HONG KONG, Jan. 3, 2011 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- City Telecom (H.K.) Limited (HKSE:1137), (Nasdaq:CTEL) and wholly owned subsidiary Hong Kong Broadband Network engaged GlobalEnglish to improve our English communication skills. Whilst Chinese is our primary language, we believe that fluent English is an essential hygiene factor for our management grade and certain job specific Talents. This is particularly important as our Fibre network expands into the popular premium expatriate favored locations such as Mid Levels, Happy Valley, Repulse Bay, etc in 2011.
We have a wide range of processes in place to improve our workplace English, including:
- To qualify for our Management grade promotion, all new candidates must have a minimum score of 6.5 out of 9.00 under the International English Language Testing System (IELTS).
- We originate a project "Friday For ME" that makes it fun for our Talents to communicate in the workplace in Mandarin and/or English (ME) each Friday, guided by 20 designated language ambassadors.
- In our compulsory company annual exam, English language is tested in Hong Kong and Guangzhou.
Furthermore, we have now engaged GlobalEnglish for their Corporate Learning Service and Personal Coaching Service for 500 Talents as part of our initial deployment. Prior to our formal launch, we had a very successful pilot run for 46 Talents that delivered dramatic improvements in just 40 days. We surveyed the pilot run participants and 89% of respondents agree that GlobalEnglish is relevant to their job and indicate they have been able to use what they have learnt during the pilot period on the job.
"The course materials are very comprehensive, particularly the different learning options in the Skills Center. The beauty of the course is its flexibility, such that users can visit the site and carry on learning and practicing different skills at their own pace. The course materials cater for our Talents with different needs. With personal coaching's additional tuition and users' commitment of time for practice, our Talent's English will definitely improve by using GlobalEnglish," said City Telecom CEO, William Yeung
"We are delighted to be working with City Telecom to support the development of the business English communication skills of their workforce by incorporating our solution into their Talent Management programs. Companies that operate on a global scale must be able to function as an integrated organization, and the ability to communicate in English is central to that," said Mahesh Ram, Senior Vice President of Corporate Sales at GlobalEnglish Corporation. "GlobalEnglish helps companies address this fundamental business need in a cost-effective and scalable way that delivers maximum value to the individual and company," continued Ram.
The detailed post 40-day feedback survey can be downloaded at: http://reg.hkbn.net/ctigroup_admin/files_upload/CityTelecomGlobalEnglishPilotSurveyResults.pdf
For the full Press Release, please download at: http://reg.hkbn.net/ctigroup_admin/files_upload/PRCityTelecomEngagesGlobalEnglish_E.pdf