English as a Talent Magnet
I get a lot of questions about my program of Englishnization – the goal I have set to make English the unified language of our business. Many ask me why I bother. If they could see my in-box, they would understand.
Every week, I receive email messages from all around the world from people who want to introduce a friend or a former colleague to us for possible employment. This is possible because of our pursuit of English as our unified business language. English is more than a general business strategy for us. It is a talent magnet.
Today, about 30% of new staff are non-Japanese. We have evolved from a company that attracts the best Japanese talent to a company that attracts the best talent from around the world. This improves our efforts today and set us up for success in the future. If we are able to tap into the global marketplace for talent, we can ensure we have the best and the brightest minds at work at our firm. We do not have to rely on Japan to produce that talent or hope a great engineer somewhere in the world will be willing to learn Japanese. We can reach out and recruit from anywhere in the world, confident that Englishnization has made us a potential employer for top minds everywhere.
I see many examples of success of Englishnization:
- Almost 90% of Rakuten employees have achieved their target English language test scores.
- We have been able to speed up post-merger integration of acquired companies because we share a common workplace language.
- Our many offices around the world can communicate and share best practices with speed and ease.
But even when I don’t see a new proof point, I can always turn to my email. Chances are good, someone is reaching out to recommend a great new employee for Rakuten. Perhaps that person’s first language is not Japanese, but likely that individual can communicate in English in the workplace. So can we.
Photo: Oleksiy Avtomonov/Shutterstock.com
易路人力资源科技 - Director of Product
11yGood
Cross-cultural Communicator | Explaining how information, products, and services can help | French Tutor
11ySearching for the best talent on a global scale is a great idea. English may be the most important lingua franca in business, but I think it's also important to hire people who can fit into the local culture. It's difficult to do that if the person is monolingual English. Understanding another culture well is unlikely to work without the ability to speak the local language well. Someone who has already adapted to another language and culture ought to be more likely to succeed in a new culture.
Lead Software Engineer / DevOps
11yTotally agree. English is not my native language, anyway it's what I constantly use outside my family. In Japan, of course it was very useful for me to learn and speak Japanese, but from a professional point of view I got more opportunities than others because I was not afraid to learn new languages.
Investment Professional 🎗️
11yI only partly agree as what will eventually be used will have to be adapted to the people with the weakest level of English within the company. So forget about using a rich language with many nuances, like English or Japanese, what you will get is badly pronounced basic "globish English" which will lower the quality of exchanges, destroy innovation and creativity, and even offend real English speakers. Choosing the lowest common denominator is hardly the road toward excellence.
Self-employed at mycompany
11yOne language for all nations (English,French, Italian) to become a citizen of all countries