Established in 1990 as an independent not-for-profit organisation, the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR) is a leader in the growing field of alternative dispute resolution and management, and conflict prevention. With effective language skills lying at the heart of its service, formulating a workable communication strategy was a key focus for CEDR.
Although based in the City of London with on-site mediation and training facilities, its statistics show that over 10% of its caseload has an international dimension. With tremendous growth expected in this area, CEDR, a registered charity, decided to undergo an Export Communications Review to improve international market development.
Funded partly by corporate sponsorship, CEDR Solve, CEDR’s dispute resolution service, also provides a range of fee-earning services such as mediation, consultancy and training. CEDR Solve aims to deliver the highest standard of customer service and so the first area under scrutiny was the frontline in-house specialist team. While many key staff had some language skills, mediation services require a precise and high level of language capability. Both UK and international-based mediators ideally required multilingual fluency and intercultural knowledge to attain CEDR’s quality standard.
Ensuring quality of in-house and outsourced language expertise
The review examined the practicality of achieving such high-level language capability and presented a range of options to CEDR. The final outcome has resulted in a mix of achievable language strategies. To obtain the required multilingual expertise, the review recommended specialist legal translation companies and freelance translators from the BLIS Professionals database. All course materials and training manuals were translated into French, Italian, German and Spanish. To embed CEDR’s long-term commitment to addressing language issues, the review recommended the inclusion of language and intercultural skills in their future recruitment policies.
The impact of these measures is summed up by Karl Mackie, CEDR’s Chief Executive: ‘The multilingual materials have provided a firm foundation for CEDR’s international growth, contributing to the development of new opportunities in other countries across Europe.’
Case study reproduced with kind permission from RLN London.