate with your teams in non-workshop settings to find solutions to easily addressable challenges, and to determine longer-term behavioral organizational changes.
Have a question? We offer consultation on any topic you are encountering and if the topic requires more time, we are glad to book whatever support you need. All – at no cost.
Whether you are looking to figure out the magic of improved retention, address intercultural barriers, enhance communication strategies, or foster a more inclusive workplace culture, we are here to collaborate with you and to craft supports that fully suit your needs.
Impact of the IWP
We have seen this program positively impact Nova Scotia’s employers and overall workforce for the past 13 years, and we have many wonderful testimonials. Here are a few quotes we like to share:
“I found myself thinking about this material for days afterwards. VERY impactful.”
“The presenters are very knowledgeable and non-judgmental. These are great workshops!”
“We have made a wide range of organizational changes as a direct result of the IWP. Great program!”
Contact us
Curious to know more? Contact us by phone or email and we will get back to you right away. You can register for our foundational workshops by using this link
Paul Pickering | Coordinator, IWP | 902-406-3225 | ppickering@isans.ca
Yaj Suresh | Facilitator, IWP | 902-482-4346 | ysuresh@isans.ca
We are able to work with any organization with a Nova Scotian presence. We can customize any of our services for your organization’s convenience. Fully funded by the province of Nova Scotia.