How To Boost Your L&D Strategy with Multilingual Content

In today’s interconnected world – in which 80% of the global workforce does not speak English as a first language – language diversity has become an integral part of any corporate business. For companies hiring in countries with a diverse workforce like the US, Canada, or the UK, or those simply looking to invest in localization and market expansion campaigns, supporting their globally distributed teams on their learning journey is key to the success.

This blog post will explore the advantages of making your learning and development (L&D) strategy language-accessible, and how it can positively impact your organization’s growth.

Employing a multilingual workforce can bring numerous benefits to an organization; it can increase employee productivity, create a more inclusive work environment, and improve cross-cultural communication. Individuals from different language backgrounds can offer a unique point of view when problem-solving, boosting creativity and innovation.

Despite these benefits, 65% of US-based senior executives say that language barriers between managers and employees exist and have a tangible impact, leading to miscommunication and productivity loss (research by Forbes). This happens because most meetings in the workspace are still held in Business English. As a result:

It’s undeniable: a lack of English fluency can distort workplace relations and team performance, as more confident native speakers often dominate the discussion in meetings and projects. This results in some employees being undermined and mis-evaluated.

The good news is L&D professionals are in a unique position to help. Through effective training programs, L&D professionals can create a more productive, welcoming, and collaborative environment. They can also turn cultural differences into an advantage in running a global company and marketing internationally.

As our clients at Borusan Cat put it: “Since none of our companies’ mother tongue was English, it is a great pleasure for us to be able to reach our colleagues in their local language. Being able to hear and listen in your own language without any complications in such an easy way has helped us to create a solution for our employees”. 

So let’s dive deeper into these advantages. 

Multilingual content can significantly improve employee engagement and knowledge retention. Studies have indicated that we are more likely to remember information that is communicated in our native language (source: Gallup).

Additionally, the more comfortable employees feel with the content, the more likely they are to engage with it, leading to better knowledge acquisition and content retention. Research by Rosetta Stone found that adding multilingual e-learning modules to virtual training led to a 46% increase in learner engagement

Organizations that provide multilingual training are 1.67 times more likely to be a market leader in their industry (source: CSA Research). Also, companies offering multilingual development opportunities tend to have higher employee satisfaction rates and lower turnover. What’s the link between these two data points?

The answer is simple, and nails down to commitment. Implementing a multilingual L&D strategy sends a positive message to your employees that you value their native language and culture. It demonstrates clearly that leaders care their employees understand the company’s goals, regulations, and expectations regardless of their English proficiency or language background. As a result, team members feel more valued and motivated to improve their skills, as they feel their unique perspective is appreciated, and this brings to a sharp increase in productivity rates.

Beyond company culture and its link to productivity and growth, there are occasions in which organizations genuinely cannot afford to have concepts getting lost in translation. We are talking here about safety and compliance training, or product training for medical devices and manufacturing. This is an absolute priority if you consider that each year language barriers are responsible of a staggering 25% of work-related incidents (stats by US OSHA).

On the contrary, employees are more likely to recall safety protocols and other crucial information when they can understand it in their native tongue. This is also valid during product training, including those for end users when high risks are involved (think about explaining how to use medical devices in hospitals). By increasing users’ confidence in how to use machines, companies can also increase their chances of product adoption; when end-users are confident that the people selling to them have a solid grasp of processes, they feel there is a lower chance of complications and risks.

As we have seen, leveraging multilingual content in your L&D strategy allows all employees to better access and understand their training, regardless of their native language or their level of business English, which leads to an increase in productivity.

While written multilingual content is certainly helpful, it’s in live workshops and Q&A sessions that a multilingual L&D strategy can really make a difference, increasing understanding and information retention. This is particularly valid where complex subject matter is treated, such as safety and compliance training, where miscommunication can have tangible consequences. Technology is here to help, making sure L&D professionals can drive results with a higher ROI.

If you want to find out more, don’t hesitate to get in touch with our experts.