Bridging cross-culture communication gap
Tina Varughese has a dynamic and energetic sense about her.
It is this passion that she brings to her company as president of t Works Inc., which specializes in crosscultural communication and work-life balance seminars, executive relocation and executive rentals. It provides customized cultural diversity training to both the public and private sector.
Also, t Works offers relocation and settlement services specifically for expatriates working in Calgary’s oil and gas industry and other industries.
“I used to work for the province of Alberta in their immigration department and I really found that because I was part of the recruitment and doing a lot of the international recruitment, bringing skilled workers here and promoting Alberta as a province, I just found that at one point I was part of the problem because I just felt if we educated a lot of our managers and leaders and employees here that we could effectively utilize under-utilized immigrants as well as help employees work effectively together,” says Varughese.
“Calgary is becoming so culturally diverse. We have over 25 per cent of our population coming from outside of Canada. So a lot of the sectors I’ve noticed I’ve been working with . . . if I could help people learn about cross-cultural communication it would be a value-added for businesses in Calgary.”
Before starting on her own, Varughese worked with Alberta Employment, Immigration and Industry. Most recently she worked with Alberta Innovation and Science where she was the Ministry Specialist for Alberta’s Provincial Nominee Program. In 2008, she was chosen to be part of Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty.
Her seminars on crosscultural communication and work-life balance are customized to meet client needs.
“The business has grown organically very much via repeat and referral because my clients have become huge advocates of my work, which is great,” says Varughese, whose heritage is East Indian. “A key reason why I’ve been successful at it — there are other cultural diversity trainers and I welcome that — where I differentiate myself is I really try to make it fun and funny.
“There is a comedian named Russell Peters. I have heard many, many times from participants in the conferences and the workshops that they often compare me to Russell Peters . . . With cultural diversity training I think people sometimes get their backs up a little bit and they think it’s going to be a bleeding heart, Kumbaya moment and that’s not necessarily what it’s all about. It goes beyond being a business nicety and it has become a business necessity.”