Both the internal and external environment represent key ways that organizations and employees differ. At the macro level, countries differ along the lines of national culture. Geert Hofstede’s dimensions of national culture represent how people from different nation-states vary on average on key dimensions. At the next-highest level, companies have unique cultures that reflect their industry norms and the extent to which people in the organization share values, beliefs, and assumptions.

At the most micro level, each individual, whether within a particular national culture or within a particular company, differ along many lines, including personality, demographics, and personal experiences. Overall, understanding the ways in which countries, organizations, and individuals may differ is important, and influences the training and development strategy a company chooses. Recognizing the ways in which an organization’s employees may differ has an impact on discoveries during the needs analysis stage and subsequent training or development programs designed for its employees.

When you are hiring new employees and want them to understand your company culture, you can use a combination of training and development programs to best prepare them. Training programs need to take individual differences into account and teach employees to manage those differences to facilitate high performance among individuals and teams.