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Expat Training - China
Project Trailer
The Problem
This e-learning module is part of an ongoing intercultural business awareness training program that focuses on specific countries. This module was about Chinese business culture. The module needed a complete revamp in format and overall learning experience. The old format was too academic and too heavy to learn effectively, ultimately making it less useful for daily challenges. The digital program was not effective enough on its own, meaning expatriates still had to rely on direct support from trainers.
My Role
My task was to find a way to create a better structure in the first place, so the learner would not be overwhelmed by the endless content, eventually giving up and not engaging with the program. The client also wanted to boost customer retention through a good digital learning experience, so that learners could experience personal support without direct trainer involvement. I also had to achieve this economically, keeping production costs low and making the approach easy to automate and reproduce for all the other country modules.
The client trains executives and managers who are on business assignments either onsite or remotely, but closely cooperating within an international context. In this unit, the learning module needs to prepare expatriates for their daily business activities with their Chinese associates.
I created a learner persona for each country. The persona represents an expatriate from another country who has an assignment in China. The program is based on storytelling principles, representing different archetypes such as the hero, mentor, enemy, etc. The hero is Stephanie, an expatriate from Norway. Her mentor is Jun, a local employee who helps her through her intercultural challenges. The learner is the observer but also an active participant, as they are instructed to help Stephanie go through her journey successfully.
The program includes adult learning principles instead of the old, purely academic approach of information collection followed by a heavy quiz format to test whether the learner memorized the content. Here, the learner has a goal, a situation to solve, and a responsibility to carry. Without their help, Stephanie would not succeed. She needs to make choices throughout the journey in order to progress and eventually succeed.
The learner must make these choices for her at the learning points. The simple principle also applies that a person learns on a much more accelerated level when they position themselves as the teacher, even without having the knowledge.
