Education, Training & Coaching

Monarch Cruise Line and Hospitality Training Center invited Western Influences into their schools to work with their students to further develop their English speaking skills.  We deliver innovative training sessions entitled “English Gives You Choices.”  The students are challenged to interactive exercises that encourage them to use English words and phrases that are typically outside of their work day vocabulary.  Western Influences’ training focuses on building student motivation and confidence, which opens up employment and other opportunities for them.

The training days are inevitably filled with laughter, as the students and staff learn new ways to communicate.  Feedback from Monarch Training Centre shows that, after the training sessions, students are left with a sense of accomplishment, an increase in confidence and a desire for adventure in their future.

Western Influences is looking to expand its relationship with Monarch Training Centre by working with the teaching faculty, as well as the students.  This will include getting involved in the recruitment of appropriate staff, their performance appraisal and their ongoing professional development.

Western Influences offers business leaders structured coaching programs to further any owner’s or manager’s vision for growing and evolving their business.  We find that leaders often feel isolated and in need of leadership themselves.  Western Influences provides a forum for leaders to stretch their capabilities, test ideas and increase their power.

This service also extends to staff, where appropriate.  Western Influences often coaches whole teams to align their vision to that of the governing members.  That is, Western Influences puts everyone in an organisation on the same path to creating a better future for all involved in the business.

The format of a coaching program varies from business to business.  The service is tailored to the needs of the business and the staff.  Sometimes, weekly meetings are the appropriate vehicle.  Sometimes, video Skype calls are useful.  Sometimes, workshops on specific subject matters work better.  Western Influences will work with you to design the best coaching program for your business.

One of Western Influences’ senior consultants has a Diploma in Workplace Health and Safety as well as qualifications in training and assessment.  He is experienced in rolling out cultural safety policies and procedures at an international level.

Compliance safety is usually a set of regulations that represent the bare minimum employers can do to keep workers safe.  That is, just because workers are wearing protective gear and being compliant, doesn’t mean they are being safe.  Western Influences is committed to “cultural” safety, as opposed to “compliance” safety.  The most commonly used definition of safety culture is: “The product of individual and group values, attitudes, perceptions, competencies, and patterns of behaviour that determine the commitment to, and the style and proficiency of, an organisation’s health and safety management”.  Western Influences’ services are focused on bringing about a positive safety culture.  This is characterised by communications founded on mutual trust; by shared perceptions of the importance of safety; and, by confidence in the efficacy of preventive measures.

Western Influences prepares and facilitates presentations on safety related matters in any workplace, from schools to mine sites, from tourist facilities to manufacturing plants, from farms to fruit markets.  Presentations and practical assessments focus on looking after the people in the workplace as one would a family member, ensuring that every work goes home safe at the end of each day.

Comprehensive inspection and audit services are also available for any workplace.  This is particularly useful in Bali, where all safety is founded in common sense and there is minimal structural support to complement it.  Western Influences can create a healthy balance between the policies and procedures available under regulation and the need for business efficacy.

One of Western Influences’ senior consultants has been a business and life coach since 1996, when she first opened her own marketing consultancy.  She has supported businesses in all phases: research and development; start up; stall and freefall; market expansion; and, shut down.  An extension of that work is partnering business owners and senior managers in their own concurrent development, which strengthens any business development being undertaken by the organisation as a whole.

The businesses she has worked with are diverse in shape and form, from developing homemakers and hobby artists into small businesses; through to being instrumental in developing a technique to have a leading petroleum company uncover why their staff were leaving on mass, taking all their years of experience with them.  She also integrated a complementary and alternative health clinic into a mainstream teaching hospital, which has since expanded into hospitals across Australia.

Her skill set lies in getting into people’s hearts.  She uncovers things about people that they don’t know hold them back.  She often works with whole families or whole organisations to get to the source of what is really going on for them.

As well as working with businesses, Western Influences designs corporate development programs specifically for companies and executives committed to making an extraordinary difference in business, developing breakthrough results in productivity, revenue, profitability and service – all through ensuring that the people leading others are in the best form they can be.

Western Influences has a great deal of experience setting up companies under a variety of jurisdictions, including:

·        establishing a legal entity under the Australian Corporations Act 2001, as well as developing replaceable rules and constitutions;

·        incorporating a business under the Australian Corporations (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) Act 2006;

·        incorporating a foreign investment limited liability company in Indonesia, known as Perseroan Terbatas Penanaman Modal Asing (PT PMA) under Indonesian Company Law No. 40 of 2007.

This often involves developing appropriate corporate governance structures.  Western Influences can provide corporate governance training that covers understanding the legal obligations of the officeholders; how to make integrous decisions; and, maintaining appropriate records.

Western Influences’ senior consultants are experienced in cross-cultural interactions at both personal and business levels, having lived and worked in and traded with a variety of countries and cultures.

Cultural sensitivity begins with the understanding that there are differences among cultures.  Furthermore, cultural sensitivity includes placing value on this diversity.  One can never learn everything about another culture; however, there are practical, everyday steps we can take to develop our cultural awareness.

Western Influences is experienced in running leadership development programs across cultures and across generations.  These programs are particularly useful when there is a diverse group of stakeholders, with sometimes conflicting needs, that need to work together for joint outcomes.

Cross-cultural awareness training is founded in communication and involves teaching people the ability of standing back from themselves and becoming aware of their cultural values, beliefs and perceptions; and, how these impact on those around them.  These programs build respect and understanding in relationships and are essential in developing lasting business partnerships.

One of Western Influences’ senior consultants is qualified in Workplace Health and Safety.  Critical to the success of any safety program’s implementation is the ability to communicate across cultures.  This consultant has experience in facilitating on-site safety inductions across diverse cultures and with languages other than English.  The importance of 360 degrees of understanding cannot be stressed enough when it comes to protecting people’s lives and wellbeing.

One of Western Influences’ senior consultants was engaged by the Western Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (WA CCI) to undertake research into the influence of gender on international trade negotiations.  At that time, she was the Managing Director of Acirema Associates Pty Ltd, a successful import / export company.

The research focused on Australians trading within the Asia-Pacific region, and defined strategies for when and how gender differences could be utilised to the negotiator’s advantage in securing international trade deals.  At the time, this work was highly controversial, but proved worthwhile when the WA CCI invited her to present the research findings and recommended strategies to its membership.