Business Case Blended English learning program deployed across O-I Europe For over a century, O-I has been a pioneer and leader in the glassmaking industry. Today, O-I is the world’s leading glass container maker with more than 24,000 employees in 21 countries, and makes over $6.6 billion annually.
O-I is an American company with 81 plants in 21 countries, and not all of its employees speak English as their native language. In the last
Key Figures
few years, O-I has started requiring that more and more of its employees attain a certain level of proficiency in English, as a professional level of English is necessary to facilitate worldwide communication between employees and with O-I’s international clients.
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What I like about ENGLISH@O-I is that it’s not a goFLUENT product, it’s not an O-I product, it’s a good hybrid of teaching resources that are built around content
that is relevant to employees’ professional development. Furthermore, the resources are top-notch in terms of technology, and that’s something to get excited about.” says Aline Estevant, Vice President of Human Resources for O-I Europe.
When it came to English training, O-I had an important decision to make regarding the development of its employees. What was needed was a program that was completely geared toward the glassmaking industry, while still providing a solid foundation of business English that was personalized according to each employee’s job. The O-I employees who needed English training ranged from factory workers to executives, so there was no way that they would benefit from a “onesize-fits-all” English solution.
World’s leading glass container company Headquarters in Perrysburg, Ohio, USA US$ 6.6 billion (2010) 322 of the Fortune 500 companies (2010) 24,000+ employees 81 plants in 21 countries 49,000+ customers in 86 countries 1,900+ worldwide patents 10,000 products Founded in 1903
ENGLISH@O-I: Personalized English Training Optimized by Blended Learning In 2009, goFLUENT and O-I collaborated to design ENGLISH@O-I, a blended learning English training solution that is tailor-made for O-I’s employees in terms of content and pace. The program consists of the following: eLearning platform - With customized content (videos, articles, quizzes) for O-I’s industry Courses by telephone - With a live trainer Online written coaching - With feedback from a live trainer The program attracts more and more learners every year. In the 2 years since its implementation, the number of employees participating in the program is nearing 1,000. To date, the employees participating in ENGLISH@O-I have taken more than 20,695 phone lessons1. These employees also make extensive use of their access to the eLearning platform. In some of O-I’s European offices and factories, learners spend an average of almost 7 hours a month on the eLearning platform. Learner commitment, motivation and participation speak volumes about the quality and effectiveness of goFLUENT’s personalized training. The eLearning platform, customized content, written coaching, and telephone lessons integrate together to provide the most consistent and efficient learning experience possible, and the results speak for themselves: Across Europe, the overall English level improvement is 20%. In some countries, employees’ level improvement average after 34 hours of lessons is as high as 44%, which is the difference of an entire level in six-scale leveling systems (TOEIC, BULATS, CEF). ENGLISH@O-I was the only imaginable solution that could address the needs of any O-I employee, regardless of their level, native language, or professional profile. All O-I employees taking part in the training have specific goals that relate to their careers, and ENGLISH@O-I uses blended learning and a completely personalized approach to address these needs.
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ENGLISH@O-I is a critical development opportunity for all of our employees because it is a targeted strategy that ensures progress for employees whose jobs require them to speak English,” says Emanuela Zappone, Vice President for Leadership and Organization Development.
1 One phone lesson is 30 minutes
Emanuela Zappone Vice President Leadership and Organization Development
Level description Level 6 | Fluent TOEIC 905-990 | CEF level C2
You can speak fluently and accurately in English.
Level 5 | Higher-intermediate TOEIC level 785-900 | CEF level C1
You can speak with very minimal hesitation and few mistakes.
Level 4 | Intermediate TOEIC level 605-780 | CEF level B2
Your English communication can comfortably go beyond concrete situations and include more hypothetical, abstract matters.
Level 3 | Lower-intermediate TOEIC level 405-600 | CEF level B1
Your English vocabulary and understanding of English grammar allow you to talk about a variety of subjects.
Level 2 | Elementary TOEIC level 255-400 | CEF level A2
You can construct simple sentences in English and talk about your family, routines, interests and surroundings.
Level 1 | Beginner TOEIC level 10-250 | CEF level A1
You are familiar with most of the English phrases used for greetings and other ways of showing courtesy.
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Level Monitoring and Level Diagnostic
Average starting level
goFLUENT also provides O-I’s HR professionals with the tools to track their employees’ progress, ensuring an easy and effective way to monitor the return on investment. The Vice President of Leadership and Organization Development, the European Human Resources Vice President, and the President of O-I Europe all committed to monitoring the progress of the learners enrolled in ENGLISH@O-I, in order to ensure that the employees were receiving the full benefit of the initiative. They set up an organized plan to monitor the training, starting with the learners’ initiation into ENGLISH@O-I. HR professionals are also able to make use of goFLUENT’s products to perform level diagnostics during the recruitment process, or when considering an employee for promotion.
Average level after 12 months
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We have very pragmatic business partners, we go to them and say that we want to improve the level of English of our employees and we want to save money, and that goFLUENT is offering a personalized program. And employees talk about their experience to one another, saying “It’s a great program, you should try it.” So at the end it’s quite easy to convince everyone that the program is coordinated and consolidated for the best interests of the company and the employees.” –Aline Estevant, Vice President of Human Resources, O-I Europe
Level improvement vs average time spent per month (October 2009 to October 2010):
Aline Estevant Vice President Human Resources O-I Europe
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Satisfaction 99% of both learners and HR professionals express satisfaction with ENGLISH@O-I.
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line Estevant, Vice President of Human Resources for O-I Europe, describes ENGLISH@O-I as a “dream come true.”
She also said,
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After spending so many years in multinationals and seeing so much money spent on English training, without the training being directed towards any professional targets, ENGLISH@O-I really is a perfect program. It is an investment for our employees and for our company, and at the end of the day, this is really the best possible leverage we can get. It’s giving an opportunity for people to grow, and to grow according to a global perspective. The design of the program, combined with the fact that our employees are making consistent progress that we can monitor, makes it a very powerful solution. In my 20-year career I have never seen something so nice, so exciting, and so powerful.”
Future Plans ENGLISH@O-I is being piloted in Latin America and plans have been made to extend it to Asia.
Key Features of Blended Learning The eLearning platform and customized content present new ideas and reinforce existing knowledge. Consistent feedback with written coaching shows correct grammar and spelling in black-and-white. Phone lessons help train the learner’s ear to make English conversation more natural.
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