Real World: English – The Ticket to Advancement for Individuals and Efficiency for Organizations in a Global Marketplace
by Andrés T. Tapia -
As a global diversity leader, I must admit that it’s been a bit uncomfortable writing recently about the importance of English in the midst of the greatest diversity movement in history. But as the posts revealed, we are experiencing a huge irony– greater global diversity drives the need for a common language for transacting work.
Organizations must follow the logical thread of what this means for how they go to market. Clearly tailoring products and services to the local market with local languages, images, and internalized concepts is the winning ticket for that part of the global supply chain. But for detailed transactions that are business to business–and the permutations of business to government, NGO (non-governmental organizations) to NGO, NGO to government, and NGO to business–English is often required.
Increased use of technology also plays a role. According to the British Council, 80% of the electronically stored information in the world is in English, and 66% of the world’s scientists read in it.
My concern from an inclusion perspective is this: the elites in various emerging economies take knowledge of English for granted–and so do their colleagues from developed countries when they interact with one another in the context of their organization’s work. Taking English for granted this way leaves employees from marginalized groups who either don’t know English or are not dexterous with it excluded from career opportunities and advancement.
Parochial Talent Development Strategies Lead to Exclusion
Which brings us to talent development strategies. How are global organizations thinking inclusively about talent development for their employees worldwide as it relates to various competencies, including English proficiency? This is an important question if we are serious about being inclusive in terms of opportunities for all the talent we are mobilizing worldwide.
Our talent development practices have not kept up with our organizations’ globalization of talent. How well do we know this talents’ aspirations and current level of English competence?
Chances are, not well at all. True, leading edge companies such as IBM, Colgate-Palmolive, Ernst & Young, and Accenture have been nurturing their global talent for multipolar global assignments, having long broken away from the paradigm of only looking to US and developed country employees to send on expat assignments. But most companies have not done this, especially those who are just getting into the global marketplace.
A recent study by GlobalEnglish, a provider of online English language instruction to over 500 top multinationals worldwide with currently 130,000 enrolled learners (nearly 1 million over ten years), reveals that 91% of employees in global corporations say that English is critical or important to their current jobs. In addition, 89% said they are more likely to climb the corporate ladder if they can communicate in English.
However, only 7% of respondents felt their English skills were sufficient to perform their jobs successfully.
This gap often goes unnoticed by multinational corporate leaders who assume most everyone in their company speaks English well because of their many interactions with people around the world where language is rarely an issue. What they don’t see is what’s happening at the layer of talent just beneath the managers and leaders they interact with. They don’t feel the pain because the pain is local.
Multinationals at Risk
This poses a big risk for multinationals who are accelerating their expansion plans in emerging economies.
The McKinsey Global Institute found that only 13% of university graduates from low-wage countries are suitable for employment in multinational companies, and the number one reason cited is lack of English skills. Furthermore, as talent gets absorbed by the ever growing number of multinationals in first tier cities such as Shanghai, Delhi, and Manila where English proficiency is much more prevalent, multinationals must increasingly source talent from second and third tier cities where the English gap is even greater.
There is a growing recognition of this need in the emerging markets. According to the Hindu Business Line, “It’s time Indians shake off the English language smugness. . . . Only 20% of the candidates evaluated met the overall English criteria required by the industry” on an accepted skill barometer called the MeritTrac National Index of Communications Skills. ”With call centers, no longer is speaking English one of the important skills to get a good job,” Raghu Prakash, who runs an English-language school in Jaipur, told Newsweek International. “It is the skill.”
How Companies Are Profiting from Better English Skills
GlobalEnglish customers on average say that employees who have improved their English skills have saved 1 to 2 hours per week in reading and responding to email and other documents. Deloitte puts that number at 3 to 5 hours a week. Employees who receive just one email per day in English and take 10 minutes less to read and respond to it gain 40 hours of productive work time over the course of a year. General Motors says deploying their business English initiative three years ago was the “shot in the arm” they needed for globalization.
Not only are these businesses reaping the benefits, but so are their employees, who now are much better positioned to be noticed by more decision makers. To be noticed you need to be understood, and inclusive organizations understand this. It is, after all, a pretty basic concept.
As we say in beginning English classes: Hello?
__________________________
RELATED ARTICLES
Featured Post: With the Rise of Brazil, Russia, India, and China, How Relevant Is English? (Part 1)
Featured Post: With the Rise of Brazil, Russia, India, and China, How Relevant Is English? (Part 2)
Chinese or English: Which Will Become Dominant in a Global Marketplace?
As More of the World Speaks English, Who Is a Native Speaker?
Loading... 
Related posts