"A multi-national corporation should require all of its employees to learn several languages in order to advance within the corporation."
A multi-national corporation spreads across different countries to enlarge its customer domain and hence expand its business. Due to its presence in multiple countries and continents, the employees in a multi-national corporation are of different race, religion, language and citizens with different mindsets influenced with native country's culture and geography. So to say an American citizen employee thinking style is certainly different from its counterpart from China or India. However in workplace that certainly does not matter, as irrespective of countries or language for an employee to grow in an organization language does not play any role, as currently English is the universally accepted office language in the world.
By imposing to learn many languages to each and every employee of an MNC, we are surely putting a restriction. Today all the developed countries and most of the developing nation in world have taken English as their official language and encouraging English to be taught in the school from the primary level onwards so that future generation of the country will be well versed in English language. Language is no more a barrier for the growth of a person in an organization in 21st century. It could be a positive factor if a person working in an multinational corporation has command on many languages, so that if at all he or she gets transferred to a foreign land whose local languages are known to her/him, She/He will have less difficulty in settling down, but language is a small factor , English being popular worldwide. But to grow within an organization knowing several languages is not at all a major reason. Often we have seen delegates of different countries when they meet, if someone does not have good command on English speaking, Interpreters are introduced to smooth the conversations.
At the end I would like to say that, if a multi-national company starts giving training to all its employees on different languages the main goal will be diluted and skilled employee will be certainly demoralized. However multinational company can offer multi cultural training to make its employee aware of cultures of different countries, so that when they work with their counterparts from a different land there will not be much cultural shock.
A multi-national corporation spreads across different countries to enlarge its customer domain and hence expand its business. Due to its presence in multiple countries and continents, the employees in a multi-national corporation are of different race, religion, language and citizens with different mindsets influenced with native country's culture and geography. So to say an American citizen employee thinking style is certainly different from its counterpart from China or India. However in workplace that certainly does not matter, as irrespective of countries or language for an employee to grow in an organization language does not play any role, as currently English is the universally accepted office language in the world.
By imposing to learn many languages to each and every employee of an MNC, we are surely putting a restriction. Today all the developed countries and most of the developing nation in world have taken English as their official language and encouraging English to be taught in the school from the primary level onwards so that future generation of the country will be well versed in English language. Language is no more a barrier for the growth of a person in an organization in 21st century. It could be a positive factor if a person working in an multinational corporation has command on many languages, so that if at all he or she gets transferred to a foreign land whose local languages are known to her/him, She/He will have less difficulty in settling down, but language is a small factor , English being popular worldwide. But to grow within an organization knowing several languages is not at all a major reason. Often we have seen delegates of different countries when they meet, if someone does not have good command on English speaking, Interpreters are introduced to smooth the conversations.
At the end I would like to say that, if a multi-national company starts giving training to all its employees on different languages the main goal will be diluted and skilled employee will be certainly demoralized. However multinational company can offer multi cultural training to make its employee aware of cultures of different countries, so that when they work with their counterparts from a different land there will not be much cultural shock.
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