Foreign Languages Don’t Matter In Business say UK Managers

A UK wide survey among more than 200 managers has revealed that seven out of ten say foreign languages are not important in their current job. In addition only 14% of them believe they would stand a better chance of promotion if they were able to speak a second language.

The findings are among the results of a survey undertaken by PTP Training & Marketing Ltd, which has a training centre at [insert].

The survey goes on to highlight that when making recruitment decisions employers are not influenced by a candidate’s ability to speak a foreign language. Almost three quarters of them (73%) admit that languages are considered unimportant when assessing candidates for management positions. Just six per cent of the sample see languages as very important criteria when hiring staff.

Despite these figures an impressive 78% of respondents say that they would be prepared to learn a second language for business purposes. Unfortunately this doesn’t correlate to businesses likely to provide the opportunity for their staff to do so. Only 22% of companies offer foreign language training which comes well below subjects such as general management issues, sales and marketing and customer care which are the most popular training programmes offered to employees.

With the attitude that foreign languages aren’t important to UK business people it’s unsurprising to see that 27% of British managers describe their business dealings with non English speaking companies as ‘poor’ with another 37% being slightly more generous and acknowledging communication as ‘average’.

Commenting on the results, Marc Holland, managing director of PTP says he is believes British business should be doing more to encourage its staff to learn foreign languages:

“We live a global market economy and yet we are restricting our potential to do business with many countries because we can’t communicate with them. While we acknowledge that the language of business is generally English we must develop our foreign language skills. We need to be in a position where we can take advantage of all business opportunities and not disregard non-English speaking companies on the basis of perceived communication problems.

“With just under 80% of workers prepared to learn a second language companies should use this to their advantage and invest in more foreign language training programmes. Employers should also recognise the advantage of having a multi-lingual workforce and see those with language skills as a real asset to any company keen to do business with foreign firms.“