How we think about a new international colleague joining a Romanian office
This page walks through the reasoning behind our approach: why we look at workspaces the way we do, how our training sessions are structured, and what kind of background the people doing this work usually have.
We begin by listening to the HR team, not by presenting a template
Every company we work with has a different mix of departments, a different physical office, and a different history of hiring across borders. Some are onboarding their first international employee. Others have done it a few times already but noticed the process felt improvised each time. Neither situation calls for a fixed template.
So the first conversation is mostly questions on our side. What does the current onboarding packet contain. Who currently answers informal questions from new hires. Where does the safety documentation live, and in what language. These answers shape everything that follows.
Four things we check before recommending anything
These are not rigid stages with fixed durations. They overlap, and the order sometimes shifts depending on what the company already has in place.
What already exists
We ask to see the current onboarding deck, employee handbook, and safety documentation as they are today, in whatever language and format they currently exist.
Where language creates friction
Some documents are fine as summaries but fall apart in detail. We flag exactly where meaning could be lost in translation, particularly in safety and compliance material.
Who is doing informal onboarding today
Even without a formal buddy system, someone is usually already answering the small questions. We map that informal network before designing something more structured.
How HR currently communicates cross-culturally
We sit in on a few HR conversations or reviews when possible, to see communication habits directly rather than relying only on self-reported description.
Cross-cultural training works better as scenarios than lectures
Rather than presenting abstract cultural dimensions theory, our sessions with HR teams tend to work through concrete situations: a direct piece of feedback that lands differently than intended, a meeting where silence is being read in opposite ways by two participants, an email that sounds curt in one culture and perfectly normal in another.
These sessions run in Romanian or English depending on what the team prefers, and usually last a half day. We keep the group small enough that people are comfortable describing situations that did not go smoothly, since those examples teach more than hypothetical ones.
Accuracy matters more than fluency when the document is a safety policy
A marketing brochure can tolerate a loose translation. A fire safety procedure or a code of conduct cannot. When we translate internal policies and safety documents, we work sentence by sentence against the Romanian source, flagging any place where a term has no exact English equivalent so the company can decide how to handle it rather than having that decision made silently by a translator.
Where a document references Romanian legal terms or labor code provisions, we keep the original term visible alongside a plain-English explanation, since dropping it entirely can create confusion later if the document is ever referenced in a dispute.
Who does this work
The people involved in a typical engagement come from a mix of backgrounds: HR management, applied linguistics and translation, and organizational or occupational psychology. That mix matters because the work itself sits across three disciplines. A workspace audit needs an eye for practical office logistics. A policy translation needs linguistic precision. A training session needs an understanding of group dynamics and communication patterns. No single background covers all three well on its own.
Curious how this would apply to your office?
We can talk through your current onboarding setup and where the gaps are likely to be.