THE IMPORTANCE OF BUSINESS LANGUAGE TRAINING
More and more often, the globalized nature of modern business permeates beyond international barriers, as even the smallest of businesses can afford to produce their materials or parts of it abroad, hire remote talent from all corners of the world, or conduct their business in the borderless realm of the internet, accessible to everyone around the globe.
Even if English is unofficially the international common tongue, even native English speakers will sometimes find themselves in a pinch if they don’t speak the language they require for work. Because of this, companies often invest in corporate training language classes.
What is business language training?
Business language training takes place when companies take it upon themselves to train their employees in a language, often using corporate training services that provide online training for companies, in order for those employees to speak the language that will be advantageous to the company’s specific needs and objectives.
In the age of internet, this language tends to be English. Although schools teach it, there is no guarantee that every person that comes into the labour market will be able to communicate and perform well at their job in a language other than their mother tongue. Providing teams with training under controlled, company-specific conditions can guarantee that everyone in the company will have the required fluency, with no gaps in their knowledge, and even a tailor-made vocabulary that goes hand in hand with their area of specialization.
The advantages of speaking your audience’s language
Expanding to other countries is easier than ever for companies of all sizes in the era of internet and extremely efficient international trade and supply chain pathways, and, in the European Union, free trade frameworks. This allows for services to be provided across continents at marginal costs, expanding audiences and markets. However, if a company decides to sell its products or services in a country, it has to market them in the local language!
The cost of outsourcing translation can increase dramatically if it goes beyond occasional jobs, and the translator might not understand the message and story that the marketing team wants to convey, or the other way around. For this reason, it is more cost effective and better in the long run to provide the employees with language training for companies.
A similar problematic arises when Business-to-Business communication takes place: collaborations and liaisons among companies of different countries take place very often, and chaos can ensue if the communication is not seamless. A working proficiency of English is, more often than not, a must, and in extreme or very specific cases, a company might need to train its employees in another language in order to conduct business.
In other cases, it can happen that a company hires talent from across the globe, with all the advantages that an international workforce can bring, but the company’s language is not spoken by the new team members, which will hinder their work performance if not addressed. In these situations, company-provided training can closely bring this new employee’s skill to exactly the level it needs to be for them to do well at their job, and with exactly the vocabulary and linguistic tool-set that the company will require from them. Companies that provide these specific services will often have language courses with specializations for concrete areas of work, or even provide audits to tailor the course to every company’s unique profile.
This training will also help employees integrate in society if they moved to the target country, which will facilitate their daily life and encourage them to remain in the company.
How business language training can take your company a step above others
We’re in the era of mass marketing, which not only means that there’s a lot of competition: it also means that the channels and arenas where this competition for attention happens are limited. Communicating your ideas, sales pitches and business storytelling is key to rise above the competition and have a compelling argument for your business.
Moreover, communicating successfully with other companies who fabricate your product, handle parts of your business, or drive your message to more people is crucial so that things don’t get lost in translation or, worse, become problematic or give way to double-entendres!
A highly specialized course of online training for companies can quickly prevent these problems for very little effort from both the company and the employees, who usually don’t need to sacrifice a lot of work time when the training is provided by their employer.
Business language training is a failsafe with many more advantages than tasking individual employees with their own language learning, and will continue to be important as international borders blur thanks to technology.
