|
Is your organisation adressing these three language communication needs?
1. Training staff speaking English as a Second Language
What is the best way to train and develop 2nd language speakers?
Well if you have a dominant language group they may have the same problems that you can address in a training workshop. Alternatively you might have different needs such as a range of nationalities and languages, or an individual you wish to develop, in which case one-to-one coaching can be beneficial.
In addition, small and low-cost changes can be made to normal training methods to ensure people understand, such as using visuals for regulations. In the same vain, existing written communication should be in plain English regardless of the employee's language.
Is it common for organisations to develop language skills?
Money constraints mean language input is rarely offered, but as this isn't work specific it isn't necessarily the best way to develop staff. Adapting existing training and development methods for second language speakers can save a lot of money. Read more
2. Cross Cultural Communication What is cross cultural communication training? Let's say you have a client overseas and you're sending a member of staff to give a presentation to them. Now, are you sure they'll adjust their language? Will they slow down and avoid slang? Of course your client may have a high level of English, but they may struggle with things like phrasal verbs or multi-part verb phrases. Similarly English is full of euphemisms; we may be informed that our colleague has 'a bun in the oven' which doesn't mean anything!
Training suits cross cultural management such as senior executives going overseas as well as any staff doing office work that involves emailing and calling those abroad (or equally, anyone speaking English as a second language).
What would training involve? Effective cross cultural communication skills simply involve readjustment and remembering to avoid complex sentences or certain types of language. Whilst this is an incredibly important area, it needn't be something much time is spent on - short lunchtime training sessions can introduce the basics. Training is often about simply raising awareness and giving individuals the power to know how to change their language to make it clearer. Read more
3. Written Communications Why is written communication important to businesses? Ineffective written communication can affect confidence, marketing, message and communications. Bad written communication could include something like giving out a huge document, which could be so off-putting that no one wants to read it! Or writing a terse email, or even writing an email that may be very friendly and jolly but fails to get its message across and thus wastes time. All of us in business can only read a small amount of documents relative to those we receive, and much time can be wasted merely sifting through all this and deciding what's important. How can organisations gain by investing in writing skills? Well, there have been cases where organisations have redesigned bills and saved a fortune. Other contexts could include writing to engage customers, writing persuasively for tenders or project proposals, or effective team communications when writing reports to improve morale and job satisfaction, in turn improving staff turnover and productivity. I also recently worked with senior directors on board papers, after which the chief executive declared it was the "most worthwhile piece of training ever invested in"! Read more
About LCP Consultant Janet Bateman Janet moved into management development and consultancy over 10 years ago, after spending more than 20 years running teacher-training programmes in the UK and overseas. Her broad background in education and training has included experience in universities, the NHS, financial services, international banking and retail and leisure industries. Read more
| 
