ProlecGE Builds Relationships, Reduces Turnover, with Fluency Corp

ProlecGE Builds Relationships, Reduces Turnover, with Fluency Corp

Why Language Training, Coupled with Assimilation Support, is Just Better

In business, effective communication is essential. When merging a business into a new market in a new country, miscommunication and failed relocations can cost the company hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost productivity, turnover, and leadership members quitting their roles in the new area.

When ProlecGE expanded from Mexico into Brazil, eight employees and their families moved to South America to get their new merger aligned with the company’s goals. Without Fluency Corp providing language training and assimilation assistance, it might not have been as successful.

The company decided to send Ernesto A.D.P. and several other employees – with their families – to establish the new branch within five years.

Ernesto oversees the financials and commercial sales while modifying the existing financial plan to fit Prolec’s corporate structure. There was only one problem: Ernesto, nor any other transitioning employees, spoke Portuguese.

Global Leadership was Causing Division in the Teams

Before Prolec came along, this local company had been managed by another globally based-company. That former parent company had a management team that all communicated in their own native language.

There was a problem, though.

The local workforce speaks just one language: Portuguese. How does a management team communicate with the workforce when they have a language barrier? How does the work effectively get completed?

It doesn’t, without major challenges and obstacles. There was such a discrepancy that the company went through major struggles. To the point where it was no longer looking to be profitable and sold to Prolec.

The new management took an entirely different approach to the local workforce. Instead of showing up and asking the local workforce to learn Spanish, they learned Portuguese.

Disparity Widens between Warehouse and Office Employees

Have you ever attended a work gathering and just felt like you didn’t fit in? Those events are designed for everyone to get to know everyone, but you just hang out with your close co-workers. Imagine if the management was at that barbeque or get-together and spoke a different language than you did. The isolation would be tangible!

In Brazil, many of those working in the factory only speak Portuguese. Because the management teams can speak the same language, it removes that barrier and puts everyone on the same level. Now all positions can interact because language barriers are significantly lessened.

That is because there is more to Fluency Corp than just knowing the language. Because Ernesto, and the other families, had local teachers, they learned the culture, the idioms, and the dialect.

In addition, their training included how to act professionally while in Brazil. Not to mention, helping them connect with their community, new schools for the kids, neighbors, and answering any questions about local utilities, customs and more.

Management isn’t the same around the world. In many countries, it’s much more formal; suits and ties are expected, and a formal manner of speaking is required. Brazil is a much more laid-back country.

Professional dialogue includes a lot of social banter, slang, and a more casual approach.

Without language training with Fluency Corp’s Bellieu Method (keep reading, we’ll fill you in on how that works), Ernesto would have approached business and work parties with a Mexican business approach. It might have been off-putting to Brazilian employees and could have created disparity between the two groups.

But the assimilation support from the language coach helped Ernesto learn not just the right words, but the right actions.

Because he knows how to speak the language and fit into the local culture, he can build better relationships. Those relationships lead to a smoother and more efficient workplace. When the workers are happy, there is less turnover, greater productivity, and job satisfaction increases.

“We may not be entirely fluent yet,” Ernesto admits, “but we can communicate and talk about what they like to talk about.”

This merger, Ernesto believes, will be successful because previous ownership never spoke with the local employees in Portuguese, and there was always a strain between management and those on the ground.

Why Language Training Along with Assimilation is Incredibly Effective

Long before they even transitioned to South America, Prolec enlisted the help of Fluency Corp to train the employees not just what to say, but how to communicate.

Fluency Corp learned about where Ernesto and the other employees would live. Using a worldwide network, local teachers were hired to deliver the lessons. These teachers typically lived within 10 miles of where the employees were moving to. This created a closeness, and they could talk about local topics.

These teachers met with students twice each week for one and a half hours at a time. These lessons weren’t anything like you might experience in an academic language setting, though. Instead, they’re customized to the individual and the local culture.

Ernesto’s teacher grew up in the city that he now calls home. The teacher knows the people, the best restaurants, the dialect, and the colloquialisms.

Using that cultural awareness, the teacher showed Ernesto which radio station to listen to, and developed language lessons around what that station talks about. Some classes would focus on grammar and becoming more fluent and then switch focus to reading books in Portuguese.

After a few book lessons, they would again change focus and revolve around local television shows, podcasts, or other entertainment available only in Portuguese.

By immersing himself in these culturally specific media, Ernesto learned how to speak and (perhaps more importantly) what to speak of. They also role played business situations, and prepared for meetings beforehand.

“There are two soccer teams in this city.” He explains, “Half the city likes one team, the other half likes the other team. Without a culturally immersive language program, how would you ever learn about the teams and how to talk about them? You wouldn’t.” This is where assimilation comes in, and ensures that you feel like you are at home in the new country.

How Fluency Corp Worked with Prolec to Reduce Turnover and Save Money

Language and grammar are important. Any book, app, or program can teach you the proper spelling and sentence structure.

A language class can even help you speak the language.

There is, however, a big difference between speaking and feeling at home. There are so many dialects and cultural idiosyncrasies throughout a country that just knowing how to put a sentence together will limit your ability to truly become a part of the new city.

Long before Fluency Corp was established, founder Micah Bellieu studied languages in an academic setting. For eight years, she took Spanish classes, learning how to conjugate verbs, understand the tenses, and create sentences.

On a trip to Spain, she quickly discovered that knowing grammar rules does not give you fluency or the confidence to speak. She wondered, “What’s the point of putting so much effort into studying a language if I can’t even understand that language or connect with others?”

This led to an idea. Use local teachers to not only teach vocabulary and sentence structure, but also to teach how to use that language in a particular location. It had to go a bit deeper than just that, though. In order for the relocation to be a success, they needed to meet others, feel comfortable, and have a sense of belonging.

Thus, the Bellieu Method was developed. It is a 100% customized training that helps you learn the language to communicate effectively in your environment, so that you can connect with others, be successful at work, and understand the norms around you in your new world.

Fluency Corp and Your Business

Fluency Corp works with every language, in every country, and all around the world. So if you call Micah and her team, and ask for an obscure location, she will say, “give me a few weeks, and we will have a teacher ready for you.”

Then, lessons will involve watching how you speak in meetings—analyzing your speaking style, recommending shows, podcasts, and books, and helping you become fluent in the language and community where you will be immersed.

Moving families to another country is a big investment for a company. Without language and assimilation support, those moves can fail, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Fluency Corp’s training brings about better integration, and companies see more success with this customized immersion-style training.

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How LaLa Foods Reduced Turnover by 50% with Cultural & Language Training

LaLa Foods in Mexico Reduced Turnover by 50% with Language Training

Lala Foods transferred an entire service department to Mexico. That transition, however, wasn’t nearly as smooth as they had hoped. Miscommunications, frustrations, and inefficient meetings were only the beginning for the popular dairy product company serving Mexico and South America.

Allyson, the compensation and benefits manager for LaLa Foods, realized that the new teams were struggling. Tasks were taking longer, colleagues in both the US and Mexico were frustrated, and little was going as planned.

As turnover increased, Allyson knew that something had to change. She saw that it wasn’t just a language issue; many employees spoke both Spanish and English.

There Was a Different Issue Beyond Language Training

LaLa Foods employs around 35,000 individuals in Mexico and South America, and about 300 in the US. As a well known brand in Mexico, the company wants to make their reputation just as strong in the USA. But that means the US teams have to efficiently and accurately communicate with the Mexican teams.

To streamline processes, the finance department was moved to Mexico. US colleagues who were once able to walk across the hall and talk with the finance department now had to email or set up video chats with the department based in Mexico.

As a consumer packaged goods company, there are many levels of customer interactions that need to be handled. The US based team interacts with local vendors and customers, and the Mexican team handles processing, accounts payable, and a lot of the IT work as well.

But when you’re not all on the same page, snags come up. Sometimes it is largely a language barrier, but other times, it has more to do with cultural differences than anything else.

They ran into a problem that only a customized solution from Fluency Corp could figure out.

Conflict Arises Between Different Cultures

The methods of working in Mexico are vastly different from those in the US. Micah Bellieu, founder of Fluency Corp, describes it as “a bit of a turtle and hare” situation. Where both parties have the same end goal, but the means of getting there are considerably different.

For many of the US based employees, work is very task oriented. If there’s only 30 minutes allotted for a meeting, then you jump right in and get started in the meeting. But that’s not how things are done in Mexico. In fact, if you don’t spend 10 minutes or so talking about kids, weekend plans, and catching up, you come across as downright rude.

Of course that sets the entire meeting on edge from the beginning. So at the end, when the question is asked, “Are there any questions, anything that’s unclear?” A simple and straightforward, “No” would result.

But that, “No” wasn’t the truth. There were plenty of questions, but the conflict at the beginning of the meeting meant that nobody wanted to raise their hand and ask the questions.

Communication was Breaking Down; Inefficiencies Increased

Situations arose where work wasn’t done as requested, or it wasn’t done on time. The goal of creating this cross-cultural team was to streamline processes. The reality was that miscommunication and conflict led to frequent inefficiencies.

“The Mexican team is very transactional,” Allyson tells us. “The US teams were not expecting that. They [the Mexican team] would process transactions exactly how they were written.” But that’s not what needed to be done; double checking for duplicates and asking clarifying questions was expected.

After Micah presented at a global HR workshop, Allyson and LaLa Foods knew that Fluency Corp was exactly what they would need to help solve this problem.

A Custom Solution Beyond Language Training was the Only Option

Off-the-shelf cultural and communication training doesn’t exist. Because cultures vary incredibly, even within a small geographic area, and because every culture interacts differently, you would need billions of courses to accurately cover all of them.

In the same vein, communication challenges are situation specific and company specific. Understanding the issues before providing a solution is critical to ensure the training is relevant and immediately applicable.

Instead, Fluency Corp sits down with every company to discover how they operate. Only then can they create customized training that fully addresses what’s going on within the cross-cultural departments or communication challenges.

For LaLa Group, it was a unique combination of global communication with SASS training.

SASS – which stands for Simplified, Ask, Support, Slow Down – helps corporations fully understand where their communication is falling short. What seems perfectly clear to the speaker is often misinterpreted by the recipient. These misinterpretations are compounded when there are language or cultural differences.

By simplifying the language, asking for input on what made sense (and what didn’t), finding support through communication training, and slowing things down (people speak really fast, slow it down by 20% for better understanding), the groups talking to each other were able to relay the right information.

Learning about Different Cultural Norms

In the US, it’s very fast paced. In Mexico, things are a bit more leisurely.

To fully understand how these cultural norms affect interaction, Fluency Corp developed a role play to emphasize the differences. Individuals were randomly assigned either an A or a B.

Those receiving an A designation were to be reserved, speak quietly, stand at least 3 feet apart, don’t shake hands, and don’t talk much about yourself. Group B, however, was the opposite. They were energetic and loud, touching people on the arm when they speak, hug when you first meet them, and ask lots of questions.

The goal was to illustrate the vast differences in the way people interact. And for those who are naturally an “A” to understand that the “B” isn’t being rude, but rather doing what comes naturally to them, and vice-versa. Throughout the exercise, the two groups gained an understanding of how awkward it is when you’re dealing with a person that’s the opposite.

The Cultural & Language Training Resulted in Less Stress & Fewer Resignations

With nearly every cultural and language training, the biggest successes can’t be measured and quantified.

Instead, they are seen and felt in the workplace, in the office culture, and in the job satisfaction amongst all the teammates.

The end result is that employees have a better feeling about coming to work each day. Increased job satisfaction means that there are fewer resignations. Over the course of about a year, LaLa Foods noticed that there was roughly a 50% improvement in turnover rate. More people were staying because of the improved cultural awareness and communication.

But it doesn’t stop there. Many of the US based employees were seeing jobs being transferred to Mexico; the knee-jerk reaction was that they were about to lose their job. With cultural training and improved communication, everyone found out that nobody was coming for their job; instead, they were able to work with some amazing cross-cultural colleagues.

When resignations did come down the line, sharing those responsibilities with the rest of the company was much easier. So as a person from the payroll department left, it wasn’t a mad scramble to find a replacement; instead, it was a promotion from within the Mexican team to alleviate the burden on the US team.

Off-the-Shelf Rarely Works: Fluency Corp Customizes the Training

Allyson explains that “Micah customized the approach for the need. She took the time to understand what the issues were, and really dug in. It wasn’t a surface-level training at all. She customized the content, and then followed up every two weeks to check in and see how people were doing: did they implement, are they following through, what struggles they were having.”

It’s not just enough to learn a new language, but also how to use it in a certain context. You also must learn aspects of the new culture that goes along with that language.

When everyone understands – and respects – the differences, only then can an organization say that they truly have their communication firmly in place.

Do you think your company could benefit from customized cultural and language training? Set up a free consultation with Fluency Corp by contacting us at getfluent@fluencycorp.com or (800) 401-3159.