International organizations, in particular, are under increasing pressure on a global level, to further increase employee engagement and productivity. Companies with foresight do not react to this with even more pressure, but by setting in place flexible and agile organizational structures, ready to adapt to the needs of a remote workforce.

In 2016, Deloitte described, in their Human Capital Trend Report, the rising trend of working from anywhere, as the “rise of the virtual teams” or remote workforce. According to this report, 92% of the companies surveyed rated the internal reorganization of their company as “important” or “very important”. With the latest modern technology and infrastructure to support a spread-out workplace, increasing globalization and a growing emphasis on the employee’s well-being (including healthy work-life balance), it’s clear that remote work isn’t a trend, or the result of dire, extreme circumstances – no matter what, it’s here to stay.

Differences in culture, workplace norm, and linguistic diversity leading to misunderstandings, have an undeniable negative impact on the harmony of cross-border relations. The business will suffer if diversity is not handled correctly. Better language and communication skills will help HR and L&D build more flexible and responsive teams, at the same time as helping address the main challenges they face, according to the Speexx annual HR and L&D survey.

HR and L&D professionals have a key role to play in supporting the language and communication skills development needed to underpin an effective team network model. There are many tools and solutions that companies can implement to digitize face-to-face meetings and improve communication for a remote workforce.