1. Reach out to bilingual customers.
This one may be painfully obvious to international businesses, but it applies to everyone. Not doing business abroad? That doesn’t mean all of your customers speak English! Investing in the language skills of your customer service reps, sales reps, or other customer-facing positions means your company can reach and service a wider audience, even domestically.
2. Bring new perspectives and experiences to your team.
A diverse workforce is a well-rounded workforce. If your team is fairly uniform, that may mean they all think very similarly. Bilinguals bring diversity to your team, approaching problems with a different mindset and bringing different experiences to the table.
3. Brush up on employees’ native English skills.
Investing in language skills doesn’t necessarily mean just foreign languages. It’s true that English continues to be a dominant language in the world of business, so it’s alarming that 63% of companies report a gap in critical English skills. Advanced competency of English facilitates better communication and collaboration, internally and externally, so investing in English language materials can be just as important as investing in foreign languages.
4. Strengthen employees’ complementary professional skills.
Ever heard that speaking more languages makes you smarter? Learning a new language can literally grow your brain, increasing your cognitive functions. Beyond that, languages are intricate, and studying a language trains you to develop good habits, including patience and persistence.
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