English as a Talent Magnet
I get a lot of
questions about my program of Englishnization – the goal I have set to make
English the unified language of our business. Many ask me why I bother. If they
could see my in-box, they would understand.Every week, I receive email messages from all around the world from people who want to introduce a friend or a former colleague to us for possible employment. This is possible because of our pursuit of English as our unified business language. English is more than a general business strategy for us. It is a talent magnet.
Today, about 30% of new staff are non-Japanese. We have evolved from a company that attracts the best Japanese talent to a company that attracts the best talent from around the world. This improves our efforts today and set us up for success in the future. If we are able to tap into the global marketplace for talent, we can ensure we have the best and the brightest minds at work at our firm. We do not have to rely on Japan to produce that talent or hope a great engineer somewhere in the world will be willing to learn Japanese. We can reach out and recruit from anywhere in the world, confident that Englishnization has made us a potential employer for top minds everywhere.
I see many examples of success of Englishnization:
- Almost 90% of Rakuten employees have achieved their target English language test scores.
- We have been able to speed up post-merger integration of acquired companies because we share a common workplace language.
- Our many offices around the world can communicate and share best practices with speed and ease.
My book: Marketplace 3.0
Photo: Oleksiy Avtomonov/Shutterstock.com
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