Westland Helicopters
AgustaWestland, a Finmeccanica company, is one of the largest helicopter companies in the world. The company offers an unrivalled range of helicopters, training and support solutions to satisfy the requirements of civil and military customers. AgustaWestland has its primary operations in Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States of America.
A key challenge for AgustaWestland has been to adapt to the new culture and operating language of both the joint venture and parent companies.
Clive Higgins, People Development Manager, explained: “The integration process across three geographies including Italy the UK and US is both exciting and demanding for staff. Cultural awareness and language skills are paramount to ensure the organisations effectiveness when working across diverse environments and increasingly, employees of global organisations are likely to need these skills in the future.
"Our aim is to develop a cohesive language and business culture awareness strategy to assist integration, support our extensive global commitments, and equip our personnel undertaking international assignments, in currently 23 countries world-wide, to discharge their activities. RLN SW has helped us to realise what is available to improve our business activity.”
When Peter Gold of RLN South West went to visit Westland on February 2006 he found that the company was aware that it needed to develop a proper languages and business culture strategy. Some activities were already under way, such as the use of an Italian tutor who teaches the language on site at three different levels, but there were others that only began to be actioned thanks to the contact with RLN.
For example,
- the company now has a project with a local provider to deliver language training for the students that they have on site
- they are looking to undertake a language audit, to see what language skills among the workforce can be put to good use
- they have delivered cultural briefings in both Italy and the UK from experts at the International Briefing Centre at Farnham Castle in Surrey, and have started to work on cultural awareness sessions programmes in Yeovil, Italy and the US.
Of course, AgustaWestland has dealings with far more countries than just Italy and the US. With helicopters deployed in a number of countires across the globe including Denmark, Brazil, Portugal and Korea to name a few, an extensive maintenance and training programme has to be in place.
Janice Wass is AgustaWestland’s International Assignments Manager, and is responsible for moving employees and their families to and from countries, where they may be posted from between thirty days and three years. These people need appropriate language and culture training, even if only for social or survival needs, and Janice admitted that some assignments were not as successful as they should have been because of insufficient language training. Westland has now begun to tackle the issue of language preparation for personnel undertaking assignments in a systematic way.
Clive Higgins said: “Our contact with RLN was very useful, as the advice Peter gave us helped the company to realise what is available that can improve our business activity. We see AgustaWestland as an international company that needs to develop these skills. Peter’s visit and recommendations acted as a catalyst to prompt us to do things that hopefully will support us.”
Visit the Westland website at www.whl.co.uk
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