Impact of Poor Language Skills on Productivity & Retention | Busuu for Business

Employees are faced with potentially the most competitive job market of all time. Positions that were once niche now receive hundreds of applications, while entry-level positions seem to be disappearing right before our very eyes. For 74% of workers, this environment has led to a widespread need to hone skills to stay competitive.

At the same time, businesses are under pressure to maintain performance with increasingly distributed and multilingual teams. As organisations expand across borders, communication naturally becomes more complicated, with even small misunderstandings slowing down projects and reducing efficiencies.

Language skills, especially when built through structured, expert-led programmes, are a solution to these issues. Investing in language skills can directly address communication gaps, give employees the skills they need to succeed (both internally and beyond), and create a more engaged, productive workforce.

Let’s dive into just how interconnected language skills are to productivity and retention.

Key findings

• $1.2 trillion is lost annually by businesses due to communication breakdowns and miscommunications.
• 93% of workers believe that bilingual managers are more successful.
• 41% of companies struggle with recruitment due to language barriers.
• 37% of businesses cite poor verbal communication as a key barrier to productivity.
• Over 90% of employees find workplace learning useful for their careers.

Executive summary: Why language skills matter in modern workplaces

Multilingualism, or a working proficiency in multiple languages, is beneficial for both workers and businesses. Forbes Insider research suggests that 82% of organisations view multilingual employees as more valuable, enhancing communication and stimulating the productivity of their teams. At the same time, 91% of employees state that language skills are essential for their own career development.

With that in mind, investing in language learning becomes a powerful force, improving employee skills to produce more profit while also empowering those same employees with a vital learning opportunity.

Beyond these benefits, a learning and development programme can demonstrate to employees that their company takes their careers seriously. According to a recent study, 84% of employees would stay at a company longer if it invested in learning opportunities. Alongside boosting retention, providing these language learning sessions reduces poor communication, which executives suggest accounts for 86% of workplace failures.

In short, language learning sits at the intersection of productivity and retention. It’s the most effective way of boosting engagement, honing workplace skills, and creating a more productive workplace.

Language proficiency and productivity: Core benefits

Communication is fundamental in any business role. Whether you’re a middle manager or the CEO, collaboration is driven by clear, effective communication.

But when working in multilingual environments, language skill adds another layer of difficulty to the job. By investing in language training, businesses can overcome these communication challenges and create more flexible, productive work environments.

Here are four core areas where language skills make a quantifiable difference:

• Enhances communication clarity – Considering 88% of the workweek is spent communicating, clear communication is a key driver of productivity in the workplace.
• Reduces reworks – With 41% of company employees struggling to communicate consistently with customers, unclear messaging often leads to duplicated efforts and corrections. Every round of edits or back-and-forth means more time spent and more worker hours used on tasks that should already have been finalised.
• Accelerates onboarding – 60% of organisations require language training for international roles, a fact which takes on more significance when you realise that companies are now more consistently hiring internationally.
• Improves task efficiency – 75% of respondents say multilingual employees have an advantage in global work environments.

Language proficiency and retention: Employee experience & turnover

While an investment in language learning opportunities does directly benefit a business, the company’s employees are also set to see a range of positive effects from these programmes.

Here are some employee-centric benefits of running a successful language learning programme:

• Enhanced engagement – Over 90% of employees find workplace learning useful, making language training a strong driver of both motivation and L&D participation.
• Career progression – Considering 91% of employees view language skills as essential for career growth, language learning programmes directly support internal mobility and career progression.
• Job satisfaction – When you show you’re willing to invest in your workers, they become more satisfied at work. Structured training is a clear signal that you’re willing to invest in the future of your employees, and this boosts engagement and job satisfaction.
• Reduced risk of turnover – 94% of employees are more likely to stay at a company that invests in their development.

Especially considering the cost of hiring a new employee is typically 1.25 to 1.60 times their gross salary, a low-turnover, high-engagement workforce boosts productivity and saves you money.

What the research often misses: Sector nuances

While the data clearly show the impact of communication and skill gaps in the workplace, most studies tend to treat language learning as a general L&D topic, rather than an individual and rich pursuit in itself.

Reframing the research we’ve touched on to specific sectors reveals that corporate language learning programmes may not have the same effects in every industry. Here’s how certain sectors may vary:

• Global organisations – As you might expect, one characteristic shared by Fortune 500 companies is that the vast majority of them are multinational corporations. The tendency for large-scale and successful businesses to work across multiple countries (and, of course, languages) is reaffirmed by the Fortune Global 500 ranking. Language skills are vital in these organisations, where employees routinely have to work across diverse language contexts.
• Customer-facing industries – Retail, hospitality and customer support positions all directly benefit from language skills. Being able to communicate clearly to customers leads to faster ticket resolution and an improved customer experience.
• Knowledge-based sectors – Sectors like finance or technology mainly experience productivity gains through better language skills via improved collaboration. Being able to break down technical language or industry-specific terms without running into communication barriers can speed up cross-culture team projects and reduce time to market.

Especially when adapting language learning programmes to international or specialised teams, it’s important to prioritise flexibility. Having a strict schedule will mean that some employees simply cannot fit your live classes into their existing work hours. Look for programmes that can scale with your business and meet your employees whenever is best for them.

Practical strategies to upskill teams

Convincing your stakeholders that it's beneficial to run a language learning programme is only the first step. Even after acquiring funding, you need to find a flexible, high-impact language learning system for your employees. While you can design and launch your own from scratch, this is a cost-intensive and time-consuming approach.

With Busuu, you can hit the ground running with a scalable, cost-effective and long-term-orientated learning programme. Trusted by over 600 companies across the globe, Busuu combines self-paced learning, AI-enabled feedback and Live Lessons from qualified teachers. For employees, this approach provides the depth, breadth and confidence-building opportunities to hone language skills and rapidly improve.

By embedding language learning into your company’s L&D strategy, you give your workforce tools for better communication and enhanced performance.

Discover how Busuu can support your teams and bring full-scale language learning to your corporate environment.