Congratulations. You have taken all the necessary steps toward integrating English into your office. By now, you have gotten an expert consultancy such as Coninglés, and have all your team members on board. This switch is a big commitment that is guaranteed to yield long term results on employee productivity and business expansions.
Working with Coninglés ensures that your team members have expert guidance from an international team of certified language instructors and speaking coaches. Coninglés works closely with your company’s management team to develop tailored courses that suit your business needs and each team member’s proficiency level. While a big part of the success depends on Coninglés, how you choose to utilize your learnings at work also plays a big role in the end.
Here are a few tips to make English, part of your corporate culture’s DNA:
- Make English part of the job. These courses are meant to build up individual skills, as well as boost morale and strengthen team spirit. Though results will not be felt overnight, establishing an environment where team members support each other and help their colleagues overcome any learning challenges, will make learning more efficient.
- Make it Competitive: Studies show that employees thrive when given a healthy dose of competition. The key is to not make it stressful and punitive but to reward outstanding achievements in English class. Consider giving a gift card to the employee who scores the best grades. Some companies we work with have introduced policies where employees must pay for English classes themselves if their English grade falls below 70%. Such measures may appear drastic but are also effective when it comes to attendance to dedication. What’s more, our students overwhelmingly score over 80% at the end of the course if they follow our teaching method.
- Introduce an English-Only Day: Many international companies introduced Casual Fridays where employees could come to work in more relaxed attire, and this has proven helpful in adding spice and variety to corporate culture. Why not follow a similar technique and allocate the last working day of the week as English Fridays? For example, on English Friday’s staff members are only allowed to communicate with each other in English. Those who successfully complete the day without one word in their native tongue get a prize.
- Bring in software to make English at work easier. There are thousands of programs online that assist with spelling, grammar, and translation thanks to advanced AI.
- Consider translating your monthly newsletter to English and include a section that shows how progress is going with Coninglés classes.
- You can also add and circulate a monthly English glossary for keywords and phrases in English that your company frequently uses.
- Embrace the English Culture: Learning a new language goes way beyond conjugating grammar and learning words. A language is also comprised of its history and literature, music and entertainment. Consider a weekly book club or inviting guest speakers to teach short business conferences.
Working with language consultants like Coninglés is a first step in the right direction. The rest of the success lies in how your office facilitates an environment where teammates can practice English and apply what they learn in real-life scenarios.
Need more tips on how to start introducing English at the office? Contact Coninglés customer service at (57) 3102520656 or claudia.pinzon@coningles.com , and let us share our 35 years of expertise with you.