Language courses as tool to motivate employees in South Bohemian enterprises

Abstract: Employee motivation is a key to the success of any company. There are many ways to enhance employee motivation. This article deals with corporate training and education in the South Bohemian region with a special focus on language courses as a tool to motivate employees. The authors analyse how and to which extent companies in the South Bohemian region use language courses as an employee benefit in the form of language courses, what foreign languages are mostly taught and required within these courses, and also employee perception of this benefit, and whether there have been any changes related to the Covid-19 pandemic. For the purposes of the research, a questionnaire survey was used and distributed among employees of 20 companies in the South Bohemian Region in order to answer the formulated research questions. Based on the results of the research, it can be concluded that language courses are one of the most commonly used employee benefits, although their form appears to be influenced by the number of employees in a company. The research results also showed that the Covid-19 pandemic has affected the form of the courses and that the respondents are fully aware of the advantages and disadvantages of online and offline language courses.