Increased participation and completion rates for new Business English course.

“Reallyenglish have been able to handle everything we thought ‘unmanageable’.”

Sector: Business
   

A leading manufacturer of electronic components with a reputation for innovation with customers all over the world, needed to empower its employees to develop their English communication skills.

The company has seen great results after using our language learning platform:

  • Participation rates have reached over 400 employees a year
  • Completion rates have shot up
  • A learning culture has been established
  • Employee motivation is sky high
  • There have been Internal recognition and travel opportunities for participants

The client:

A leading manufacturer of electronic components with a reputation for innovation approached us, looking for a digital learning platform to improve its employees’ English skills. The company has customers all over the world. As such, its employees’ English communication skills are essential to its success. 

The challenge:

Recognising that international customers accounted for 90% of its total orders, and that its employees needed to communicate effectively with each other, whether they were on the manufacturing side of the business or based in local sales offices around the world, our client launched a three-year plan to improve core English skills for all its employees and become a truly global company.

They brought English teachers into each office to hold face-to-face lessons with employees. The initiative was a great success: employees got used to a positive learning culture, improved their core English skills and were motivated.

For the next phase, the company started to plan a new four-year plan to help its employees progress to the level of Business English. The more specialised nature of the course and the difficulties they faced providing tuition to such a geographically diverse team made them consider other learning delivery methods.

Implementation:

The company was aware of Reallyenglish after receiving positive feedback about our programmes and approached us initially for a trial.

“After taking demo lessons, we found that we could study English little by little, step by step, anywhere, and anytime with Reallyenglish.”

We prepared various courses to cater for the needs of different learners and made sure the company could follow each student’s progress so they could offer support where needed.

After a successful trial, they decided to introduce the learning programme, rolling it out to all its employees. 

The company launched two training programmes: one for employees based locally and one for employees based abroad. We worked with them to develop the domestic training programme for locally based employees: ETI (English Training Intensive).  

Depending on their TOEIC score, employees follow one of three learning streams from the ETI programme.

The first stream is for students with lower scores and focuses on their progression to a basic level of English. Students with a TOEIC score between 500 and 600 take the second stream, which is aimed at improving written communication through a Writing for Business module. The third and final stream, for those students with a TOEIC score over 600, focuses on employees’ conversation skills.

In addition to the core modules, employees can choose optional modules, including Practical English 6 and TOEIC Test Kick Off.

As part of its commitment to developing its employees, the company has offered to cover half the costs of the course for each employee who meets the criteria. The training programme has been incredibly popular, attracting around 400 participants each year. 

Results:

"Writing emails in English is now 30% faster."

The feedback from course participants has been extremely positive, and one manager at the company was happy to see one of their team members who had followed the programme contribute effectively in an important meeting: “the participant proactively raised their opinion in a global meeting". Now the manager is looking for an opportunity to send the employee on a business trip abroad to further improve their Business English skills.

Meanwhile, in other offices, a really exciting learning environment has developed. Employees have been proactive in teaming up to form study groups and set goals. Completion rates have increased, and employees are clearly motivated.

“We’re happy with the content of the courses and also the easy-to-use and customisable tool, which has saved us time managing the seminars. So far, if asked to give a satisfaction score, we’d say 90 out of 100. We’d give 100, but we still have some demands so we need to leave 10 points to be able to give full marks when they fulfil our all demands!”