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The Benefits of Learning a New Language for Your Company

Kara O’Rourke
Published: 1st September 2023
Updated: 23rd January 2024

If your company is hiring multilingual staff, language training for employees is essential for your success. It’s a way for individuals to develop professionally, gain confidence, and improve customer relations. Smooth communication without language barriers will have a positive impact on your team, culture, and revenue. Here, we share the many benefits of learning a new language for your company and the positive impact it has on employees, culture, and revenue.

The Advantages of Language Training for Employees

1. You’ll empower employees and increase their productivity

Learning how to speak a new language is a true confidence booster. The steady progression from not knowing any words to speaking in full sentences produces happy hormones in your brain. Giving your employees the tools for foreign language study will get them feeling good about themselves and their abilities, and will give them a positive outlook on their future in your company.

Investing in your team’s growth expands their horizons and opens up prospects such as promotions. Language training for employees also means spending less time on translations or solving problems caused by miscommunication. Instead, your staff will feel more confident when they communicate with customers and coworkers, gain valuable time back, and increase their overall productivity.

2. You’ll increase your customer base and gain their trust

One major benefit of learning a new language is being able to communicate with your customer base in their native language. If you want to grow your customer base, language training leads to faster, more efficient, and more successful completion of projects. 

Communicating with customers in their native language will also demonstrate how much you respect them. People show different personality traits when speaking their native language compared to speaking a second language. They’re instantly more comfortable, happier, and more confident. Hosting a meeting in the first language of your client will boost positive sentiment and improve your relationship. 

Similarly, if you’re working with an international client and you take the time to learn a few expressions in their native language, you’ll be positioning yourself above your competitors. Knowing your clients’ language makes you feel less like a stranger and more like you’re one of them. This may earn you more trust since knowing their language indicates that you also understand their cultural norms and values. As a company, this improves your reputation.

Lächelnde Geschäftsleute unterhalten sich bei einem Workshop.

3. You’ll build employee loyalty and attract a multilingual workforce

As your company grows, you may hire employees from different countries. Offering multilingual employees the chance to learn your company’s primary language helps them work more efficiently in a team and feel more engaged at work. Also, learning the local language can give them the chance to integrate into the culture, which can make them happier and lead to higher employee retention.

But what if your company also tried to speak their language? That person would feel instantly more comfortable, appreciated, and valued by their new team, and would find it easier to get settled into their new role. Plus, offering language training for employees to learn each other’s languages will open up their minds to new cultures and backgrounds. Helping your team understand and overcome cultural differences will enable them to feel like they’re part of a single unit that’s working towards common goals. Not only does strengthened teamwork benefit individuals on a social level, but it is likely to increase your organization’s productivity.

When you offer a language learning solution such as Babbel for Business, you also implement a new sense of cohesiveness. Employees who are offered corporate benefits related to their well-being are far more likely to stay with the company long-term than at a company without those benefits. And investing in your employees won’t go unnoticed. People are far less likely to look for jobs elsewhere when they feel valued and appreciated.

4. You’ll boost team spirit

Learning a new language, whether it’s the operational language around the office or the native language of a minority of colleagues, provides an opportunity for shared learning experiences with colleagues, and, over time, improved communication skills. Plus, it doesn’t have to happen alone — in fact, learning as a group is a great way to keep up motivation and encourage team bonding. When we onboard our new customers, we provide many ideas on how to combine team-building events with language learning, including language lunches, foreign film nights, 1:1 sessions, and many other tips to boost engagement. This will not only get your employees speaking fast but will bring your team closer together, which ultimately benefits management and the company as a whole.

5. You’ll be able to build relationships with offices in other countries

Does your company have offices across the globe? Learning a new language is an excellent way to improve internal communications, especially in organizations with international teams and growth objectives.

Introducing Babbel’s language learning platform to your company will give your employees the opportunity to interact with your international counterparts, which in turn builds relationships and improves communication.

For many young employees, the prospect of being able to work overseas is a huge perk. According to Forbes, travel prospects also boost employee morale and increase retention, making language learning a great way to keep international talent within your company long-term.

Providing a company benefit of learning a new language for employees is also a great incentive. Some of the reasons are:

1. It strengthens your business operations

Language learning encourages employees to get out of their comfort zone, build confidence, and feel empowered. This will strengthen your business operations, as employees will be more likely to communicate with international colleagues and partners, speak up in meetings, or take a call from a foreign number.

2. It makes employees more engaged

Language learning implies motivation and strategy. It involves attention and autonomy. The more these skills develop, the more they help employees connect with customers and business partners on a personal level. Building trust and positioning themselves for career growth leads employees to feel more engaged in their business activities.

Smiling young business woman is learning a language at work.

3. It increases cultural sensitivity

Language barriers, which are likely to rise in an international work environment, can lead to miscommunication and inefficiency. By offering corporate language training for employees, you will organically and systematically prevent language barriers from affecting your business and make your team’s collaboration more efficient.

4. It increases employee well-being

Providing your employees with opportunities for personal and professional development drives employee retention more than salary raises and bonuses. Employees will feel valued and more loyal to your company if you offer language learning.

5. It attracts globally aware millennials

By 2025, millennials will make up 75% of the global workforce. This generation is optimistic about the impact of technology and innovation and sees itself thriving in an international, multilingual workplace. Many companies are now relying on language training to make themselves attractive to young entrepreneurs.

Overall, the benefits of learning a new language offer a lot of potential for both employees and the organization as a whole.

The Best Tool for Language Learning

The effectiveness of the Babbel app for personal language learning has already been proven by numerous studies. Also, a research team at the University of Massachusetts in Boston has taken a closer look at our language learning app in a professional setting. 

Over a ten-week period, they investigated how our language learning app impacted the professional development of employees at Sodexo, one of the world’s largest food service companies. The Sodexo branches in the United States that took part in the study had experienced a language barrier between Spanish and English-speaking employees as well as difficulties in communicating with customers, which is why language training was essential.

The study also looked at the ways in which Sodexo’s managers were able to identify the areas where new learners might struggle. In doing so, they were able to address them head-on and cultivate a successful language-learning culture that meant both the individuals and the company reaped the benefits of Babbel’s offering.

Our priority at Babbel is to ensure the long-term success of our customers and help you establish language training that empowers employees and boosts revenue.

To learn more about Babbel for Business and the benefits of learning a new language, contact us today.

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Benefit from language learning

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Kara O'Rourke

Kara O'Rourke

Kara is the Content Marketing Manager for the Americas at Babbel for Business. She writes about all things language learning, learning & development, and workplace safety.

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