Hanesbrands, Inc. (Hanes) is a socially responsible manufacturer with some of the world’s strongest apparel brands in markets around the world. Hanes is a Fortune 500 company, headquartered in North Carolina, with approximately 68,000 employees in more than 40 countries.
Business Challenge
This balanced supply chain approach gives Hanes a competitive advantage in terms of cost, scale, flexibility and compliance with best-in-class management practices. It also presents a global communications challenge.
To enable global communication and collaboration, all business and reporting at Hanes is conducted in English. This means an essential requirement for its Human Resources team is to effectively assess and benchmark English proficiency across the company, and provide appropriate training solutions to help their employees excel.
Learning & Development Solution
Hanes partnered with Learnship to develop and deploy a range of assessment, multi-cultural communication and language skills training programs across the organization.
The program was designed to align with Hanes’ business objectives to improve global collaboration, strengthen cross-cultural teams, boost innovation and provide a benefit to drive employee satisfaction.
Program Design
Learnship worked with Hanes to design a program centered on its need for a consistent global employee assessment and benchmarking program, the results of which could then be used to drive the design of a more effective language learning and development program.
Global Employee Assessment Program
STEP+ (Standard Test of English for Professionals) is a dynamic, digital English test which can quickly and effectively evaluate the business English proficiency of the workforce in 4 key areas: grammar, reading, listening and speaking.
Global Language Learning & Development Platform
Hanes’ language learning and development program was designed around Learnship’s self-paced digital learning platform. This would give Hanes employees 24/7 access to an 11-level curriculum with a broad range of language learning tools and multiple learning opportunities, including: on-the-job support and productivity tools, live group classes, a complementary skill-based mobile app and human support by a learning specialist.
This solution has been implemented for Hanes employees in Thailand, Vietnam, Honduras and Dominican Republic.
Personal Training Option
The global program also offered the option of a 12-month program with full access to the digital platform, supplemented by live personal sessions with a trainer to practice conversational skills and accelerate language skill learning.
This solution has been implemented for employees in Japan.
Learner Engagement
Since 2016, a total of 384 Hanes employees have taken an assessment to determine their business English capabilities and 131 have gone on to participate in a 12-month English learning and development program.
These 131 students have completed a total of:
- 11,600 hours on the language learning platform
- 24,890 learning activities
- 7,361 micro-learning missions on the mobile app
Learner Satisfaction
- 88% of learners would recommend Learnship to a colleague
- 90% of learners said the program has helped them use English at work
Business Impact
We asked learners to think about a normal work week and tell us how much time they estimate saving because of their improved English skills.
- On average, learners confirm saving 1.8 hours each week thanks to their new skills
- Considering a full population of 131 students since 2018, these 1.8 hours of productivity gain per week surpass 10,000 hours saved per year
- If we estimate $25 per hour as a cost per employee hour
- Hanes has saved over $300,000 since the beginning of the program
Surveys were conducted with program participants in Honduras, Japan, Vietnam, and the Dominican Republic between May 2019 and February 2020.
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