38 RightWay in Canada

Team 80 Poster

Team Reflection

What?

The Aim2Flourish assignment we were given led us as a team to collectively agree to work on learning more about RightWay Canada Immigration Services and its sustainability goals as a business. The start of learning about the business and understanding what they did gave us as a group an inspiration to learn more about what they do and what the process is like. We were lucky to be able to interview the owner of this business Elina Grygorian who told us about their company and how they work to make the process of Immigrating from another country to Canada. This is done by ensuring that the client understands what programs they are eligible for and ensuring that no matter what stage you are in RightWay Canada Immigration Services is there to help you and even make a personalized checklist for the client to make sure that they can figure out their needs to make the process smoother. Part of this business also ensures that people can enter the workforce as they help people with their work visas and students from overseas so that they can get quality education and join the market to become specialists in their selective fields. Overall, RightWay Immigration Services helps people secure a future or success when immigrating to Canada for whatever the client’s goal is. One story Elina shared with us is about a case of a family from Pakistan that reunited in Canada for the delivery of a child. The couple had to undergo many complications due to documentation yet through a rough process Elina took matters into her own hands as a leader and within 24 hours was able to get the husband a visa and into Canada in time for the delivery of the child where they were able to take a picture of the new member of the family to send to Elina to show the success and happiness she is bringing to people through her business. This entire business overall brought out the joy and inspiration in trying to learn more about sustainability to make sure that we can make a positive impact on the environment or society that could help other businesses in adapting to sustainable goals.

So What? 

One of the most important topics in international business is the essence of culture. Culture affects how people think, behave, or communicate in a given situation. Participating in such an assignment where people from different parts of the world work on the same project, there could be communication issues. The ability to develop cultural skills in understanding cross-cultural interactions is vital (Miyagawa, 2020). However, it is important to understand that everybody needs to contribute their part and learn to work together to complete the assignment successfully. For example, when looking at culture, there are high-context and low-context cultures. North American countries, such as Canada or the US, are known for low context culture, so most information is explicitly contained in words. Since our team is from Canada, the US, and Wales, we all have the same communication style; however, it is essential to remember different communication styles to ensure that everybody is on the same page. The company that we chose, RightWay Canada Immigration Services, is an immigration service corporation that works with people from around the world. Whether that is African, Asian, or European countries, it is essential to understand the cultural differences of those countries or the rules and laws they have in terms of immigration. Therefore, building data and knowledge is very important in such a business, so research must be done. Also, during the interview with Elina, the company owner, she mentioned how important it is to be a psychologist while dealing with immigration services. There are many unique and challenging situations that families face that create lots of stress and anxiety among them. Thus, it is important not only to be professional at your work but also to be there for them and mentally support them. This shows that even in business, being human and supporting one another is still very important. It gives an idea of how leadership or the business owner should be to have more clients so they can feel valued and heard. Therefore, in terms of teamwork, we all understood that it is very important to keep communication up and talk to one another to ensure everybody is on the same page and does their part to succeed in this assignment.

Now What?

The story that we created about Railway Immigration Services emphasizes how a business has the potential to be successful. It gave us all a better perspective on how we would each be more inclined to contribute to a business such as this one. The AIM2Flourish story provided us all with the opportunity to get a better understanding of what it takes to run a successful business while also enhancing the lives of immigrants and contributing to a more inclusive society. Focusing a lot on the UN sustainability goals gave us all a more open mind to not just the goals that the Railway Immigration Services practices, but all of the other ones that a business can work to achieve as well. From analyzing each goal, we had to evaluate whether the business was connected to that goal in some way. The AIM2Flourish story has shown us that a successful business practice not just one of the sustainable development goals (SDG’s), but multiple. Before we even started the project, we all had an idea of what we each wanted to see in the business that we were choosing. During the decision-making process, a huge factor in our choice was that the business aligned with multiple sustainable goals. Focusing on Goals 4 (Quality Education), 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), and 10 (Reduced Inequalities), we were able to learn more about what each goal meant for a company, as well as what these goals mean for those who use the services of the company. I think after finishing the project, the vision of what we all want to see in every business now is more highlighted than it was before! Subconsciously, we will all think of the UN sustainable goals whenever we hear of a company such as this one. From doing this story, we have also been able to realize the impact that having diversity in our country and in any environment can do for a business. In terms of what happens now, I think that we can all agree that the insights gained from the AIM2Flourish story will shape our approach moving forward. We all recognize that a successful business actively engages with multiple UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) rather than just focusing on a single one. While our story is finished, our learnings don’t end here; it’s just the beginning of our commitment to making a meaningful difference in any business that we all decide to go into separately!

Individual Reflections

Ambika’s Reflection

As a member of team 80, I have enjoyed working alongside such a diverse group! I had done a COIL project similar to this one, and I had chosen to take this class as I liked the aspect of working alongside international individuals. I appreciated the diverse perspectives that each member brought, which enriched our discussions and creativity. Dealing with the time zones was definitely a challenge, as at the beginning we had troubles finding a time to meet. We finally found a time after a week of trying different times that worked for all of us, so we stuck with that each week to make it easier for all of us for the following meets. It was great to be able to have the opportunity to use our strong suits to split up the work into groups of 3 where 3 of us worked on the poster, while 3 worked on the story! Both Paul and I worked extensively on the poster which we were both very happy with how it turned out! I personally really enjoy design, and I like using Canva, so designing a poster like this was fun for me. Once again, an experience like this provided me with knowledge on a new business while also broadening my knowledge on the SDG’s as well as the way in which other countries and cultures do business. Groupwork is also a learning curve, and there are challenges that always come along but I will say that it is important to use them as valuable learning lessons to overcome and essentially all reach the common goal.

Diana’s Reflection

Working with students worldwide on such a different assignment was very interesting. I am minoring in international business, and it gave me a perspective on working with people from other parts of the world. One of the most important aspects of working with international teammates is remembering the differences in communication style and time zone. In the beginning, it was tough to find a day or time that worked for all six of us. However, after communicating clearly and sharing our schedule, we found the day in a week that worked for all of us, and every week, we successfully met and talked about the assignment part we were supposed to do. Adrian and I did the interview with the company’s owner, and it was a fun experience. We successfully divided the questions that we needed to ask, created the Word document to write notes while the owner was speaking, and asked follow-up questions. It was great to work with him, as he’s a great teammate. Since there were six of us, we divided the work into two parts: three people worked on the poster, and three people worked on the story. Overall, it is definitely a learning curve to understand how to manage such an exciting but at the same time complicated assignment and succeed in completing it.

Asad’s Reflection

Working with such an eclectic group of people has been enjoyable for me as a part of a team. I opted to enroll in this program because I enjoyed working with people from different countries, and I had completed a COIL project that was comparable to this one. I valued the variety of viewpoints each participant contributed since it enhanced our conversations and inventiveness. We initially struggled to locate a time to meet, so adjusting to different time zones was really difficult. After a week of trying it out several times, we eventually discovered one that worked for everyone, and we continued to use that time every week to make the upcoming meets simpler for everyone. It was fantastic to be able to divide the work into groups of three and use our strengths to work on the poster and the tale, respectively! Paul and I put a lot of effort into the poster, and we were both quite pleased with the final product! Designing a poster like this was enjoyable for me because I personally love design, and I like utilizing Canva. Once more, this kind of event expanded my understanding of the SDGs and the business practices of other nations and cultures while also educating me about a new industry. Lastly, it was a great experience working in a team.

Paul’s Reflection

As a member of Team 80, I had a great experience being part of this COIL project. I have never participated in a project like this and it really taught me a lot of different things that are valuable and can be applied to real life situations. At first, I think we struggled to find times to meet but we communicated so well as a team and that was the major part of the project in my opinion. I found that the most challenging part was the difference in time zones. If someone had a question or just wanted to simply communicate, it would take a decent amount of time to get a response. After the first couple of weeks, our group had established a pretty good sense of schedules and how the work was going to be completed weekly. I think the most important part to being successful for this COIL project was establishing each team member’s strengths and acting on them. Our group is very diverse and everyone has different ideas and inputs that are critical and valuable to the COIL project. Everyone got to show off their knowledge in relation to SDG’s, communication, experience, ideas, and creativity. I personally have taken courses that have taught me a lot of terms that we saw during our COIL project. Overall, I would recommend this to anyone in business. This was a valuable experience to me and I feel like I learned a lot more in the few weeks of working on this project than I would in a regular class. I think that applying our skills in a project like this really shows a lot about your strengths and weaknesses. I hope that my team members gained some value from me as I did from all of them.

Adrian’s Reflection

As a member of Team 80, I enjoyed the experience of getting to work with people from other countries. This is the first time I did something like this and it was memorable and I would want to do it again if I was given the chance. I do think that the different time zones were one of the biggest challenges that we all had to face as we had to understand what the time difference was between everyone and also what time would work weekly for everyone to make sure we could all join a Zoom meeting together. At first, I believed that this would have been nearly impossible but after the first week, we found that Wednesday worked for everyone so I began to set up the Zoom meetings each week for everyone to join. I would say that Diana helped a lot in making sure we met deadlines and keeping everyone on track with the goals for each week as she also ensured to take notes on each meeting so we could submit to the Google Classroom. Diana and I were able to do the interview on time which allowed Paul and Ambika to use the information we gathered to make the poster for the business. I think the communication between everyone worked out well as we were able to be ahead of deadlines and ensure that we had time to proofread or revise our poster and story. Overall, the experience was fun and memorable and I would recommend this to someone who is in business as it is a good experience and challenges you to communicate as a group and find solutions as a team rather than doing something individually.

References

Miyagawa, L. A. (2020, March 16). Practicing cultural humility when serving immigrant and refugee communities. EthnoMed. https://ethnomed.org/resource/practicing-cultural-humility-when-serving-immigrant-and-refugee-communities/