With a growing workforce both in terms of size and different nationalities, communication within the workplace has never been more important.
Consequently, leading north-east marine equipment specialist, Motive Offshore Group has decided to go the extra mile by offering its foreign speaking employees the chance to undertake an intensive English language course.
Motive Offshore, which is headquartered at its 30-acre site in Boyndie, near Banff, in Aberdeenshire, is working with North East Scotland College (NESCol) in Fraserburgh, to provide English language lessons to six members of its workforce, as well as four from a neighbouring firm and three more people from the local area.
The firm, which has a long-term commitment to people development and the local community, has recently launched the 10-week course that comprises of three-hour sessions per week with a qualified tutor arranged through NESCol.
The course will help to improve communication skills for the participating Motive Offshore employees, which will increase collaboration between co-workers and develop their language skills so they can play a greater role in the local community.
HR Manager at Motive Offshore, Moira Stickle, said: “As the business continues to grow, we are constantly looking for ways to develop and support our employees and as new members join the team, we strive to implement programmes that will make their working lives easier.
“Increasingly, as our workforce becomes more diverse, we recognise an increasing demand for assistance with language so we decided to partner with our local college to help our workers whose first language is not English to develop a better understanding of the English language to assist them in the workplace and in their communities outwith work.
“We are also very keen to promote and develop a strong safety culture to protect the welfare of our employees and clients on-site, and communications play a vital role in this.
“We encourage everyone to highlight positive and negative safety behaviours, so having the language skills to communicate this is key.”
Motive Offshore employee and participant on the course, Krzysztof Modrzewski, said: “I am really enjoying the English language course at Motive Offshore.
“We are several weeks in and it is definitely helping my language skills so I can understand communications better at work and also in my social life.”
Head of business and community development at NESCol, Duncan Abernethy, said: “The college has a strong relationship with Motive Offshore Group and works closely on a number of fronts including Modern Apprenticeship training and staff development.
“Recently, an English for Speakers of Other Languages course was introduced for Motive Offshore staff at its premises in Boyndie.
“This course, delivered over ten weeks, is designed to help communication through improving language skills in the workplace – this should offer many positive benefits both for the individuals involved and the company.”