Wandres employee, Zoe Andris (right), and her MLC instructor, Josh Florida
Through Wandres’ repeated partnership with MLC since 2017, they have been able to invest in their visiting German colleagues’ professional development through tailored ESL classes and social immersion into the Ann Arbor culture.
Partnership Beginnings
Wandres, an industrial cleaning systems company, has turned to MLC over the years to support their German employees who come to the US on business. Carola Klingele, Operations Manager at Wandres, says, “It was 2017 when we had the first participant.” Since then, MLC has had multiple international Wandres colleagues joining their ESL classes, assisting with scheduling, English-language assessment, and immersion opportunities into the Ann Arbor culture.
The demographic of these employees, Carola explains, are “younger people from our German office that come here that have finished either an apprenticeship or a study. They are generally in more of the technical areas of the company… that have contact with English speaking customers.”
The employees who travel to the US are here for pretty short stays; 5-6 weeks is the average time. That, coupled with busy work schedules and differing levels of English made it a bit difficult to find a convenient solution to business-specific language barriers. “We didn’t want to go into a community college setting because the courses are too long,” Carola notes. The course lengths, convenient scheduling, and tailored evaluations are all aspects of MLC’s curriculum that meshed well with Wandres’ needs.
Confidence, Connection, and Social Opportunities
Since the German school system is very good, Carola notes, “they speak a fairly good level of English already.” However, they sometimes lack the technical expertise or small-talk that is essential in a business setting, especially in meetings. Building confidence with technical vocabulary, in addition to small talk, builds confidence and connection in the workplace.
Zoe Andris, an Internal Sales representative at Wandres and current student of MLC, notes her improvements in comfortability while speaking English. “The class helps me to speak with more confidence,” Zoe states. Grammar was something she needed to work on to feel sure of herself in a business setting; “Now,” Zoe says, “I feel more comfortable and have the confidence to speak.”
In addition to professional development, these English-language learning opportunities prove to promote social and cultural development as well. Carola notes that the employees who have attended MLC for their stays in Ann Arbor have generally really enjoyed it, especially the social aspects of the experience.
Breaking Barriers & Investing in People
At its core, this partnership reveals the value Wandres places on people. Carola explains that at Wandres, “everybody’s on a first name basis, which for German companies is pretty unusual.” This environment is built on a commitment to give every employee equal opportunities.
By providing ESL classes, Wandres ensures that language barriers never become an issue in the workplace.
It means they don’t have to struggle with things that shouldn’t be a struggle,” Carola asserts. “We want to give them enough confidence so they can go forward and present the knowledge and our machinery.”
By combatting language barriers, Wandres employees’ do not have to worry about things like pronunciation. Instead, “they can focus more on their core responsibilities, like helping a person with a technical question” and delivering their highest standard of work. Wandres invests deeply in people, and MLC is proud to help those people thrive in Ann Arbor.
*****
Wandres GmbH, founded 45 years ago, is a surface cleaning technology company that develops effective and reliable cleaning systems for perfectly clean surfaces in industrial production.