Who Should Attend ?

Employees preparing for an assignment in Hungary and their partners

Benefits of Attendance

This seminar aims at significantly improving the ability of the participants to meet the challenges of living and working abroad. The objective is to enable them to identify the stumbling blocks that lie ahead and to be able to adapt and integrate in Hungary.

At the end of this training, participants will have acquired insights and techniques to:

• Be aware of their own cultural baggage
• Understand Hungarian context and culture
• Analyse situations in which misunderstandings may arise and identify ways of communicating more effectively
• Reduce and manage the symptoms of culture shock
• Understand Hungarian mindset, work practices, decision-making processes and negotiating styles
• Strike the right balance between personal et professional lives

Training Approach

• A cross-cultural approach of International Mobility
• Country specific trainers
• Personalized and familiy focused action plan
• Access to the Nomad’ Network, an exclusive online tool for Akteos’ clients and experts:  find resources, exchange experiences, knowledge and insights

Programme Outline

Module 1 : Successful personnal integration in Hungary

1. Cross-cultural awareness : the key to a successful expatriation

• Taking stock of one's own cultural baggage
• Culture shock and the integration process
• Identifying and going beyond cultural stereotypes

2. Key aspects of Hungarian culture

• An ageing, multi-ethnic population
• A major generation gap.  A high quality educational system
• The Hungarian diaspora: Hungarians overseas
• A once-great nation: the Hungarian temptation for nostalgia
• A promising but fragile economy
• The challenge of European integration
• A proud cultural and scientific heritage

3. Hungarian values and behaviour patterns

• The Hungarian art of living: pride in the table arts
• A people proud of their artistic tendencies and their appreciation of all things aesthetic
• A strong but relatively informal hierarchy: politeness and courteousness
• An organized and rigid attitude to time.  An aversion to risk
• The importance of education and qualifications

4. Practical day to day information

• Focus on the host town or city, ransport, administration, housing, security
• Widely varying medical facilities
• Social life, leisure activities
• Schools, extracurricular activities, sport

Module 2 : Successful professionnal integration in Hungary

1. The Hungarian corporate world

• A spirit of free enterprise combined with a Soviet heritage
• An extensive bureaucracy, observance of directives and procedures.
• Hungarian turnover: a factor to be taken into account
• The widespread practice of having two jobs

2. Effective communication with the Hungarians

• The complexity of the Hungarian language: the importance of the interpreter
• An emphasis on straight talking and interpersonal relationships: the importance of appearances
• Understanding unspoken messages and nuances:

3. Working with Hungarian teams

• The challenges of Hungarian management: building loyalty
• Recruiting the best people: an attractive contract of employment
• Individualism and conformity: patience and a willingness to listen
• Overcoming the “wait and see” attitude: effective decision-making
• Motivation and praise: effective delegation and control to avoid inertia

4. Successful meetings and negotiations with the Hungarians

• Making a good impression: punctuality, politeness and discipline
• Building trust: the special role of business meals
• The importance of written material in Hungarian
• Managing the post-negotiation phase: abiding by contracts

5. Final handy tips

• Courtesy and good humour
• Social standards, gifts, business cards, dress code
• The finer points of Hungarian humour