A recent study from the Harvard Business School looked at what happened when a Chilean engineering company, the subsidiary of a US group, decided to change its corporate language from Spanish to English. The firm hired language specialists to run weekly training sessions for employees, paired fluent English speakers with less able colleagues, and published glossaries and other English-language documents online.
The researchers, who spent two years monitoring the company’s progress, found that those who started with the highest level of English were more frustrated by the switch, as they confronted gaps in their knowledge. They were also more likely to seek another job, perhaps because they were more employable.