ESL training - Why it's worth it to pay for English as a Second

Today's businesses employ many multinational individuals whose technical and scientific expertise is crucial for success in the global marketplace. The challenge these employees often face is in their inability to communicate clearly and confidently in English. This prevents them from being able to present themselves and their ideas effectively. Often they have difficulty expressing ideas in clear and technically correct sentences. They can get frustrated, depressed, and sometimes even panicky. They have a great desire to find a way to more fully participate in the workplace and to understand and be understood by management, their colleagues, and clients. When this is accomplished, these individuals are able to leverage their knowledge and skills as credible, contributing, promotable members of the team and organization.

The challenge that employers face is that they are often forced to slow down the pace of production to accommodate those that are not "getting it". They have a hard time promoting people through the ranks that cannot produce even though their knowledge base is phenomenal. This is a problem because companies often like to promote from within. It is more cost effective and reliable than going outside to hire.

By incorporating ESL training courses into company programs, they are able to increase the pool of suitable candidates within their workforce. Many employers find that they have more success in promoting employees to more responsible jobs, including supervisory and management positions, after they took part in ESL training programs. Even where openings for promotion were not yet available, employers often observe beneficial improvements in the promotability of employees. The result is that employers are able to pass more and more responsibility on to their existing workforce of employees without having to rely on the often costly and undependable outside labor market for new hires to take on these duties. As such, it can prove an important source of cost savings for the employer.

In addition, many employers find that more of their employees participate in job-specific training after completing ESL courses. The courses are crucial to increasing participation in job-specific training because they raise employees' comfort level and make them more willing to take the risk, because they feel empowered. Staff with previously limited English skills tend to participate more actively in meetings and planning sessions. Companies profit from that. Employees are significantly more willing and interested in acquiring new knowledge and in improving themselves. Some employers get involved in ESL training programs for the sole purpose of achieving greater success with their higher level job-specific training and cross-training. They know that impressive gains in job-specific training results can come when employees develop their workplace basic skills.

The impact can be considerable. Employers are finding that where they used to only offer this type of training to supervisors, everyone noticed the results and they are now receiving expressed interest from employees from the ground floor as well. With ESL training programs, training moves down the hierarchy. Employees take greater ownership. They are more eager to learn and seek more information about job-specific training opportunities. Partly, this is because they become aware that the more job-specific training they get the higher their chances are to be promoted. The result in some companies is that there are waiting lists for training classes.

In summary, with the multinational workforce increasing, it is becoming more and more necessary to provide on the job ESL training. This is very beneficial to companies because as you improve the confidence level of employees they tend to produce better, more profitable results. In addition companies are able to promote from within as they are able to more effectively train their employees.

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Tags: English as a Second Language ESL ESL training ESL employee training