As an ambitious business leader, you understand the importance of effective communication. However, in today’s globalized business environment, communication extends far beyond simple interaction within your organization. It involves breaking language barriers to reach out to the international market, where English training holds the key to unlocking unprecedented expansion and growth. For a business owner or leader, navigating global markets requires not only language proficiency but also a deep understanding of diverse business practices and regulations.
The global trend is clear: Workplace English skills are a must. English is the world’s most spoken language, with . Improved English proficiency broadens your communication avenues, positively impacting every business facet. With English aptitude, expect heightened cultural understanding, increased productivity, efficient teamwork, and elevated positive customer experiences from service departments that ultimately streamline your entire organization.
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English proficiency is not enough. Advanced soft skills like collaboration and decision-making, all bolstered by workplace-relevant English skills, are now a necessity. However, research indicates a critical gap, with 90% of employees seeking language training, yet only 33% currently receiving it. This disparity opens a golden opportunity to boost your business and gain a competitive advantage. Understanding and meeting customer expectations in international markets is essential for achieving company success, as it directly influences customer loyalty, retention and revenue growth.
“Being able to speak English is directly linked to success in international business settings and is essential for communicating with people from diverse cultures and backgrounds. Proficiency in English can also expand our career possibilities and open up new professional opportunities."– Takenobu Miki, TORAIZ Inc. President, Japan.
Improving language skills for your employees is a powerful step towards achieving corporate success. By investing in English language training, you are equipping your entire team with the necessary tools to navigate global markets and communicate effectively with international partners and customers. In addition to this, there are other actions you can take to skyrocket your business plan.
There is no one straight answer but corporate English training can contribute to whether your own business flourishes or not in these ways:
Understanding and respecting cultural differences can significantly enhance international business operations. It fosters a positive working environment and aids in building strong relationships with partners and customers from diverse backgrounds.
The ability to innovate and adapt to market changes is crucial for successful businesses and for sustaining growth. Businesses that consistently seek out and implement new ideas stay ahead in competitive markets.
Exceptional customer service is a critical component of the overall customer experience, setting a business apart from its competitors through positive experience. It’s essential for retaining customers and encouraging positive word-of-mouth referrals, impacting customer desire to continue doing business with a company.
Effective leadership and management are pivotal in setting a clear vision, making informed decisions, and motivating employees to achieve business goals.
Amidst the 'Great Resignation,' focusing on employee job satisfaction has become crucial for fostering a productive and innovative work environment. Happy employees are more productive, creative and loyal. Creating a positive work culture that values employee well-being can lead to increased job satisfaction and retention. Employers need to re-evaluate what makes their company worth working for and implement strategies to boost job satisfaction and retain top talent.
Developing and implementing effective employee retention strategies is key to sustaining business growth and success. Customizing strategies to meet unique business needs, including competitive pay, wellness offerings, work-life balance, and strong company culture, can significantly impact retaining top talent.
Language learning training intertwines with all these aspects and can support your company's business plans to reach its goals.
Here are but a few ways:
Firstly, implementing a culture of continuous learning and development within your company can significantly contribute to business growth.
Encouraging your team to engage in ongoing professional development, not only in language skills but also in areas relevant to your industry, keeps your business at the forefront of innovation.
Regular training sessions, workshops and courses can foster an environment of growth, where employees feel valued and motivated. Leaders use platforms like Versant by app to gain an accurate picture of current skill levels and identify existing gaps, helping to address them before they become a potential risk.
Leadership and management are the cornerstones of a successful business, and language learning can significantly bolster these areas. Effective communication is a critical leadership skill, enabling managers to convey their vision and directives more clearly and persuasively. By investing in language training, leaders can overcome communication barriers, foster a more inclusive environment, and engage with a global team more effectively.
This not only enhances internal operations but also improves negotiations and relationships with international clients, suppliers and partners. In addition, bilingual or multilingual leaders are perceived as more competent and are better equipped to understand and appreciate cultural nuances, which can lead to stronger, trust-based business relationships. Through language learning, business leaders and managers can expand their influence, drive global strategies more successfully, and steer their organizations towards greater international success.
Employee retention is a common worry for most businesses; and providing learning opportunities is the number one way they are working to improve this.
Prioritizing language training offers substantial benefits, not only to talent acquisition and development leaders but also to customer service teams. It emphasizes their crucial role in enhancing customer experience through professional development and permits access to wider, more diverse talent pools in your recruitment initiatives.
Furthermore, it signifies your commitment to ongoing language development, an increasingly important factor for employees, particularly Gen Z and Millennials, and supports teams in being more productive, efficient and capable of providing premier service.
Your business should not consider language learning a siloed function but rather an embedded culture across the organization. This approach ensures skill levels are always adequate and improving, ready for new business opportunities. Additionally, a happy and skilled team plays a pivotal role in creating personalized experiences that foster emotional connections with customers, contributing significantly to overall success and customer loyalty.
“Employees are craving language training at work and employers ignore this request at their peril. They risk losing their talent to the 30% of organizations that have taken this employee feedback on board.” – app's global research report,How English empowers your tomorrow.
Using online language learning platforms like Mondly by app can rapidly accelerate language acquisition among your employees. Alongside self-paced solutions for Workplace English and General Language Learning, these platforms offer live sessions with expert fluent tutors, enhancing workplace language proficiency.
Improving language skills through training is a powerful step towards achieving success for your business. By enhancing customer satisfaction, reducing churn, and driving higher revenues, a customer experience strategy can significantly contribute to business growth. It is crucial to understand and focus on the entire customer journey, from first contact to becoming a loyal customer, to effectively meet global market demands with improved language skills.
A strategic approach to raising language proficiency levels is indispensable to facilitating global success, increasing growth potential, and preparing your team to operate in new international markets. It’s time to reinforce language skills across your organization and access the competitive advantage you need to succeed in international markets.
Engage with Mondly by app today - a flexible and engaging suite of workplace-relevant language learning solutions designed to develop employees’ language skills and assess progress with Versant by appfor flexible language testing and certification. Empower your business for international success.
Read our blog post 'Harness the power of English for a global competitive edge'.
English is one of the most widely-spoken languages in the world, but how much do you know about the language? Here are 11 facts about Englishthat you might not know.
Students all over the globe learn English for many reasons. Some of these motivations may come from the students themselves – perhaps they are learning because they are travelling to an English-speaking area, or they want to be able to converse with English-speaking friends and colleagues. Other reasons for learning could include meeting school requirements, studying abroad, or progressing their careers.
As well as different reasons to learn English, there are also different goals. Many students are still focused on becoming fluent in English, and we are seeing an increase in people who want to learn the language for specific reasons. For example, immersing themselves in a particular culture or simply being able to order from a menu while travelling abroad.
Teachers are focusing on these personal needs to help students achieve their actual goals. It’s likely you’ve already spoken to your students about why they want to learn English. Understanding this is important as different motivations can influence a student’s attitude towards learning the language – and it may be necessary for you to adapt your teaching strategies for different groups of learners.
Let’s meet some different groups of students, learn a little more about their motivations and explore whether different motivations alter how students learn English. You may recognise some of these learners in your classes.
These students are learning English for pleasure or personal reasons. It might be because of travel, social or family reasons or perhaps because a better grasp of English might assist them with their careers. There are also adult learners who could be learning English as an immigration requirement.
For example, 23-year-old Alice decided to learn English so she could meet people and have more meaningful interactions with her English-speaking neighbours. She says: “I was very shy and not very confident in speaking to people, but learning English helped me connect with others and meet new people. I have changed a lot.”
A motivation like Alice’s requires strong teacher support and peer motivation woven into structured learning. Alice can set her goals and with the GSE Learning Objectives map out what she needs to do to achieve them. Teacher encouragement and personal support – and easy access to digital coursework, a social community of others all learning English, and small classes that emphasise conversation – keep people like Alice engaged and motivated to achieve her language goals. “I cannot do it without them”, she says.
These learners are typically in a more formal type of English programme and are learning the language to achieve specific career milestones, such as a promotion. Their employer might even be paying for their learning or they might be reimbursed for the cost of their lessons.
Vincenzo is 33 and works as a Product Manager in Milan for an international organization with offices around the world. He says: “I asked to take English classes as part of my professional development. My company chose an English provider and gave me a choice of group or one-to-one classes. I chose one-to-one classes as I’m easily distracted.”
Professional learners like Vincenzo succeed using a blended learning model of learning in class and at home that they can tailor around their lives. They have a strong motivation to succeed – that’s why learning at home works for them – but step-by-step progress provided by the GSE Learning Objectives is also important to keep this motivation alive. “I met with my teacher once a week where we would work on mistakes I would make while speaking English. He would also give me extra practice materials, like interesting games and videos to listen to in my own time, to help me really get a better understanding of the language,” Vincenzo says.
Learning English is a requirement for many school programmes and students will continue this at college or university. Many of these students will be learning English with a formal course that offers practice tests for high-stakes exams.
Seventeen-year-old Subra is from Malaysia and learns English at school. Some of her family live in Australia and she is considering studying abroad to attend a University that specializes in health care. When she was young, she learned in a traditional classroom backed with tests that helped her see how she was progressing. Now she uses technology, such as her Android Huawei phone to practise her English but still needs the validation of regular testing to know she is on track.
Subrasays: “I am used to studying for tests as I prepared hard for exams to get into middle school and senior school, which was totally determined by test results.”
Academic learners like Subra need to see demonstrable results to help them stay motivated and guide them to the level of English they need to achieve to get the required score on high-stakes tests. With the clear GSE Learning Objectives and a placement test, academic learners can map out where they are right now and where they need to be in order to reach their academic goals. These learners need encouragement and validation of their progress from their teachers to help keep them on track.
Understanding student motivations will help you teach to their specific needs, thus helping them to stay focused and motivated in achieving their goals.
Kirsty Murray taught English for a year at a collège (the French equivalent of a secondary school) in Villers-Cotterêts: a town in the north of France known for being the birthplace of Alexandre Dumas. She taught mixed-ability groups of 11- to 16-year-olds, with classes ranging in size from 10 to 35 students. Here, she shares the five lessons she learned from the experience.
