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We can all agree that communication is key to businesses running efficiently. Successful companies need workers confident with the correct English, to relate well to customers and peers, and to function safely at work.
Human resource professionals are constantly presented with the challenge and opportunity of integrating the multi-ethnic nature of employees to deliver the optimal performance of the workforce. One of the biggest challenges in this integration process is language barrier. The challenge of language barrier in the workforce is often not articulated effectively, as the majority of the human resource professionals direct more focus on technical skills or other aspects of diversity such as gender, disability, sexual orientation, culture, religion, and ethnicity.
Upskilling your people with English language skills increases productivity, and with staff operating better; it’s easier to see growth in business results.
Language barrier remains, to this day, one of the most significant challenges that have a wide net of professionals directing their focus upon. And we here at Sunago Education understand your needs.
Here’s 5-steps that you can do to encourage your employees to improve their overall fluency of the English language while letting them expand their skill set so that they can continue growing in terms of their capabilities alongside the business:
Step - 1 : Understand and Communicate your Team’s Personal Targets
More often than not, employees are not aware of the training that they have been registered for until the day of the training itself! It is encouraged to have meetings periodically between you and your staff and have a forum where everyone can address their own personal targets in the training they are embarking on. This form of interaction enables you to understand their priorities and needs better. It is also a good opportunity for you to instill motivation to the team as you share your reasons for signing them up for English training.
By encouraging a regular routine of gatherings with the employees to discuss their training needs and progress; you can build a common goal that can encourage more participation from the team throughout the training process. These progress checkpoints will give your team a sense of accountability to optimize the benefits offered by the training.
Step - 2 : Organize the English Training in Groups and Batches
Encourage group learning among your team. A friendly rapport between colleagues that will eventually put them alongside each other as peers. Peers are an advantageous asset to have as having open discussions and forums with them encourages a different type of insight that is unique. Peers are after all the group of people who share a common journey and are able to help each other along the way!
If your team is large and you have received an overall positive response towards taking language lessons cooperatively as a team, programming team training will provide opportunities outside of regular work activities and build stronger camaraderie.
Step - 3 : Set Clear Goals and Objectives for the Team What we notice so far is that employees are more motivated when their HR sets clear goals. These can be in terms of deadlines, getting better feedback from trainers, achieving a minimum score of 80% in a test.
With these deadlines, employees have a direction to work towards. A tangible outcome given by a team leader can set the team up to reach greater heights.
When goals are achieved, HR can praise the achievement to the group. Recognition boosts morale. Acknowledgment breeds new leaders and praise can go a long way in one's learning progress.
Step - 4 : Create a Company-Wide Culture of Communicating in English
Having easy-to-consume learning materials that is readily available to your employees around the workplace encourages an atmosphere where it is encouraged to practice a foreign language can be beneficial and an improvement in comfort and confidence from employees in the office may produce visibly better results in business communication.
Some organizations make it an effort to set-up a library with new or second hand books that is open to everyone involved in the business, where employees can check out a book that may have caught their eye, or donate one of their own!
This also provides a unique opportunity in building rapport between team members as conversations that are charged with topics regarding the books they have been reading so far or have completed reading can further polish the work relationship between colleagues.
Step - 5 : Cultivate A Knowledge Sharing Culture
We can also encourage sharing of templates or emails that can be used as a reference.
Prepare folders that contain key work-related terminology that employees may use when it comes to business communication, whether between team members or with customers.
Decide what key vocabulary should be deployed when it comes to running your business; you can take an extra step by individualizing each staff member's folders with side-to-side English translations against their mother tongue.
With just these 5-steps, we are certain that you will notice a shift in the learning attitude of your team. Now that they know their needs are being attended to, there is a common goal and direction to achieve, and a workplace environment that is conducive for the use of English (without fear or shame), they will be more motivated than ever to communicate in English.
Sunago Education is a training provider that is approved by the HRDF for learning and teaching of English online. With its team of professionals with over 25 years of experience in delivering effective English educational programmes, Sunago Education is your one-stop English solution provider.
Visit https://www.sunagoeducation.com/ today and speak to us today about how we can help you develop and grow your business.