HENNGE office in Shibuya. A Japanese employee conversing in English with an American male employee.
*This article first appeared on June 9, 2022.
TOEIC is a test that measures English proficiency. That common sense is beginning to change.
Focusing on companies with many foreign employees,Emphasis on the ability to speak and chat in English rather than reading comprehension as measured by the TOEIC Listening Test & Reading (L&R)It is designed to
At HENNGE, a SaaS startup that uses English as the company’s official language, they changed the standard from just TOEIC (L&R) to a system that evaluates the four skills (reading, listening, writing, and speaking) from 2020. change.
In addition, Mercari, whose Tokyo office employs half of its engineering staff, has changed the English level used in job postings from TOEIC to CEFR, an international index, and has introduced a uniquely developed speaking test. is used to determine the conversation level.
SuchBehind the move away from TOEIC is the fact that companies are promoting the use of English in order to acquire foreign nationals such as engineers.There is
We interviewed the current “English proficiency” required by companies.
Made English official. “Recruitment difficulties” in the background
Mr. Feng Yang (right), executive officer of HENNGE, and Mr. Takasu, who is in charge of personnel evaluation.
“Southeast Asia has a “treasure trove” of engineering human resources.However, they were reluctant to work in Japan because they could not speak Japanese. So I decided to make English official because it would be nice if I could speak English.”
Shota Kawaminami, an executive officer of HENNGE who has been involved in recruiting, says so.
In 2016, HENNGE, which develops SaaS related to security when using the cloud, made English its official internal language. Of the approximately 230 employees, approximately 20% are of foreign nationality, such as those from Southeast Asia, Europe, and the United States (as of September 2021).Text communication is in principle in English, and half of the employees speak English on a daily basis.
The aim of making English the official language is to hire engineers of foreign nationality, such as those from Southeast Asia.
“One of our engineers was promised an annual income increase of more than 1.5 million yen, and was even hired. We couldn’t hire even one person, so we stopped hiring.”
Gradually born “persistence to TOEIC”
Although the number of TOEIC test takers appears to be on the decline, it is one of the most common English tests in the business scene, with 2 million people taking the test each year.
Although the official language has been changed to English in order to actively recruit engineers from overseas,The average TOEIC (L&R) score of employees at that time was 495 points out of a maximum of 990 points.The average score of all test takers was often around 600, which was a tough result for a company that uses English as its official language.
However, after that, TOEIC scores were included in personnel evaluations as a promotion condition, and as a result of the company encouraging English learning, TOEIC scores steadily increased.
Although there was a culture of improving English proficiency, gradually “a culture of sticking to the TOEIC score has also emerged.”
“The good thing about TOEIC is that it is given frequently, and it is easy to learn, including textbooks.“Why do you evaluate only with TOEIC L&R? There are employees who have high scores but are unable to communicate, and conversely, there are employees who do not score very well and are able to work in English.”I started to hear people saying that, so I decided to fundamentally reconsider from the evaluation axis.” (Toshihiro Takasu, who is in charge of personnel evaluation, etc.)
Switch to international indicators
Therefore, in 2020, we decided to change the criteria for judging English proficiency.
Until now, TOEIC (L&R) scores alone were used to judge students, but the company decided to introduce the international index CEFR (Cefar), which measures foreign language proficiency.
CEFR is an index that evaluates English level in six stages, and if you take TOEIC, TOEFL, IELTS, Cambridge English Test, Duolingo English Test, etc., you can replace the score with CEFR.
However, in the case of TOEIC, the score of the L&R test is added to the score of TOEIC (S&W test), which tests speaking and writing.“Speaking and writing” skills, which have not been evaluated so far, are also requiredIt became so.
“Thinking again about what the purpose of studying English is,is. Until now, evaluation criteria have focused on reading and listening as a result, but I thought it was necessary to first create criteria for what you want to be able to do in English, and then establish a system for evaluating all four skills.” (Mr. Takasu)
We also changed personnel evaluations. The system has changed from a system in which employees cannot be promoted without English proficiency to a point-based system in which income increases as the level of English improves, encouraging voluntary learning.
The appeal point is that you can work in English in Japan
In Vietnam, the country is cultivating IT human resources. An increasing number of companies are turning their attention to Southeast Asia in search of IT human resources (the photo is an image).
Improving the English proficiency of employees has had a positive effect on hiring foreigners.
HENNGE’s foreign recruitment team participates in university job fairs and tech conferences in countries such as Indonesia and the United States, and also posts information on local engineer recruitment media.It is said that recognition as “a Japanese company whose official language is English” is progressing.
However, in Southeast Asia such as Vietnam, tech companies from other countries such as Europe and the United States are also moving to acquire engineers, and competition is intensifying. But “that’s why we need English,” Fenyang said.
“Vietnam has an overwhelmingly larger number of IT human resources than Japan, and there are quite a few engineers who want to live in Japan.I think that being able to work in English will become an important factor in hiring from overseas.”
Mercari develops its own tests
Mr. Oyamatsu is in charge of language education at Mercari. In his previous job, Mr. Oyamatsu was a professional language educator who taught Japanese to foreigners as a freelancer.
At Mercari, half of the engineering team in the Tokyo office is made up of non-Japanese employees.Introduced an original speaking test to measure conversational ability instead of external tests such as TOEICbottom.
Once every six months, employees are tested for their English proficiency, and each one is given feedback and learning suggestions to improve their level.
At Mercari, there was a time when TOEIC (L&R) scores were entered as a requirement for recruiting, but now the CEFR level, an international index, is specified on the recruiting page. For example, the recruitment page for data analysts and market researchers says, “English: Independent (CEFR-B2) welcome.”
Mercari will open a development base in India in June 2022. We are accelerating global development and talent acquisition.
After listing on Mercari in 2018,The number of foreign employees has increased rapidly, and it has become an issue to improve the level of Japanese and English, which are used as the company’s official languages.Therefore, a department specializing in English and Japanese education, Language Education Team (LET) was established to provide language learning curriculum for employees.
Masayo Oyamatsu, manager of LET, explains why they introduced their own speaking test.
“In the past, I spent a lot of time and money learning English using various English education services.When I returned to work after the lesson, many employees could not speak English. I think it was one of the reasons that the purpose of the lesson was the TOEIC score.
Also, some external learning services take years to complete the beginner level, but that doesn’t keep up with the speed of business. We aim to learn content that is directly linked to practical work in a shorter period of time.”
Business opportunities for ‘conversation-focused’. Go on the offensive with AI-based tests
Masuyo Ando, chairman of PROGOS, a subsidiary of RareJob.
There are some companies that see this shift away from TOEIC as a business opportunity.
In 2020, RareJob, an online English conversation service, released PROGOS, a new service that tests English speaking ability according to CEFR standards.
Until now, speaking tests have generally been evaluated by humans.In this test, AI judges ability. The test time is 20 minutes, the result can be obtained in 2 to 3 minutes at the shortest, and the cost is 550 yen per test.Compared to other tests that cost several thousand yen for one test, it appeals that it is easy to take.
However, RareJob has also been affected by COVID-19 and is facing tough times.
In the financial results for the fiscal year ending March 2022, operating income decreased by 56.4% from the previous year to 291 million yen.”The lack of opportunities for foreigners to visit Japan for overseas travel, overseas business trips, sightseeing from overseas, etc. has slowed down the need for English conversation learning for adults.”and analyze.
As for PROGOS, although there were 1.2 million applications over the year, only 130,000 were actually used. Although there were applications for corporate contracts from companies promoting globalization, there were cases in which employees took the exams voluntarily, and the rate of taking the exams was sluggish.
Aiming for TOEIC scale economic zone
Such a rare job expectsRaise the speaking test market to TOEIC levelis.
According to the medium-term management plan,The market for TOEIC preparation books, apps, and coaching services is estimated at 50 billion to 100 billion yen. The goal of PROGOS is to create an economic zone of similar scale.
Masuyo Ando, chairman of Progos, a subsidiary of RareJob, says that the need for practical English conversation skills has increased due to the impact of the coronavirus, which is a tailwind.
“Corona has reduced business trips, and global companies have more opportunities to speak and chat in English online.Some companies are considering visualizing English proficiency and using it in staffing, and more and more major Japanese companies are introducing PROGOS.We believe that the speaking test market is still growing.”
(Text by Kotaro Yokoyama)
Source: BusinessInsider
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