Language needs analysis: checklist and template for HR

What is a language needs analysis?

A language needs analysis establishes which languages a company needs, in which situations and at what level, and compares this with the skills already in place. The result is a gap, and only that gap justifies a training budget. Without an analysis, training is booked on gut feeling, which is convenient and almost always a waste of money.

The typical result of gut feeling is an English course for everyone, once a week, textbook units 1 to 12. In German-speaking companies you will hear the analysis called Sprachbedarfsanalyse or Bedarfsermittlung; in English-language teaching it is simply needs analysis. The idea is the same: understand before you teach. That is why every company course at choices® starts with a needs analysis, and it is the heart of our language audit.

I am deliberately uncompromising on this point. In my experience as a Head of Studies and university lecturer, the quality of the needs analysis has more influence on a programme’s success than the choice of textbook, platform or even lesson frequency. Quality is the biggest saving, and it starts here.

Why companies need a language needs analysis

Companies need a language needs analysis so that training starts from everyday work rather than being booked on gut feeling. It prevents the wrong target levels, such as C1 for everyone, too much reading and grammar with too little speaking, missing baseline values for proving success later, and frustration among employees who see no benefit for their work.

The need is real but rarely described precisely. In a survey of 200 decision-makers at German small and medium-sized companies (the Mittelstand) published by HR WORKS (in German), 74% saw insufficient English skills as an obstacle to working in international teams. At the same time, only 42% said they offered or supported language courses for employees. When interpreting this, bear in mind that it is a survey by a software provider, but the direction is clear.

An older but broad international finding comes from a study by Cambridge English and the QS Institute covering 5,373 companies in 38 countries. According to Personalwirtschaft (in German), around 40% of employees had gaps in their English, and in middle and senior management the figure was 25%. The figures show that the problem is not limited to individual departments.

What an analysis prevents in practice

• courses that miss the realities of work (general English instead of customer conversations)
• the wrong target levels (C1 for everyone, although B1 is enough for many roles)
• overinvestment in reading and grammar, underinvestment in speaking
• missing baseline values, without which success cannot be proven later
• frustration among employees who see no benefit for their work

A typical scenario (a fictitious example based on practice)

A medium-sized supplier has been booking a weekly English course for 14 people from sales, purchasing and engineering for years. The participants like their teacher, but attendance is slowly falling. An analysis finally shows that sales needs confident negotiating skills at B2, engineering mainly needs technical vocabulary for commissioning, and purchasing needs precise emails. Three groups with three different needs were sitting in one course that did justice to none of them. After being split into two small groups and two one-to-one formats, not only did attendance rise, but line managers also reported specific improvements at work. The budget was barely higher in the end, but the impact was much greater. Cases like this are not the exception but the rule when training is planned without an analysis.

The three levels of a language needs analysis

A good language needs analysis looks at three levels: the organisation, with its markets, customers, locations and working language; the role, with its communication situations; and the individual, with their current level, available time and learning experience. The first level sets the priorities, the second the target levels and the third the right format.

If you only examine one level, you get a distorted picture.

Level 1: the organisation

Which markets, customers, locations and partners shape the need for languages? Is there a corporate language policy or a de facto working language? Which strategic projects are coming up, such as a new market or an acquisition? This level sets the priorities and is closely linked to your language strategy for internationalisation.

Level 2: team and role

Which communication situations occur in a role, how often, and how critical are they? A key account manager needs confident negotiating skills, while a service technician mainly needs precise listening comprehension and clear instructions on the phone. Target levels for each role are derived from this level.

Level 3: the individual

Where does each person stand today, how much time do they have, and what learning experiences and inhibitions do they bring? This level is captured through placement tests, conversations and questionnaires, and it determines the format: group, one-to-one or a combination.

Language needs analysis checklist: the key questions

The key questions go to three groups: senior management and HR clarify business goals, markets, working language, past problems, budget, study time and how success will be measured. Line managers name frequent and sensitive situations in their team. Employees describe how they use the language, their difficulties, learning experience and available time.

choices® uses a similar checklist in initial conversations with companies, and you can adopt it directly for your internal preparation.

Questions for senior management and HR

• Which business goals for the next 12 to 24 months have a language component?
• In which countries are your customers, suppliers and subsidiaries based?
• Which language is the official or de facto working language in meetings, documents and systems?
• Where have language-related problems occurred in the past (misunderstandings, complaints, lost orders)?
• What budget and how much study time per week are realistic?
• How should success be measured and reported?

Questions for line managers

• Which situations in English or German are frequent in your team, and which are particularly sensitive?
• Who currently handles communication for others because they feel unsure of their language skills?
• How would you know in six months that the training has worked?

Questions for employees

• In which situations do you use the language, and how often?
• What do you find hardest: speaking, writing, understanding on the phone, technical vocabulary?
• What learning experiences have you had, and what helped or did not?
• How much time can you realistically invest each week?

Template: a matrix of communication situations

The most important tool in the analysis is a simple matrix of communication situations. For each situation, it records the language, frequency, criticality from 1 to 5, main skill and target level. It turns vague statements such as “We need better English” into specific situations you can prioritise. The following example comes from a fictitious engineering company.

Roughly multiply frequency by criticality and you have an initial ranking. Situations with high criticality and high frequency go into the first course modules. That sounds obvious, but it changes course content radically: suddenly there are role plays on renegotiation instead of lessons about hobbies.

Setting language target levels by role

Derive target levels from the communication situations in the matrix. As a rule of thumb from practice: international sales B2 to C1, purchasing B2, customer service B1+ to B2, engineering and service as well as assistants B1 to B2, and production A2 to B1. This is not a standard; the values must be checked in each company.

How to word these levels properly in job profiles is explained in our article on language requirements in job profiles. For new hires, a structured approach to assessing language skills in recruiting also helps.

Needs analysis methods compared

A language needs analysis draws on five methods, none of which is enough on its own: online questionnaires for breadth and frequencies, interviews with line managers for priorities, a placement test for an objective picture of current levels, analysis of real documents and, for key roles, job shadowing. Interviews with line managers are the richest source of business context.

A word on self-assessment: it is valuable for understanding inhibitions and motivation, but it is no substitute for a test. The reasons are explained in our article on self-assessing your language level.

Five language needs analysis mistakes I keep seeing

The five most expensive mistakes are: the analysis is delegated to employees, only the current level is measured, everyone gets the same target level, German is forgotten, and the results end up in a drawer. All are easy to avoid. After many years of working with companies in industry, retail and services, I keep seeing these patterns.

1. The analysis is delegated to employees

A questionnaire for everyone, evaluate the responses, done. The result reflects wishes, not needs. Employees often ask for grammar because that is what they know from school, while their manager mainly needs them to handle customer calls confidently. Both perspectives belong in the analysis, but business goals set the framework.

2. Only the current level is measured

A placement test without defined target levels is a snapshot without direction. Only a comparison with the requirements of the role shows where you need to invest and where you do not.

3. Everyone gets the same goal

“C1 for everyone” sounds ambitious but rarely makes sense. For many roles a solid B1 or B2 is enough, while a few key people need considerably more. Differentiated goals save budget and increase motivation.

4. German is forgotten

In many companies in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, the discussion revolves only around English. Yet the bigger bottleneck is often German, for example among international skilled workers in production, care or logistics. A complete analysis looks at every language that plays a role in day-to-day work.

5. The analysis ends up in a drawer

Perhaps the most expensive mistake: the analysis is carried out, presented and then never looked at again. It should be the document against which course content, measurement points and reporting are aligned again and again. Other typical pitfalls are described in our article on avoiding language audit mistakes.

From language needs analysis to training plan

The analysis is not an end in itself. Its result is a training plan that answers four questions: who learns what, in which format, with which goal, and how will it be measured? The following sequence has proven itself in practice, from documenting the gaps to reviewing the plan after a few months:

1. Document the gaps for each role and person (current level against target)
2. Set priorities by criticality and business goal
3. Choose formats: small groups of four, at most six people, and one-to-one for key roles and outliers
4. Derive content from the situations in the matrix
5. Define KPIs and measurement points, as described in my articles for Pearson Languages
6. Review and adjust after three to six months

We have also written in detail about setting KPIs for language courses in Polish: KPIs for corporate language courses (in Polish). For overall planning, I recommend our guide to planning corporate language training.

If you would rather not carry out the analysis yourself, choices® can do it for you as part of a language level analysis for your team. The audit is a paid service with no obligation to book a course afterwards, and an NDA is available on request. Training then takes place in Business English courses, German courses or other languages, all online and flexibly scheduled. For an overview, see language courses for companies.

Sources

1. hrworks.de: sprachbarriere englisch deutscher mittelstand verliert den anschluss
2. personalwirtschaft.de: im job fehlt es oft an sprach know how
3. pearson.com: gse roi business english measurable advantage 11 25
4. choices.com.pl: jak wyznaczac kpi dla kursow jezykowych w firmie

Frequently asked questions

Łukasz Pakuła

Head of Studies at choices®. Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland Global Campus, lecturer at HM Business School Munich and Kempten University of Applied Sciences. Doctoral studies in applied linguistics, publications with Springer and Equinox, among others. More about us