Benefits of Offering Language Learning Opportunities to Your Employees
It’s no secret smart business leaders offer language training for employees in their company.
The benefits in communication to employees at all levels far outweigh any money spent to provide them. It’s an investment in your team and the future of your company, and you can expect big returns!
Let’s dive into the competitive advantages gained by offering language training for employees.
Improved Company Culture
Offering language training for employees promotes a more relaxed yet confident company culture.
It’s a fun challenge that knocks down the walls of a company hierarchy and unifies your team toward achieving a common goal.
It may be tough to see the potential returns from spending time on some team building exercises (more trust falls, anyone?).
But immersing yourself in a different language and culture together gives employees the chance to let their guard down, make mistakes in a safe environment, and learn a useful skill.
It’s also useful as an added perk to offer potential employees, as many people have their own motivations for learning a new language.
There’s a good chance you’ll attract high-value applicants (the kind that like to learn new skills on their own) if it’s common knowledge your company offers language training to employees.
And as an applicant, learning a language can help you land a better job.
Increased Business Opportunities
A business wants to make decisions that result in the growth of some metric they’re tracking like traffic, leads, sales, etc.
Intrinsic motivation to learn a new skill is nice, but you’ve still got to pay the bills.
Offering language training for employees gives businesses the ability to accelerate their growth.
For example, copywriters can use their new language skills to write using the words and phrases your audience uses. This will help bridge the linguistic and cultural gaps between the business and potential clients.
Salespeople can use their new language skills to improve their pitches and better understand the needs and wants of their leads.
This can lead to exciting new business opportunities and potential increases in revenue from international sources.
But at the end of the day, whether the interaction is business to business or business to customer, it’s still ‘human to human’ (as Ryan Deiss would say).
Improved Communication
Communicating with the people closest to us is hard, let alone with speakers of other languages.
But with the expansion of the internet came the rapid growth of international business. Interactions with employees from countries abroad are commonplace now.
It’s important to communicate well not only internally but externally. Training your employees in the linguistic and cultural etiquette of the countries you deal with goes a long way to building strong relationships with them while minimizing misunderstandings.
Your relationships with clients and partners will improve, as will the service you offer customers.
Language Training for Business
Learning a language for business is a great way to bring employees closer together, improve internal and external communication, and increase business abroad.
Both the company and employees benefit, so it’s a win-win!