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Talking the talk: how business can learn from the public sector

When it comes to being innovative, efficient and responsive, the business community likes to think it is way ahead of the public sector. After all, haven’t outsourcing companies like Capita proved that they can run services 30%-plus cheaper than public bureaucracies? Aren’t MBAs fast becoming a pre-requisite for senior level public sector appointments? And didn’t the government spend more than £1.4 billion on management consultants in 2003-04?

There is little doubt that public authorities are increasingly interested in learning from the best that the private sector can offer. But can the flow of good ideas and good practices between the two sectors be reversed? Or, to put it another way, what can business learn from the public sector?

One area where UK companies are notoriously poor performers is language. At all levels - from chief executives to sales professionals to receptionists - the representatives of British business tend to be monolingual. A recent report by CILT, the National Centre for Languages, concluded that:

“The current pattern of UK international trade reflects linguistic competence rather more than market opportunity. The approach of UK businesses is distorted by the need to avoid markets where English speakers are not likely to be found. It means we are more likely to be tapping mature markets, in which English-speaking contacts can be found, than developing markets which have much greater potential for economic growth.”

Yet language is an area where the UKpublic sector is widely acknowledged to be a world leader. This is not because public employees are all multilingual - most of them are as monolingual as their private sector counterparts. Rather, it is because public authorities have been remarkably successful at developing policies and procedures to help remove language and cultural barriers.

In particular, the public sector has become a big user of telephone interpreting, a communications tool that is almost unheard of within the commercial world. Telephone interpreting enables key public service providers - from doctors to police officers to charity workers - to talk to non-English-speakers in almost any language. The service, which can be accessed in a matter of minutes through a freephone number, uses professional interpreters and is available 24 hours-a-day.

“The business community can learn a lot from the way that public authorities use telephone interpreting,” says Carolyn Burgess, the chief executive of EITI, a Yorkshire-based interpreting and translation company. “Organisations that use telephone interpreting are sending out a very powerful message: whoever you are, just phone us up or come and see us and - within a few minutes - we’ll be able to talk to you in your own language.

“The beauty of telephone interpreting is that organisations don’t have to depend solely upon a small number of employees with language skills. Anyone can use the service to - in effect - speak any language. And it means that, even if your staff already cover twelve languages between them, your organisation can still respond to an unexpected call in a thirteenth language.”

Telephone interpreting was pioneered by healthcare professionals in the early 1990s. Since those early days, the service has been taken up by public authorities throughout the UK: in 2005, EITI set up 15,000 telephone interpreting calls in over 100 languages for NHS trusts, police forces, charities, and local and central government. So why is business lagging behind the curve?

“I think one reason is the ‘word of mouth’ network within the public sector,” says Mrs Burgess. “It was clinicians who first realised the huge potential of telephone interpreting. They found that - as well as being an ‘emergency’ resource - telephone interpreters could also be used for ‘routine’ medical consultations.

“There is, of course, a massive range of applications for telephone interpreting within the private sector, from sales to credit control to dealing with foreign red tape. It is also ideal for business people travelling overseas. A call to a telephone interpreter from a mobile phone could make all the difference when things go wrong or plans need to be changed.

“At EITI, we’re seeing a steady increase in the use of telephone interpreting by our commercial customers. Many of these customers initially come to us for written translation or face to face interpreting services. We’re then able to work with them and suggest some ways in which a telephone interpreters might be able to help their business.”

The business community in the UK is not unaware of the importance of multilingual communication. Speaking in July 2005, Hugh Morgan Williams, the chair of the CBI’s SME committee, said:

“Anyone who is serious about doing business in an international context needs to wake up to the need for languages. British companies will be making a big mistake if they over-estimate the role of English when their competitors are already able to respond in several languages.”

The need for languages is a compelling challenge for British business: can the public sector show it the way?