Introduction
Following the request from Mr Watkins to check foreign language skills in our company and consider how it is imporatnt I have:
- interviewed staffs, managers from different department
- talked with representative from local College of Further Education
Findings
• Foreign language skills among staff:
Less then half of personnel know French and Spanish at basic level
About one third of staff know French at level 1 and 2
Less than 20 per cent speak German and Italian at basic level
Only few employees know other language (Greek, Portuguese, Russian for example – on basic level) and only few have a better language skill
One person is fluent in Cantonese, Norwegian and German, some in French and Punjabi
Mostly employees learned language a long time ago (in school) and don’t remember too much.
• Local Collage of Further Education
They organize courses at all level in about 12 languages. Our staff could join these courses or college can provide lessons exclusively for them. They also have a customized courses in their offer – this is more interesting, but more expensive.
• The staff opinion is varied. Some of them want learn foreign language, some are against.
Conclusion
Language skills among staff isn’t so good, how we expect. They have to improve it. If the company want extend abroad their market it is important to have a staff with adequate language skills. The managers indicate that when we do business abroad it is very important to communicate with partner in his local language.
Recommendation
I suggest organizing meeting with staff. They should be able to chose, if they want learn or no and what language on what level. They have to be conscious opportunity to develop themselves for companies money. I think that lessons should be organizing exclusively for our staff in customized courses with language laboratories and lively exercises. It is more expensive, but give a better result in a future cooperation with foreign countries.
The company should also consider to recruit new staff, because of future expansion on foreign market. The basic requirement would be language skills.