Select Training Solutions
Can you describe your business?
We make sure businesses are communicating effectively in multicultural environments. We audit recruitment candidates in foreign languages, benchmark employees’ language capabilities, and design and deliver bespoke language training courses which prepare staff to communicate effectively in specific fields. If you have staff that need to speak to clients or colleagues in other countries, we will help them do it better.
Why do clients choose your business?
Because nobody else does what we do. We approach our clients with humility. They know that we will never offer them any off-the-shelf products, but instead we ask them what they want. Only then, when we know what our clients want to achieve, do we apply our experience, expertise and know-how to design and develop a working solution.
How do you add value to your client's wants and needs?
Put quite simply, we focus on their needs. We understand the clients’ business needs, and make sure the courses deliver on this. We’ve had clients call and ask for intensive German courses to be prepared for 12 groups in two locations with one week’s notice. We’ve trained a group of beginners in French to a passive level of B2 in three months. We’ve integrated our language auditing services into existing recruitment procedures, so that the client’s candidates are certified at the end of the recruitment process with almost no perceivable change to the candidate’s experience. Our clients love that we solve their problems.
Do you have any new initiatives or promotions coming up?
For the coming year of 2021/22, we’re most excited about our online individual courses, aimed at executives and those with busy lives who want to be able to communicate better. We also have a really useful project which will interest recruiters who need to qualify large numbers of candidates in multiple languages. And then there’s our “Language Upgrade”, where we take participants up a whole level -e.g., from B1 to B2- in 10 weeks.
Does your Business have any surprising facts or interesting achievements?
Not many people know that we are quite active in the area of Corporate Social Responsibility. My favourite projects we have been involved in are training vision-impaired candidates to work in English, and more recently, a course for youth in child-care homes coming onto the job market.
How has the Chamber supported you to date and what more can we do to assist your needs?
The Chamber provides an informal network of industry experts, each with their own unique slant on the intersection of Irish and Polish business. For businesses in Poland, it is a source of economic, legal and business information, as well as a useful source of contacts. Personally, and most importantly, the Chamber has introduced me to an amazing group of friends.
Thoughts regarding the business environment in Poland in 2021?
The Covid pandemic, together with the political and economic situation in Poland, is a textbook example of the VUCA scenarios we have been reading about and experiencing. As such, it is forcing us to become more robust, more flexible, more innovative and more willing to take calculated risks. I also feel there has been a disruption of employer-employee relationships -or rather, a re-evaluation of the human element of business. There are fewer certainties now, but I honestly believe the current climate provides us with more opportunities.
Any advice for new businesses starting up?
Make sure you’re in business for the right reason. And use the real human resources that you have -speak to people, ask for advice, take advantage of your contacts’ knowledge. People are generally happy to help, but remember that it’s a two-way street, so show gratitude, and offer to help in return, or preferably, first. And don’t be afraid to try the local language!
We make sure businesses are communicating effectively in multicultural environments. We audit recruitment candidates in foreign languages, benchmark employees’ language capabilities, and design and deliver bespoke language training courses which prepare staff to communicate effectively in specific fields. If you have staff that need to speak to clients or colleagues in other countries, we will help them do it better.
Why do clients choose your business?
Because nobody else does what we do. We approach our clients with humility. They know that we will never offer them any off-the-shelf products, but instead we ask them what they want. Only then, when we know what our clients want to achieve, do we apply our experience, expertise and know-how to design and develop a working solution.
How do you add value to your client's wants and needs?
Put quite simply, we focus on their needs. We understand the clients’ business needs, and make sure the courses deliver on this. We’ve had clients call and ask for intensive German courses to be prepared for 12 groups in two locations with one week’s notice. We’ve trained a group of beginners in French to a passive level of B2 in three months. We’ve integrated our language auditing services into existing recruitment procedures, so that the client’s candidates are certified at the end of the recruitment process with almost no perceivable change to the candidate’s experience. Our clients love that we solve their problems.
Do you have any new initiatives or promotions coming up?
For the coming year of 2021/22, we’re most excited about our online individual courses, aimed at executives and those with busy lives who want to be able to communicate better. We also have a really useful project which will interest recruiters who need to qualify large numbers of candidates in multiple languages. And then there’s our “Language Upgrade”, where we take participants up a whole level -e.g., from B1 to B2- in 10 weeks.
Does your Business have any surprising facts or interesting achievements?
Not many people know that we are quite active in the area of Corporate Social Responsibility. My favourite projects we have been involved in are training vision-impaired candidates to work in English, and more recently, a course for youth in child-care homes coming onto the job market.
How has the Chamber supported you to date and what more can we do to assist your needs?
The Chamber provides an informal network of industry experts, each with their own unique slant on the intersection of Irish and Polish business. For businesses in Poland, it is a source of economic, legal and business information, as well as a useful source of contacts. Personally, and most importantly, the Chamber has introduced me to an amazing group of friends.
Thoughts regarding the business environment in Poland in 2021?
The Covid pandemic, together with the political and economic situation in Poland, is a textbook example of the VUCA scenarios we have been reading about and experiencing. As such, it is forcing us to become more robust, more flexible, more innovative and more willing to take calculated risks. I also feel there has been a disruption of employer-employee relationships -or rather, a re-evaluation of the human element of business. There are fewer certainties now, but I honestly believe the current climate provides us with more opportunities.
Any advice for new businesses starting up?
Make sure you’re in business for the right reason. And use the real human resources that you have -speak to people, ask for advice, take advantage of your contacts’ knowledge. People are generally happy to help, but remember that it’s a two-way street, so show gratitude, and offer to help in return, or preferably, first. And don’t be afraid to try the local language!
