PLS is delighted to announce that Corporate Vision magazine have chosen us as Best Government Foreign Language Training Provider for their 2020 awards. Here we take 10 minutes to interview the Managing Director, Crispin Tucker, who founded the company in 1991.
Please give a brief overview of PLS and the specific role it plays within the industry
Professional Language Solutions Ltd (PLS) was founded in London in 1991. We have 29 years’ proven experience in managing large-scale foreign language training projects, often involving multiple languages, locations and delivery methods.
We are the Prime Provider of training in more than 50 foreign languages to all the diplomatic staff of the FCDO, as well as a wide range of other government departments and agencies.
For nearly thirty years we have been providing flexible foreign language training programmes for leading businesses and organisations. These are delivered on-site throughout the UK by over 500 expert language trainers, and globally via Live Online virtual classroom technology.
We have trained over 25,000 business people and professionals to improve their foreign language skills, and globally our teaching team delivers over 100,000 hours of training each year.
Does PLS have an overall mission?
Our mission is to deliver tailored language training to suit our students’ personal and professional communication goals.
Combining digital content with Live Online virtual classes offers students maximum flexibility and convenience. Blended with traditional face to face training, our technology solutions provide customers with global coverage.
What differentiates PLS from competitors?
PLS is a specialist organisation, dedicated exclusively to providing top-quality language training for adult learners. We work only for government departments and corporate clients, and over 3 decades have developed all the necessary procedures required to satisfy this specific client base.
Unlike many competitors in London, we also offer geographical coverage through a proven national and international network, providing a global solution in terms of range of languages, variety of course-types and breadth of support services.
Reliability and Quality Assurance - With nearly 30 years’ experience, we ensure we provide realistic and achievable solutions to our clients through our tutor recruitment and course set-up processes, our clear structure for course design and our monitoring and assessment procedures.
Ease of use - We are very experienced in dealing with large organisations with complex procurement requirements. From GDPR to Cyber-security, and from HSE compliance to KPI reporting, our processes are in line with best practice as well as statutory regulations.
What is the internal culture at PLS?
PLS is a very culturally diverse organisation, with over 50 nationalities employed. All our customer-facing administrative staff are foreign-language speakers, and many have been language teachers themselves – they understand the issues our students face.
Our Academic Team works hand in hand with our Account Managers to ensure that students are well looked after at every point of their language journey with us.
What does the future hold for PLS?
We are excited by the upcoming market developments and are currently working on a number of projects which will help us bring more online products to the market.
We have also recently launched our Client Hub, an innovative online portal providing L&D/Training departments with a detailed overview of all their language training with PLS, and ensuring students have 24/7 access to learning materials, reports and feedback from their teachers.
Due to Covid-19, overnight all our training was converted from face-to-face delivery to being delivered remotely. This involved the teachers learning new technical skills of course, but more importantly, it also required a rethink of the structure and content of lessons, as the nature of the interaction with the students was fundamentally changed.
We anticipate that some of the logistical benefits of remote delivery, such as removing the problem of finding a vacant meeting room, will continue to be prized by customers, and that remote delivery will become a much more standard part of the offering which customers expect.
In the future we anticipate also that customers will expect more targeted course content, moving away from generic textbooks to multi-media content that focuses more closely on language skills relevant to the specific areas their staff operate in. PLS is already responding to this by developing a suite of customer-focused online placement tests in numerous foreign languages, as well as e-learning courses for very specific target groups of students.