Blended Business English solutions for busy project managers and engineers
Siemens Power Control GmbH
The client's challenge
Siemens Power Control GmbH (SPC) works in global I&C projects in the power generation industry. They provide knowledge, expertise and experience to other Siemens projects internally, plus run their own projects. High utilization rates for their engineers, specialists and project managers is just as important as adding value to internal and external clients. This means that all their staff need to be able to work effectively and confidently in English.
High utilization rates means that any successful English training program needs to be flexible and minimize disruption.
- SPC’s engineers are deployed on running projects around Germany and abroad.
- Project pressures mean that participants can (and will) be pulled from scheduled training when needed
- Training needs are diverse (language skills and business experience varied greatly)
Delivering business English training in a complex environment
Target Training approached this challenge by identifying the key tasks and challenges facing the engineers and project managers when working in English. We then encouraged SPC's management to communicate the importance of the training to the staff AND to the end-clients. Finally, we shadowed and interviewed staff to beter define the training need and ensure the training was transferable. Then we confidently developed a practical training solution.
The solution needed to be a blended-learning approach. The engineers benefited from flexible options to improve their business English including:
- e-learning for core business English skills
- email & telecoaching to build confidence when working in a virtual team
- self-learning units practicing key project and I&C language
- on-the-job support with real emails, documents and meetings
Flexible learning was then connected to intensive off-site workshops where the engineers and project managers practised real-life project scenarios in English. Workshops included themes such as understanding contracts, kicking off projects, managing meeetings, leading locally sourced staff, communicating with consortium partners and managing difficult situations on site.
We also assumed responsibility for the organization, administration and motivation. Training schedules were "flexible but firm" and participants who fell behind were supported and motivated.
"...Target delivered a quality service in a challenging and continually changing environment. Their flexibility meant that our employees could make genuine progress in developing their English skills and everyone enjoyed doing so..."
The result
This well-planned blended approach meant that:
- engineers could get the training they needed to do their jobs effectively in English,
- projects were kept on track while the training took place,
- and the training approach has been scalable as SPC has succeeded and grown
