Fostering diversity and inclusion at
Puma with Busuu's language learning

165k+

employees trained

200+

markets worldwide

One

unified learning platform

Shape
Industry:
Retail
Location:
Germany
Employees:
10,000+

The Challenge

PUMA needed a scalable language learning solution to support inclusion and communication across its global workforce. With employees working across stores and headquarters, often on shift-based schedules, the solution had to:

  • Improve everyday communication across teams and regions
  • Support both frontline retail staff and office-based employees
  • Equip store teams with practical, customer-facing language skills
  • Offer flexible, on-demand learning that fits around varied working patterns
Quote Mark

We have quite an international crowd. We have people from 134 countries working for us all over the world, which represents two-thirds of our global population, 75 nations roughly at our headquarters and 40% are non-Germans. 

Our communication language is English, so we want everyone to work on English daily. At the same time, we want to give an opportunity for our people to learn other languages, which is the beauty, to communicate better.

Dietmar
Dietmar Knoess

Global Director of People & Organisation at PUMA

The Solution

Busuu developed retail-specific learning content for PUMA, helping teams confidently speak to customers, learning everyday vocabulary to improve customer interactions.

With Busuu, PUMA found it could offer its staff the chance to develop valuable new skills, for better inclusion. The brand signed a global licence with Busuu, delivering language learning for its entire workforce.

Quote Mark

The main challenge for us was that we have so many countries and so many different people. People who are working in stores in shifts and for them it's extremely difficult to join courses or class sessions.



We needed something that was suitable for everybody in each country, day and night, it doesn't matter because each of us have different pace and a different personal life. It needed to be flexible and that was a big challenge because, not a lot of companies give this opportunity.

Yulia Lysenko

Retail Training Manager, Europe, PUMA

The Result

Busuu enabled PUMA to scale language learning globally, giving employees across retail and headquarters the opportunity to develop practical language skills that support communication, inclusion, and customer experience.

With a global licence, language learning became accessible to the entire workforce anytime, anywhere, and across multiple languages.

The results speak for themselves:

  • 25,000 learning hours completed on Busuu
  • 900 certificates awarded, demonstrating measurable progress and engagement
Quote Mark

Puma is very special. We measure the success of Busuu through employee satisfaction. We see that people are happier, that they have more possibilities to learn. People can travel more, people can get to know new people, new friends and new connections through different languages.

Therefore we measure things a bit differently. For us, employee satisfaction is the Biggest KPI for language skills.

author
Polina Ivanova

Manager of People Development & Organizational Learning at PUMA

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