Chief Learning Officer - June 2008 - (Page 34) Learning in Latin America ith the recent economic slowdown and widespread talk of a prolonged recession, the U.S. business picture has been looking fairly bleak in the past few months. But for global learning executives overseeing offices in Latin America, that picture is a lot brighter. “We are facing a big momentum in Latin America in terms of solid economy and sustained growth,” said Marcela Leon, director of learning for IBM Latin America. “We are growing in terms of population as well, which [gives] us a young population that is eager to learn and develop.” To that end, what do learning leaders need to know about developing learning programs for Latin America? The areas that pose the greatest challenges and offer the most exciting opportunities can be boiled down to three categories: language, logisDATA POINT tics and culture. Exposure to the Internet is low in many Latin American countries. Habla Ingles? For instance, there are only It’s no secret that global enter12 million active home Internet prises with offices in Latin users in Brazil — less than America have to overcome a 10 percent of the population. language barrier. But what’s perhaps less well-known is that there’s more than one language in the mix — and that results in myriad challenges. “Most people think of Latin America as Spanishspeaking, which is almost true,” said Juan Cabral, chief learning officer for Sun Microsystems Latin America. “We handle several languages here.” Portuguese is spoken in Brazil, and French, German and Dutch are among the many languages BY AGATHA GILMORE Operating in Latin America presents unique challenges and opportunities for learning executives hoping to educate their workforces while maximizing value. W spoken in the Caribbean, a region often included in Latin America operations. Yet most of the corporatecreated training materials, such as e-learning courses and student guides, are developed in English. It’s less of an issue when the written materials can be reviewed by Spanish-speaking instructors or when the course is technical and relatively simple because employees can read through it at their own pace and use a dictionary to look up vocabulary they don’t know, Cabral said. “But as the course really gets richer — pops up a video, somebody talks over the Web or there’s some dialogue — things start getting really complicated,” he said. Since translation of all the English materials is impossible, Cabral said Sun supplements soft-skills and other content-rich courses with small workshops that help clear up questions and facilitate employee discussion of the content, ensuring it is fully comprehended. In some cases, Sun Latin America even will partner with learning executives in countries with similar languages in Europe or elsewhere to create enough volume to hold sessions in more languages. Logistical Issues Latin America, which consists of Mexico, Central and South America and the Caribbean, totals more than half a billion people. Each country varies widely in size and economic strength. Brazil, for example, is considered an emerging market and occupies more than 8 million square kilometers — or roughly 50 percent of South America — while Mexico is considered highly developed and is less than one-quarter of that size. “It’s difficult to talk about Latin America in general: It’s a very different situation from country to country and from place to place in the country,” said Fabio 34 Chief Learning Officer • June 2008 • www.clomedia.com http://www.clomedia.com
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