The integration of AI tools into workplaces around the world is starting to change the way people communicate professionally. that the use of AI to help draft documents and emails is driven not only by convenience and efficiency but also by a desire to be clear and precise in language.
While potentially useful, tools to translate, generate, or ‘correct’ written text won’t help with the effectiveness of the verbal communication that powers business relationships.
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Whether it’s customer support calls, sales presentations, health and safety instructions or day-to-day engagement with colleagues, our personal and professional interactions in the workplace rely on our ability to understand and be understood.
Equally, clarity of communication is central to many of the ‘future skills’ that employers have identified as critical to sustained success – notably .
It can be challenging for people who have English as a first language to feel confident in these skills – and even more difficult for those who may use another language at home but are required to speak English at work.
When designing assessments that measure English proficiency, we need to balance the convenience and duration that enable them to fit into a fast-paced hiring workflow with the coverage that gives businesses confidence in the results. This means focusing on the most essential elements of effective communication.
With the new Versant by ɫèAV English Speaking and Listening Test, we take just seventeen minutes to give a comprehensive picture of communicative English competence. So where do we focus?
As a starting point, the businesses that we heard from in our research were clear that listening is just as important a skill as speaking when it comes to making hiring decisions.
Anyone who has been through sales or customer support training in the past will likely be familiar with the phrase “you have one mouth but two ears,” meaning that, in a professional context, our ability to listen, actively and attentively, for detail and nuance, can be twice as valuable as speaking. A test that didn’t place equal weight on comprehension and productive speech when assessing communicative ability would be missing the mark.
Our research also pointed to expectations around speech having shifted in recent years. The range of jobs where English is required at the point of hiring has increased in many countries – with professionals from taxi drivers to online tutors often asked to demonstrate communicative competence.
With this in mind, ɫèAV has introduced the Global Scale of English Job Profiles framework to help employers define appropriate English requirements for a variety of different positions.
Customer Support roles, historically the main use case for testing English in the workplace, are also evolving. Employers are placing a much greater emphasis on true communicative ability to help resolve complex problems rather than scripted or pre-prepared responses delivered with US-style accents.
Taking this into account, we recognized a need to design a more effective way of testing both the manner of speaking and the content of that speech. Manner-of-speaking scores bring together the measurement of fluency or the fluidity and cohesion of a spoken response, pronunciation and intelligibility.
Pronunciation is different from accent – a test taker can have an Indian accent, a French accent or a Japanese accent and still pronounce English words in a way that first-language speakers will expect to hear them. Intelligibility reflects the reality that we all speak in different ways, with a voice authentic to ourselves, and looks to assess whether that voice can be easily understood by others.
The most relevant measure of communication skills isn’t whether you sound like a fluent speaker but whether you can use your ability with language to convey meaning effectively. Our speech also needs to be relevant and appropriate, with suitable vocabulary and grammatical accuracy.
We’ve found the most successful way to measure speech content is to blend short questions with a limited set of potential responses with more open-ended items. This enables test takers to speak organically and really show what they can do with their language skills.
Whether used as a hiring tool, to diagnose employees' learning and development needs or to benchmark improvement over time, English assessments can be a great asset to businesses – but only if they’re fair, objective and laser-focused on the skills that underpin true communicative competence.
Join us for an insightful webinar where we will delve deeper into the role of language assessments in enhancing workplace communication and driving business success. Sign up now to secure your spot and learn how the Versant by ɫèAV English Speaking and Listening Test can benefit your organization.
Whether you're hiring new talent or upskilling your current team, understanding the level of English proficiency required for specific roles is crucial. In today's global business environment, effective communication is key to success, and that's where the Global Scale of English (GSE) comes into play.
Staying ahead requires not just talent but the right talent. For HR professionals, ensuring that employees are equipped with the necessary skills is crucial for maintaining a competitive edge. Enter the GSE Job Profiles—a game-changing tool designed to facilitate role-targeted upskilling by mapping English language skills to specific job roles. This blog post will explore how HR teams can leverage this innovative tool to enhance workforce capabilities efficiently and effectively.
The GSE Job Profiles utilizes ɫèAV’s Global Scale of English and the Faethm by ɫèAV skills ontology to provide a detailed analysis of the language requirements for nearly 1,400 job roles. This precise mapping allows HR professionals to make informed talent management decisions, including hiring, training and development, and ensuring that employees are adequately prepared for their roles now and in the future.
English is the international language of business and a foundational skill for many roles. The right level of English proficiency is key for individuals and businesses to excel.
But what is the “right” level?
English is not a one-size-fits-all skill. Customer Service Representatives need different English skills to IT Systems Managers. Senior staff will often need more advanced English skills than junior staff.
