WITRON
01.
THE CLIENT
La Mancha
La Mancha is an international gold producer and has business operations, development projects and exploration activities in Côte d’Ivoire, Sudan and Australia with a corporate Head office based in Paris.
As the private natural resource investment vehicle of the Sawiris Family, La Mancha specialises in creating leading regional players with an entrepreneurial hands-on industrial approach. Originally partly owned by the French business Areva, a large power company, La Mancha is now privately held.
Founded
2006
HQ
Paris, France
Company Size
201-500 employees
Industry
Mining & Metals
Specialties
Gold Mining"Polyglot’s cross-cultural training was very practical and useful. As I started working for a new company with headquarters in France, it was important for me to understand the culture and the style of communication. I undertook cross-cultural training and felt prepared and aware of what the international business context of the company was." Monica Kander - HR Manager Australia
02.
THE CHALLENGE
Canadian mining group La Mancha first approached The Polyglot Group in 2010 when they were developing their fourth mine, based in Australia.
At this time of expansion, La Mancha had been bought by the French nuclear & renewable energy group, Areva. This co-ownership generated a complex cross-cultural circumstance, where the Australian-based Canadian employees were required to collaborate with new French co-owners.
La Mancha turned to The Polyglot Group to help overcome communication barriers and facilitate smooth business operations in this cross-cultural context. La Mancha sought practical ways to help the Australian-based management team gain skills in intercultural communication while also working in accordance with the new French business culture. Considering both the culture and communication patterns needed to go through significant change, La Mancha turned to The Polyglot Group to provide training to bridge the cultural gap and avoid misunderstandings.
Shortly after this time, La Mancha also experienced the need to recruit new employees. As La Mancha now had a strong relationship with The Polyglot Group, they trusted us with the responsibility of recruiting a number of new members. Throughout their journey, La Mancha has repeatedly turned to The Polyglot Group to fulfil recruitment needs, including the hiring of their Chief Operations Officer in Paris.
Alongside recruitment needs, La Mancha also required contract management for their operations in Sudan, East Africa. More specifically, La Mancha sought help with the time-consuming process of negotiating and drafting employment contracts, as well as other processes such as organising insurance for employees.
03.
OUR SOLUTION
As we worked to assist La Mancha across multiple facets, it became apparent that La Mancha required help across a number of different business operations solutions. To best answer these needs, we tailored our Employment Outsourcing solution, which allowed La Mancha to take advantage of several customised services in one package.
As multicultural business experts, we devised best practices to bridge the cultural gap between La Mancha’s Australian management team and Areva’s French team. After careful consideration of this unique challenge, we customised a cross-cultural training program tailored for this specific circumstance. In these cross-cultural training sessions, we shared our expertise in French business culture and helped La Mancha’s team to understand the cultural differences. In the training sessions, we covered a multitude of important topics such as communication style, email interaction and communication dynamics—information which was immensely useful for La Mancha in promoting intercultural understanding and facilitating success of the business’ co-ownership.
When La Mancha entrusted us with the responsibility to recruit new employees, we used our extensive candidate pool to source talent for positions such as Mine Managers, Maintenance Managers and Strategy & Business Development Managers. Over the course of our alliance, we successfully recruited 17 employees for La Mancha.
When it came to Contract Management, we provided La Mancha with a solution which would guarantee compliance. Our HR Outsourcing solution meant we were listed as the employer of record for this operation, thereby taking responsibility for the legalities surrounding employing in Sudan.
04.
THE RESULTS
In taking advantage of our customised solutions, La Mancha received expert help across multiple time zones. Moreover, La Mancha could rest assured, knowing The Polyglot Group specialise in the complexities of cross-cultural business operations.
Equipped with our knowledge of multiple business cultures (including that of France), we were the ultimate partner in helping La Mancha bridge the intercultural communicative gap. La Mancha’s Australian HR Manager reported, “I undertook Polyglot Group’s cross-cultural training and felt prepared and aware of what the international business context of the company was.” Our cross-cultural training provided the management team with the ability to understand, cooperate and work effectively with their cross-cultural partners.
With our HR solution taking care of contract management, La Mancha did not need to waste any time on administrative duties such as the drafting of contracts—they could focus on business endeavours in Sudan, knowing they were fully compliant.
In choosing to partner with The Polyglot Group, finding new employees was never a concern for La Mancha. With our extensive international networks, we provided the business with an unbeatable talent pool.
Overall, our partnership with La Mancha not only overcome the cross-cultural barriers, but also solved a number of complexities which became apparent over the course of La Mancha’s expansion.
