Corporate Cultural Competence: 3 Promising Practices Every Workplace Needs

What enables teams to remain successful in an ever-changing, global workplace?

According to public health practitioner, business strategist and stakeholder engagement specialist, Donika Jones, the one capability shaping team performance across industries is cultural competence.

The success of many organizations operating across regions depends not only on technical expertise, but also on how well people communicate, collaborate, and make decisions across cultural differences.

Jones’s experience working with various companies to improve their cultural competence while aligning with stakeholders’ priorities makes her insight for teams particularly useful.

Keep reading as we break down the definition of cultural competence, why it’s important in corporate environments, how it should look in practice, and 3 promising practices every company should adopt.

What is cultural competence?

Cultural competence has many definitions based on context—academic, social, personal—but corporate cultural competence can be defined as the ability to communicate across languages with respect, understanding, and reflective awareness in relation to the culture or community being served.

How does cultural competence show up in the workplace?

In practice, this capability shapes how teams:

• Collaborate across regions and time zones.
• Communicate across languages with others of different communication styles.
• Work with global clients, partners, and stakeholders.
• Lead teams with different perspectives and expectations.

Jones emphasizes the need to “acknowledge that there are differences in the ways that we experience the world, that there are differences in our perspectives” as a great starting point for many companies.

When organizations build this awareness into how teams operate through training, cultural competence becomes a driver of stronger collaboration, better decision-making, and more measurable results.

Why Cultural Competence Matters in the Workplace

While we often think of cultural competenceas an essential one-time training for international teams, it’s just as important in smaller, local teams when done continuously.

When teams share similar backgrounds—ages, majors, etc.—it's easy to assume everyone shares the same ideas. Jones points out that this is a trap that leads your team into ‘groupthink’and can result in misaligned marketing, a disconnect with your audience, and a possible failed campaign.

Cultural Competence Helps Teams:

• Avoid assumptions about their audience or community.
• Seek out broader perspectives outside their own experiences.
• Create programs, services, or products that resonate with diverse stakeholders.
• Maintain strong relationships with clients, customers, and colleagues.

3 Promising Practices of Cultural Competence Every Team Needs

When asked for the best cultural competence practices in the workplace, Jones said that leaves the implication that there’s just one. However, with her years of experience, she proposed three that will transform your team.

Stakeholder & Community Engagement

Organizations often build programs, products, and strategies based solely on internal assumptions. Engagement flips the model.

In Jones’s words, “Communities know what they need. They will articulate that in the best way, if you ask.”

Practical ways to apply this:

• Include representatives from diverse customer or employee groups in all levels of development
• Host listening-sessions for feedback
• Partner with cultural advisors or community stakeholders

Integrate, Don’t Just Add On

Many organizations go through the entire process of product or program development without considering its appropriateness or relevance to the audience, client, or community. Then, they try to make it appropriate at the very end.

Jones explains, “[Cultural competence] is not something that you do at the end...it's something that you should be integrating throughout the entirety of your program development.”

How to integrate it:

• Include cultural checkpoints in project timelines
• At every step, ask: What might we be missing? Who else should weigh in? How might X be misinterpreted?
• Create structures to make cultural responsiveness a habit, not an afterthought

Practice Self-awareness & Cultural Humility

Leaders in an organization should practice cultural humility and self-awareness to lead effectively. The heart of cultural humility is recognizing that your perspective isn’t universal, which enables you to intentionally create space to learn from the people you lead.

Jones suggests addressing matters in your team first: “Maybe we need to have a conversation about what communication style works best for you,” after a particularly silent meeting.

Self-aware leaders should:

• Ask questions instead of making decisions in a vacuum
• Invite feedback and genuinely implement what they hear
• Understand how culture impacts all aspects of their team's work
• Adapt their communication and leadership styles to fit the team—not the other way around

What Cultural Competence Looks Like in Practice

Organizations that treat cultural competence as a core capability tend to:

• Prioritize ongoing cultural and language development rather than one-time training
• Provide training based on employees’ roles and responsibilities
• Ensure leaders are just as well-trained and involved as other employees

Most importantly, successful cultural competence focuses on practical application in everyday work based on an organization’s size, industry, and goals.