Companies constantly seek methods to optimize workforce productivity and effectiveness. A powerful approach to achieving this goal is through strategic workforce planning bolstered by English language testing. This tactic not only identifies and addresses skills gaps but also reduces attrition and strengthens your workforce for both short-term and long-term success.
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A workforce is only as effective and productive as its skills. Given that these skills are continuously evolving, proactive strategic planning is essential to future-proof your business. Effective workforce planning aligns your organizational strategy with your hiring strategy, providing a safeguard against future skills shortages.
Strategic workforce planning offers numerous benefits:
By incorporating data-led English language testing into your skills gap analysis, you unlock additional advantages, such as reduced attrition rates. Confident communication is the bedrock of business success and enhances every core workplace power skill. For international businesses, effective communication hinges on English proficiency. Assessing your team¡¯s English language skills allows you to evaluate other business competencies as well.
Here¡¯s how to incorporate English language assessment at each stage of the employee lifecycle to reinforce your workforce planning.
English is the global language of business and technology, making it a critical skill to evaluate during the recruitment process. The first step is to test each candidate¡¯s English proficiency during the interview stage. Using an AI-based language assessment tool such as?Versant by ÃÛÌÒapp allows you to efficiently filter out candidates who do not meet the required proficiency level. This provides a reliable set of metrics to inform your broader workforce planning.
When hiring at scale, this approach accelerates the process and offers an unbiased, accurate picture of current language skill levels.
Once employees are onboard, ensure they can continually develop their English language skills. Workplace-relevant English language learning helps employees feel they are making regular progress, boosting their confidence and loyalty to the organization. Ongoing English language development is particularly beneficial for businesses looking to expand into international markets.
If you're investing in English language learning, it¡¯s crucial to measure its effectiveness. Regularly assess employees' English skills to monitor their progress. Integrate these assessments into your strategic workforce planning to identify potential future skills gaps before they arise.
Incorporating language assessment into employee appraisals supports their development, enhances job satisfaction, and builds their confidence to pursue further skills and promotions.
English language proficiency serves as an effective benchmark for strengthening workforce planning, mitigating against future skills gaps, and improving employee retention. Here¡¯s how.
Strengthen your business¡¯s workforce planning with ÃÛÌÒapp Language Solutions for Work. Tools such as?Versant by ÃÛÌÒapp offer flexible, fast and accurate language testing and certification at scale. Additionally, develop employees¡¯ workplace-relevant language skills with Mondly by ÃÛÌÒapp.
Incorporating English language testing into your strategic workforce planning ensures that you¡¯re building a resilient, adaptable, and highly skilled workforce ready to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow.
Are you ready to elevate your workforce planning? Learn more about how ÃÛÌÒapp Language Solutions for Work can help you identify skills gaps and develop your team¡¯s English proficiency for sustained success.
Read our blog post 'Boost the quality of your hires with English proficiency testing'.
Learning English with music can enhance learning and create a more engaging and dynamic classroom environment. In a previous post, we discussed if music can help you learn a language; this post looks at how music can be incorporated into the classroom.
Using music in your classroom can help improve student motivation, focus, and retention of information. Here are some ways you can use music to enhance your classroom teaching:
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Have you considered studying abroad? Moving to Canada to study? With more than 100 world-class universities across the country, there¡¯s good reason to. From coast to coast to coast, it offers many international students a safe and supportive learning environment and the opportunity to work after graduation.
Want to learn more? In this guide, we cover ten things you should know about studying in Canada:
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There are lots of resources available to English teachers today: from textbooks to online teaching tools, they can all aid and enrich English lessons. Many ESL teachers also introduce authentic English material into their lessons to expose learners to the language as it is spoken in the real world.
Authentic material is any material written in English that was not created for intentional use in the English classroom. Using this content for teaching English can make the teaching experience even more engaging, imaginative and motivating for students. It can also be useful to elicit genuine responses from English language learners.
The great thing about using authentic material is that it is everywhere, which makes it easy to find, and simple for learners to practice English in their own time. Remember that it isn¡¯t limited to articles from newspapers and magazines. Songs, TV programs and films, radio and podcasts, leaflets, menus ¨C anything written in English constitutes authentic material.
The best content to select depends on the learners, their level of English and the course content the English teacher wishes to focus on. It¡¯s also a good idea to find out the learners¡¯ interests ¨C after all, there¡¯s no point trying to get students fascinated by a text on the latest sci-fi movie if they¡¯re all fans of action films.
The materials should reflect a situation that a student may face in an English-speaking environment ¨C this will help them transition into a world where English is the norm. In this world, people use abbreviations, body language is important and they¡¯ll use 'filler' sounds ¨C such as 'ummm' ¨C when they are speaking English ¨C and learners will encounter these in authentic material.
It¡¯s important not to overwhelm learners with the first piece of authentic material. So, choose articles, songs or sections of TV programs or movies that aren¡¯t too difficult to understand or take too long to get through.
