Secco Petrochemical achieves excellent learning progress with EF’s online English school
Shanghai, China 25 July, 2012- Shanghai Secco Petrochemical Company, a joint venture between Sinopec, SPC and BP, today announced the initial results of its online English language training program with EF Education First. It is the first time that Secco has conducted language training of any kind within the company.
Founded in 2001, Secco is one of the largest joint venture petrochemical projects in China with nine main production plants. Its facility, located just outside Shanghai, has one of the highest production capacities in the world which enables Secco to meet market demands.
Secco’s goal is to become a world-class enterprise in its field; in order to achieve this, they decided last year that every employee needs to have a standard minimum level of English proficiency. Being deeply committed to employee development, the decision to launch a language training program was made carefully. Secco chose to work with EF not only because BP, one of its parent companies, already had a successful long-term partnership with EF, but also because Secco wanted a training solution that was customizable to individual needs. Naturally, every employee has a different learning style and starting level, so Secco was keen to find a solution that could cater to these diverse requirements. EF’s Online School features 16 levels of content with over 2,000 hours of learning courseware and content around differing topics and interest areas. This tiered and highly flexible learning structure means students can work through the levels at a pace most appropriate for them, and focus on the skills around which they need particular help. This, coupled with live, teacher-led virtual classes, meant EF’s Online School was the ideal tool to meet the diverse needs of Secco’s staff.
The first wave of enrollment into EF’s Online School commenced in May 2011. At this initial stage, 324 students were signed up in an open enrollment, including production employees and petrochemical engineers. An assessment of their learning results after just 12 months of study has found that these students progressed an average of two EF language competency levels in this period. Johan Nordqvist, Regional Vice President, Asia commented: “This level of improvement will have a significant impact on Secco employees’ ability to communicate and collaborate with colleagues and partners in English. It is an excellent result and is testament to both the level of end-user engagement with EF’s Online School and Secco employees’ commitment to learning English.”
Secco’s Human Resources Director, Lily Song, echoed this sentiment: “After the first year with EF we have noticed a visible reduction in the use of our Translation Desk and that people are more confident speaking English in meetings. In addition, the introduction of e-learning to our corporate culture has encouraged people to be more pro-active about learning, so we are looking forward to using it more in our training repertoire.”
Secco plans to roll out English training via EF’s Online School to another 220 students over the next year.
EF Corporate Language Learning Solutions
EF Corporate Language Learning Solutions, an EF Education First company, is the world leader in corporate language training for multinational businesses and public sector organizations. Over 1,500 organizations and 15 million students worldwide have put their trust in us for a reason – we have proven time and again that our training solutions generate real results. With a worldwide network of offices in over 50 countries, executive language institutes in Cambridge and Boston, and the world’s most advanced online, on-demand language school, EF provides the highest returns on language training investments. For more information on EF Corporate Language Learning Solutions please visit: www.ef.com/corporate