10 Steps to Better Firmwide English

Whether your firm is already a global leader or is just starting out, you’ll know that maintaining quality communication with your customers and stakeholders is key to consolidating and strengthening your international reputation. And just as your business continues to develop and innovate, so should your company’s language capabilities.

Companies are realising that it’s no longer enough to send staff for an hour a week of English lessons or to hire a last-minute proofreader to filter out glaring errors. Instead, they’re looking at newer and fresher ways of impacting stakeholders through an efficient, quality-focused approach that prioritises effective English-language communication.

In this article, we introduce 10 English-development strategies that your company can implement to gain an advantage over domestic and international competitors in the short, medium and long term.

1.      Self-scout your English-language operations

In sporting parlance, “self-scouting” means looking within your organisation through the eyes of an outsider to find areas where you can improve. In language terms, it means reviewing every aspect of your internal and external communications to make sure the materials you are producing are clear, consistent, high-quality and on-brand. This process should analyse every part of your business, from your outward-facing operations such as social media and PR, to your internal processes such as contract drafting, investor reporting and even personnel development.

Reach out to Scottish Accent to learn more about our groundbreaking Firmwide Language Audit, a service uniquely positioned to cater for this valuable market need.

2.      Optimise your website

Your website is the world’s window into your business. So it’s vital you have a bilingual (or multilingual) website that contains complete, well-written and up-to-date information about your business. Your international customers rely on your site to tell them about the benefits of your products and services, so presenting them with an awkward (and often incorrect) English version translated by Google Translate or even by a non-native speaker can erode their trust in your brand.

As well as quality, have a think about market localisation. Make your website relevant to your customers with English-centric calls to action and native content that gives your brand a creative advantage.

3.      Raise your social media game

Your website might be the window into your business, but social media is often your front door. Whether it’s your company’s Facebook page or your senior employees’ LinkedIn profiles, you should ensure that every post made in your company’s name uses high-quality language. It may be useful to have a native English speaker on hand to “sign off” your social media posts.

And if you’re posting for a bilingual audience, you (and your employees) might want to get into the habit of writing bilingual posts. That way, every share counts double as you reach a wider international audience (and your network will read your news and views twice!).

4.      Market creatively

From your slogans to your ad reads, your English-language market copy should be clear, creative and relevant to your audience. For instance, Czech-language advertising tends to employ a subtlety and excessive wordiness that fails to impact international markets if translated literally (humility is a predominantly Czech trait: foreign consumers expecting to be hit over the head by your marketing message). Humour, meanwhile, should be handled with care and dexterity.

Native input is recommended here. By having your message drafted by a marketing professional familiar with your target market, you can be sure of an effective, embarrassment-free brand message.

5.      Finetune your in-house language

Whether you’re writing in English or in your local language, it’s important to have reliable reference documents that save you time and make your output more consistent. Depending on your business, this might take the form of model contracts, report templates or policy documents. But you can also go further by implementing clause banks, legislation corpora and multilingual glossaries that allow you to lift pre-approved language directly into your client documents.

If you already have templates and reference banks in your local language, then you’re already halfway there. Getting your templates translated by an experienced English-language translator will give you a strong bilingual foundation for your future output. A custom-produced in-house style guide can also serve as a further QA tool.

6.      Tailor your language coaching.

While classroom English lessons can help beginners and intermediate language learners build towards fluency, advanced learners can often find classroom environments unrewarding and of little relevance to their day-to-day tasks. Also, advanced learners often hold more senior positions with less time at their disposal, meaning that traditional language classes are not the most time-efficient solution for modern companies.

With tailored language coaching, your key personnel receive personalised feedback on their own writing from a business English specialist, who will suggest specific tips and corrections that can be immediately applied in the workplace to enhance their writing skills and your company’s image.

7.      Shift the focus to presentation skills.

If your staff are already engaging with overseas clients and customers, it’s likely they can already speak English to a high level. But you might find that your employees’ excellent writing and social English skills don’t cross over to networking and industry events where they are expected to extol the virtues of your product or service, or to discuss complex issues in front of a large audience. So it’s important to have a presentation skills strategy in place.

More practice means greater confidence. So here’s a few ideas:
● Hold your departmental and other internal meetings in English.
● Arrange a regular English-language discussion group on hot industry topics.
● Make your branch an international hub for English-language in-house training and industry forums, with your staff playing a pivotal role in their organisation and delivery.
● You might even want to procure the services of a native English-speaking moderator to oversee the smooth running and high quality of these initiatives.

By implementing these steps, you can positively affect your company’s reputation and build a Bilingual Business Culture.

8.      Recruit great communicators.

While hiring for a role, you have two candidates you love. Both have worked and studied overseas, and both self-evaluate as C1-level English speakers. Which one do you choose?

By performing a role-specific language assessment, you can better identify which candidate has the writing and presentation skills to carry your company forward. This can range from a short, native speaker-led interview to brief written assignments relevant to the role advertised. The higher the score, the more confident you’ll be having them meet clients and customers right away. Adopting a more English-centric recruitment process can also help you reach international labour markets and convince candidates of your firm’s global credentials.

9.      Prioritise high-value language editing (proofreading)

Having a proofreader on hand can be useful. But not everything you write needs to be proofread by a native speaker. If you’re a Slovak company communicating with a Swiss client, for instance, your relationship probably might not be derailed by a missing article or misplaced comma. So having all your emails and correspondence edited by a proofreader might not be an effective use of your time and resources.

The same doesn’t hold true when doing business with native English speakers. If you’re negotiating a deal with an American company or tendering for a contract in the UK, you want to make sure you are communicating as well as any UK or US-based competitor. Here, the services of an experienced editor adds value to your proposal and can be a key component of your overall language assistance package.

10.      Entrust your translations to an expert

Your stakeholders want to receive information that is clear, consistent and accurate. Specialist texts such as your contracts and reports must be translated carefully to reflect the context, terminology and tone of the original and to avoid any imprecisions or incomprehension that could undermine your company’s reputation for professionalism and attention to detail.

Take your company’s annual report, for example. Your investors want to know – in no uncertain terms – what is going on with their money. If they receive an ambiguous text strewn with inconsistent and inaccurate terminology, they might begin to doubt not only your company’s professionalism, but also its competence and integrity. On the other hand, by partnering with an experienced, mother-tongue translation team with experience in your sector and industry, your stakeholders will be guaranteed an industry-leading document they can trust, which will impact positively on your relationships going forward.

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Scottish Accent are a translation and firmwide language services studio founded by Prague-based translators Andrew Wallace and David Creighton.

Our specialty lies in legal and financial translation, but our flair for original, native English-language writing also makes us the ideal choice for your creative translation needs. All our translations are produced by our experienced, industry-accredited and native English-speaking translators.

To find out more about our translation services and our groundbreaking Firmwide Language Audits, reach out to Scottish Accent at www.scottishaccent.eu or email us at team@scottishaccent.eu.