Blog - Business Communication

5 Key HR Insights to Help Your Business Thrive in 2021

12 January 2021

At the beginning of 2020, we were focused on a world where Brexit was likely to have a significant impact, the paperless office seemed closer than ever, and virtual reality (VR) technology and artificial intelligence (AI) were set to revolutionise business. All these insights remain relevant today, but last January we would never have thought that 2020 would take the turn it has thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This year, we are looking ahead to a very different world for business. In this article, we outline five key employee-centric insights for your HR team to keep in mind in 2021.

Focus on… Learning Mandarin for Business

05 January 2021

Every month this year, we will be turning our focus towards one of the core languages we love to teach – looking at the language’s potential for business, considering a few facts and figures to put its global prospects in context, plus sharing some tips to help you get started. This month we take a look at Mandarin Chinese, the official language of the People’s Republic of China, which is spoken by over a billion people in China and around the world.

Do Language-learning Apps Work – or Do You Need a Tutor?

03 November 2020

We have seen time and time again how quickly and effectively people can learn a language when working one-to-one with a language tutor or in small and sociable conversational groups. Both scenarios can be achieved in person or virtually, using technology to facilitate teaching rather than do the teaching.

However, app-based language learning saw a surge in interest during the coronavirus pandemic lockdown, so might apps offer an effective alternative way to learn a language? In this article, we consider the limitations of language-learning apps.

Standing Out in a Competitive Job Market with Second Language Skills

13 October 2020

It is hard to imagine a more dramatic short-term shift in the way people do business than the one we have seen in recent months. Companies that had previously resisted flexible and remote working have had to adapt and find […]

Seeing the Opportunity in Your Lockdown Language Learning

29 September 2020

Filling our free time during lockdown became an unexpected 2020 challenge – suddenly we were all becoming experts at making the perfect cake or loaf of sourdough bread. But many people turned to learning a language, finding that they finally had the time to not only complete the lessons, but also to practise their new-found skills.

Now that the world has sped back up again, the challenge is to hold onto that language-learning progress and all its many benefits. In this article, the second in our ‘Life after Lockdown’ series, we summarise some of the many benefits of learning a second language during lockdown.

Lockdown Learning: Advance Your Career with Transferable Language Skills

22 September 2020

Life in the UK and around the world looks very different now to how it looked before the Covid-19 pandemic. We have entered a period of recession for the first time in over 10 years, and it is hard to imagine what the future might look like.

During lockdown, many people were able to focus their energies on developing new skills, including language skills. In this article, the first in our ‘Life after Lockdown’ series, we explore the journey through lockdown and consider how you can turn your freshly acquired language skills into a new career opportunity.