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Language skills
wasted by world's businesses
Our special feature for October 2001
looks at the top 10 findings from the initial results of the Languages
at Work 2001 survey by languageadvantage.com
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01
English is still the language of business
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English is still the world's language
for business. But people are using other languages at work alongside
English - mainly French, but also Spanish and German. Respondents
are also using many other non-European languages at work too.
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02
Language skills wasted
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There
is a massive untapped talent in the workplace, with around 50% of
respondents having language skills that they are not using at work.
These are primarily French, German, Italian and Spanish, although
a quarter of respondents speak other languages that are being wasted.
Many can speak two or three languages on top of English.
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03
Workplaces are multicultural and multilingual
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Three-quarters
of respondents are employed in multicultural and multilingual workplaces
across the globe, where the majority of their colleagues and customers
are from a different culture and speak a different language. Over
60% work for companies that operate globally or internationally.
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04
Workers experience language and cultural barriers
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Up
to half of respondents have come across language and cultural barriers.
Over three-quarters state that language and cultural skills would
be useful in their workplace.
15%
of respondents actually admit to losing business due to difficulties
in communicating with people from different cultures, speaking different
languages.
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06
Companies not so language positive
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Companies
seem to realise the importance of multi-lingual staff, with two-thirds
of respondents working for companies who employ multi-lingual staff.
However, few seem to have a formal
language strategy, provide cross-cultural training or use interpreters.
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07
Employees see value of language and cultural skills
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Respondents
believe that it is most important to have multilingual staff, language
training, cross-cultural training.
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08
Spanish
overtakes French
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Over
50% of respondents are learning a language and Spanish has overtaken
French as the favourite language to learn. Some people are currently
learning two or three languages.
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09
Workers from all around the world
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534
respondents work in 50 countries around the world and speak over
50 languages. Respondents came from the world of business, government,
education and languages.
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10
Quarter of companies prepared
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Some
companies have language strategies in place which offer their employees
language training, cross-cultural training and the opportunity to
work with their languages. In this way, organisations will be able
to readily respond to all their customers wherever they come from,
and whichever language they may speak.
Want to find out how to use international communication and relationship
building to your competitive advantage? Want to know how to tap
into your languages talent in your workforce? Interested to get
a language strategy in place?
Visit
our languageadvice for business section and our businesstore and
start to get the language advantage for competitive advantage!
For
more help on setting up a language strategy, please email us on
info@languageadvantage.com
Find
out more about the Languages at Work 2001 survey, click here>>
Full
results of the Languages at Work 2001 survey will be released for
the business day at the London Language and Cultural Learning Show
2001 on 2 November 2001. We will be presenting the results of the
survey in the European Year of Languages Pavilion.
For
more information about the Languages at Work 2001 global survey
by www.languageadvantage.com, CONTACT
US.
If
you would like to subscribe to our newsletter and be kept up-to-date
with the Languages at Work 2001 survey and other developments in
the language world, please subscribe to our newsletter above or
at www.languageadvantage.com/newsletter.
| previous
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previous special features go to our
library archive of special
features.
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