Corporates place a premium on English skills

India is a powerhouse of English-speaking talent, is the rhetoric used by most CXOs of multinational software companies who set up shop in the country for cost arbitrage.

However, what needs to be realised is that though India is among the top league of nations as far as technical skills are concerned, English is not what most of the Indians speak at home.

Besides, while BPOs make it imperative for one to be fluent in English, greater client and partner interaction call for better language skills even among the technical geeks.

Many companies, therefore, have made language skills an indispensable part of their training programme.

Sanjay Khendry, vice-president (business development) of Sierra Atlantic, an offshoring enterprise applications company, says that earlier language training was taken up on a piece-meal basis within the company but has now evolved into a fully structured programme.

"We train our employees in both written and spoken English through various methods like writing an email to a client, interacting with a partner over the telephone and even the basic protocols of how to introduce people based on seniority or gender," he adds. Around 70 per cent of the training is done in-house with the remaining 30 per cent being outsourced.

Explaining the rationale in training employees in language skills, Rajul Asthana, vice-president of Satyam Learning Centre, says that core engagement with customers calls for interaction at a higher level today.

"We, therefore, see that there is a greater need for training one's employees in language skills," he adds.

Satyam Computer Services not only trains its employees in English but also in other languages like German, French, Chinese and Japanese, to meet the needs of its foreign counterparts. "Most of the language training work is outsourced to institutions like Max Mueller and Alliance Francaise," he adds.

Some companies have even made English language skills a necessary criterion for recruitment.

Salil Joshi, vice-president and managing director of Manugistics India, which is into supply chain and revenue management solutions, says that the company does not undertake language training for its employees but "we ensure that the incumbents have the basic communication skills when we are recruiting them. It is a primary selection criterion."

Joshi candidly remarks that it is difficult to find people with both written and spoken English skills along with the necessary technical skills in the Indian market.

Converting this shortfall into a business opportunity are the umpteen number of academies that teach spoken and written English. One such academy is Chennai-based veta, which has already set up 90 centres in the country and is planning to expand rapidly.

Says K V Rajan, general manager, veta, "Last year, we did a business of around Rs 20 crore from our corporate clients alone and this year we see the number growing because of more software and BPO companies expanding their presence in India." Around 60 per cent of veta's corporate clients fall in the IT and ITeS sectors.

Khendry, however, says that a piece of paper certifying that a person has undertaken an English language course from an academy will not add much value during recruitment.

"This is because we are recruiting people and not their certificates and it is easy to decipher the language skills of a person based on the conversation that we have," he adds.