Sending an email in English might be the fastest way to communicate with colleagues in the next country or half-way around the world. But do they always understand the message? Rob Hyde reports.

Though English may be widely accepted as the international language of business, the proficiency of non-native speakers varies across Europe and Asia, which could create communication problems and misunderstandings.

Zena Martin works as associate director for London-based public relations agency, Firefly, which manages multinationals such as AltaVista, Compaq and Fujitsu.

The company also has offices in Scotland, France and Germany that it liases with regularly. Although her foreign colleagues speak fluent English, "We can’t expect them to speak or write fault free-English," Martin says. "Also, when you write something, it is generally more formal than when you say something, and this is where the trouble can start.”

She has sometimes been amused by the invention of non-existing English words by her foreign colleagues.

For instance, a colleague contacted her saying they had a "prospection" — "a freshly-created noun which they used to mean ‘a prospective client'," she says. "It can be quite funny sometimes, but luckily there are never any major communication difficulties because their English is generally very good indeed.”

To prevent any major mistakes from happening, foreign clients send their English-language material, such as a business reports, to the international team at the London office for proofreading.

But the bigger danger, say some HR managers, comes from emails between company workers for whom English is a second language.

Kirstin Baudisch is the HR director at the e-commerce software solutions provider, Intershop, in Hamburg, Germany. The German division of Intershop also has offices in Jena, Ilmenau, Stuttgart and Berlin, along with offices in France and England. Its official communication language is English.

Baudisch says when sending and receiving English-language emails to France, she has really struggled in the past.

“It really was very problematic indeed – the French colleagues were not understanding my emails and I couldn’t make head or tail of what they meant either," she explains, noting that cultural differences were more to blame than the language.

“German business practices are different to French, and this would cause some difficulties in itself for anyone – but to have this then intensified by the language barrier for both of us, just made everything very tricky.”

Baudisch believes her lack of familiarity with French business culture meant that didn't know what was more offensive to her French colleague: contacting him directly or via his superior.

However, after holding cultural training courses for expatriate staff in the German offices, some of these foreign workers suggested that the company try an inter-company, cross-culture training course to improve communication between its European offices.

“It really worked a treat," says Baudisch. "After having learnt more about French business practices, we could better anticipate what the offices would be expecting in terms of the format of a message, and vice-versa.”

“Moreover, the fact that we had met these people in person meant that when we came to send emails, the ice was already broken and we looked forward to staying in contact and knew sometimes how the other person would prefer to be addressed.”

The need for cross-culture communication training within companies is firmly backed by Lydia Herremans from Netherlands-based Hestia Expatriate Consultants, which advises the management of expatriate staff for a broad range of clients.

Herremans says while the training cannot provide a magic solution, it will definitely make it easier for workers in different countries to gain a better understanding of each other, which should help reduce misunderstandings in the future, especially by email.

“The problem with email is that you cannot see the person and so you only have the worlds to go on and no useful non-verbal signs like hand gestures or facial expressions which you do have in a face-to-face conversation.”

According to Herremans, another fundamental problem for companies is failing to understand the perceptions of each company role in each country.

She says in Holland, and in often in the UK also, workers are seen as "equals" of the boss. There, the boss is supposed to be approachable and one should be able to talk freely with him. In Belgium and in France, however, a boss is expected to behave as one and thus be very bossy.

“It all becomes even more complicated with countries such as China and Japan," says Herremans. "Here, companies forget that when a Chinese or Japanese responds with ‘yes’ they may simply be saying that they understand the English that is being used as this is a normal procedure in their culture and language.”

In fact, she says, “It might well not at all mean they are approving of what is being said. In face-to-face talks this might be clear, but by email it can be almost impossible to recognise this crucial difference.”

A natural response to attempt to overcome any potential misunderstandings via email would be to draw up a set of company rules which would rule out the use of certain forms of language such as slang, idioms, puns, joke-phrases or swear words.

However, the suggestion appears highly unpopular with HR managers and expatriate experts alike. Herreman believes such a policy would be pointless because it would require each company in each country to have multiple sets of handbooks to cope with emails from various countries.

Baudisch at Intershop also adds that whilst slang, jokes and swearing is not ruled out as part of a company policy, people are just given a job ‘on trust’ and with the assumption that the would be sensible enough not to use such risky language. She doubts any such company policy would ever be set in stone.

Only Martin at Firefly says she had been forced to sign a document that laid out rules for what could not be written in an email, although it did not say how an ideal company email should be written. Martin says she hardly views this as an infringement on her rights.

“It’s really not that big a deal, it’s just common sense – you are at work so you should not send overly silly or explicit emails to colleagues within your office or at other offices.”

June 2002

UK-based freelance journalist Rob Hyde is a regular contributor to Expatica HR. A British national, Rob has lived and worked in England, France, Germany and Austria. His work has appeared in The Times, The Sunday Express and the Wall Street Journal Europe.