Fortune 100 Corporation - Training Employees in 13 Countries

CLIENT

Archer Daniels Midland Corporation (ADM) is a world leader in agricultural processing. One of the world’s largest processors of soybeans, corn, wheat, and cocoa, ADM is also a leader in soy meal and oil, ethanol, high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and flour. In addition to the approximately 470 plants in the United States, ADM owns, leases, or has an interest in approximately 260 processing plants and procurement facilities overseas, making ADM truly a global agricultural presence.

CHALLENGE

ADM's massive growth internationally has outpaced internal infrastructure for effectively communicating messages with its global workforce. For example -- ADM trains employees worldwide each year regarding ADM’s Code of Ethics and global compliance program. Outside the U.S., early attempts at training non-English speaking employees were evaluated poorly, failed to transfer the ethics message, and fell short of performance objectives.

SOLUTIONS

Seeking better techniques, ADM started collaborating with LCW in 2001 to provide training to employees at the company’s European, North American, South American, and African facilities in their local language and in a culturally sensitive way. LCW works hand-in-hand with ADM to develop the training methods and design, and collaborate on case studies that are relevant for trainees in each region. This local language approach was used to deliver 75 training sessions to 1500 ADM employees from October to December of 2001 at ADM facilities in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Mexico, Paraguay, Poland, and Puerto Rico (U.S.A) In 2002, ADM locations in Cote d’Ivoire, Russia and Turkey were added as well. ADM reports that results of their on-going relationship with LCW -- the use of intercultural trainers, translation services, and case studies -- have received overwhelming support and been credited with inspiring new-found feelings among international locations that they are part of a greater ADM whole.

ON-GOING SUPPORT

Today multiple ADM divisions contract with LCW for such projects as: consulting support for global communications and outreach; localization of a corporate Intranet into six languages; domestic training deliveries; Annual Report translation, general translation services, etc. Recently, LCW was asked to scope a series of intercultural communication programs for the headquarters staff who work with their information technology operations in Brazil.