Organizing corporate English training for a team involves dozens of large and small tasks that consume countless hours of HR specialists’ working time:

• finding a provider;
• designing a training program;
• assessing current language levels and dividing into groups;
• creating convenient schedules;
• tracking attendance;
• answering endless employee questions.

At YAPPI, we suggest delegating all of this to our key account managers. What they handle and how they support your team’s learning process — we’ll explain below.

How to launch team training step by step

When ordering corporate English courses, it’s important to understand the key steps your team will go through during the training launch.

At YAPPI, we follow a clear process:

• thorough analysis of your company’s request and tailored program and format suggestions;
• placement testing to assess students’ current levels;
• forming groups based on English proficiency and preferred schedules;
• selecting teachers according to your needs and expectations;
• onboarding your HR team into our digital ecosystem, where you’ll access reports, statistics, and learning analytics.

Launching a corporate English program doesn’t have to be stressful. Just provide us with the necessary input, and your dedicated manager will handle the rest.

A service that delivers results

Working with students is always a challenge — even when it comes to corporate training for adults. Someone gets sick, someone forgets about the class, another resists doing homework, and someone else simply refuses to speak during lessons. That’s when it helps to have someone who can handle it all smoothly — so well, you won’t even notice the bumps along the way.

Training tasks are the provider’s responsibility

To launch a training project, all you need to do is clearly define your request and confirm the course start. We’ll take care of everything else.

That’s why the YAPPI team includes managers, accountants, developers, and other specialists who handle all administrative, organizational, and financial tasks. What might be a problem for HR — is just part of our daily workflow.

Each project manager is supported by a methodologist who coordinates teachers and ensures that the learning materials align with your company’s needs. Our content creators customize the curriculum for each group. If you’d like to include internal scripts or industry-specific vocabulary, just let your manager know — they’ll pass the request to our content team.

We also handle the selection of instructors tailored specifically to your project. However, you’re welcome to ensure your employees are in good hands:

• review our teacher requirements on job platforms — we only hire specialists with at least two years of teaching experience and a minimum of one year in corporate training;
• access teacher resumes directly in your personal dashboard;
• monitor employee feedback about instructors and the school throughout the semester via our yCloud ecosystem.

The manager as a connector between teacher and students

In other words, the manager acts as a bridge between the school’s teachers and your employees. They ensure smooth and clear communication and are the first person to contact when something doesn’t go as planned during the training process.

You can also think of your personal manager as your HR assistant or right-hand man. Need to clarify an employee’s level, pause classes, or adjust the schedule? Just let your manager know — and it’ll be taken care of.

Throughout the day, your manager may switch hats — from system administrator to financial coordinator, and sometimes even to psychologist. If listening to frustrations helps your training project succeed, they’re ready to listen.

Feedback as a tool for our growth 

After the trial lesson, throughout the semester, and once it ends, our managers collect student feedback — not just about the course itself, but everything surrounding it. You can view this feedback directly, so there’s no need to run separate internal surveys. Plus, managers stay active in group chats with instructors, keeping a finger on the pulse of student satisfaction.

We care less about five-star ratings and more about honest, unfiltered feedback. That’s what helps us improve our digital ecosystem, refine existing programs, create new ones, and update our coursebooks.

Our long-term partnerships and messages like “Can we launch another group?” are probably the best signs that everything’s working as it should. Want to join us? Leave your contact info for a quick brief or consultation.

When a company looks for a training provider, the price often becomes the deciding factor — especially on public tender platforms, where cost may be listed as the primary or even the only selection criterion. In such cases, the system may automatically award the contract to the cheapest option.

But focusing solely on price — without analyzing the full picture — can lead to hidden costs and serious setbacks. Instead of saving money, companies might end up spending more in the long run. Worse, employees may feel frustrated by poor-quality training and demotivated by the wasted effort. After all, language learning, especially English, isn’t just about grammar and vocabulary — it’s about psychology, motivation, and personal growth.

For many professionals, deciding to improve their English takes deep internal commitment. It’s that powerful “This time, I’m doing it for real” moment. A poor choice of provider can break that momentum.

So what should HR professionals actually look for when choosing a corporate training provider? Drawing from their real-world experience, Vitaliy Vasiliev, CEO of Yappi Group, and Iryna Lyalenko, Head of Client Relations at YAPPI, share practical insights for making the right call.

How companies typically choose a service provider

When a company needs to purchase a service, it usually follows one of two paths:

1. Launch a public tender on a dedicated platform and review proposals from multiple vendors.
2. Research the market independently, then send selected providers a price request or formal invitation to tender.

The first option often seems easier and less resource-intensive, which is why it’s more commonly used. However, it comes with challenges: operators may submit proposals late, or present overly polished marketing offers lacking real substance. In this case, the quality of your tender request or comparison table significantly impacts the relevance and clarity of the responses you receive.

Once the proposals are in, the company typically evaluates them through several key departments:

• HR department;
• procurement department;
• department head requesting the service;
• company director;
• goalkeeper (often security, IT, or legal)
  

The direct stakeholder (e.g., the department head or HR) may emphasize quality and relevance, while the procurement team’s goal is to minimize spending and secure the most cost-effective option. At this stage, the most persuasive case usually wins.

Let’s take corporate English training as an example. As HR, you may clearly understand the value of investing in quality language education — not only for skill development but also for employee motivation and engagement. However, to get buy-in from procurement and leadership, you’ll need to make a strong, evidence-based case for the cost.

Key criteria for choosing a corporate training provider

Of course, most companies consider basic factors like price, range of services, provider reputation, and client reviews. But some critical elements often go unnoticed — and they can make or break your training initiative.

✓ Provider specialization

Here’s your first essential tip:

If you’re looking for corporate English training, choose a provider that specializes in corporate English. Simple, right? Yet it’s one of the most overlooked points during the vendor selection process.

When evaluating dozens of providers, it’s easy to get distracted by impressive portfolios. But beware: if a provider offers English for kids, conversational courses for adults, Hindi lessons, and corporate English — chances are, their programs are generic and not tailored for the specific needs of a business environment.

Such a “one-size-fits-all” approach often means the content is adapted only slightly for different audiences, making it difficult to customize for your company’s industry, team goals, or communication context.

✓ Training program flexibility

Another essential factor to consider from the start is the structure and adaptability of the training program. It’s important to know whether the provider can tailor the curriculum to your employees’ specific needs.

A green flag:

Want to know if a provider is more than just a smooth talker? Ask them to modify their proposed program. A reliable training provider will adjust the curriculum before the training even begins, and will show you what the learning experience actually looks like.

✓ Teachers

Consider their experience specifically in teaching business English to corporate clients in group formats. If a teacher has 10 years of experience, but only with school children, they likely won’t be a good fit for your employees — especially not for your company’s top management.

Also pay attention to the teachers’ certifications. It’s important to understand that the services of professionals who invest thousands of dollars and a great deal of effort into self-improvement and developing their professional skills cannot be cheap. In addition, it’s important that the provider has its own system for improving the qualifications of its teachers. Don’t hesitate to ask what that system looks like and how it works. If such a teaching center exists, the provider will gladly share the results of its work.

Find out what kind of contracts the provider has with its teachers:

Do they have stable workloads over a long period, or are they recruited only for specific projects (i.e., just to launch a group)? This is a key point. To select a teacher who suits your needs in terms of level, specialization, and experience — and to ensure an equal replacement if needed — the provider must have a well-established recruitment and training system, and cooperate with a large pool of trusted teachers.

If you are considering hiring a teacher without going through a provider, weigh the pros and cons. Yes, it will be cheaper. But such a teacher may not always be able to adapt the program to individual company needs. That requires specialized expertise and technological solutions to organize the learning process effectively. Not every freelance teacher has the ability to present material in an interactive digital format, so they often rely on free available resources (e.g., Liveworksheets with PDF textbooks). That’s exactly why major schools have whole development departments for this.

A teacher must have a clearly structured curriculum, which is usually based on a textbook. Therefore, they can’t modify it completely — doing so would break the course logic. In this case, you can only count on the use of additional materials.

✓ A learning platform

Today, this is a must-have, as a learning platform significantly accelerates, simplifies, and enhances the overall quality of the training process. And we’re not talking about simply using a video conferencing tool for online lessons — we mean a fully adaptive platform with an interactive textbook and a personal student dashboard.

A tip:

I can recall a case where a provider successfully passed the client’s technical requirements and even won the tender. However, during the actual training process, it became clear that they had no learning platform, no proprietary textbooks, and no qualified instructors. So here’s the lesson: Don’t just check whether a provider has a certain tool — evaluate whether it meets your needs, and whether it offers the right functionality and flexibility. Otherwise, you might end up in a situation straight out of the “expectation vs. reality” meme.

A learning platform also requires ongoing support and maintenance. For example, at YAPPI, the yCloud platform is continuously developed by a dedicated team. This department is responsible for improving, adapting, and regularly updating the platform. The company has already invested over 25 million UAH into yCloud and continues to develop it — allocating a monthly budget line specifically for its upkeep.

If a provider invests in their platform only once every five years, then — considering today’s pace of technological change — it may already be outdated before the next update is even released.

✓ The textbook matters

To ensure that learning delivers real value, the textbook must be not only modern and interactive, but also aligned with international standards. For each English proficiency level— from A1 to C2—there should be a separate textbook developed according to the CEFR framework. This means your employees aren’t just going through a random set of lessons, but are following a clear, structured plan for the entire level, with a defined understanding of what skills and knowledge they should gain by the end of the semester.

Keep in mind: developing a textbook is a collaborative effort involving authors, editors, and learning designers. And beyond the initial writing, the content must be regularly updated to stay relevant, engaging, and even appealing to the most demanding learners.

✓ The team behind the product

Some may argue that part of the work can easily be replaced by AI. But in reality — no matter how advanced the technology or skilled the developers — 60–70% of a successful training product still depends on the expertise of the human team defining the vision and delivering the work.

So, how can you assess a provider’s professional capacity? Start by asking about the team’s structure and responsibilities. Look for details like:

• How many methodologists are on the team, and will they be actively involved in supporting your company?
• Does the provider have a dedicated human resources department, not just a recruiter?
• Who develops the learning materials, and how is that process managed?
• Is there an in-house IT team maintaining and improving the learning platform?

As an HR professional, understanding these roles gives you a complete picture of the provider’s capabilities and long-term reliability.

A tip:

Find out what the provider’s reputation is on the job market. What do former employees say about working there? What feedback do other HR professionals share about their experience collaborating with this provider?

✓ Client contract duration

Another key indicator of a provider’s reliability is the average length of their contracts with clients. Take a moment to compare this with your own company’s average training engagement. Then, ask the provider for their numbers.

For example, the average contract length at YAPPI is 5 years, with some clients renewing for nine consecutive years. In some cases, companies pause their training temporarily — only to return later with new groups, ready to continue their learning journey.

✓ Extra perks that make a difference

Free conversation clubs, grammar workshops, make-up sessions, and even fun quizzes to track progress — these seemingly small extras can say a lot about a provider’s mindset. They show that the provider genuinely cares about the client experience and is committed to helping learners achieve real results.

What’s included in the cost of English training

Think about it: if a lesson costs, say, 300 UAH, how much of that actually goes to the teacher? Would a certified teacher agree to work for that amount? And is there anything left to pay the rest of the team (if there even is one)?

Program and textbook development, reliable and user-friendly learning tools, a team of experienced teachers and professionals, and personalized support throughout the training process all require resources. Most importantly, they justify the investment.

A red flag:

Sure, in some cases, a provider may offer discounts to clients. But if they start lowering prices already at the public auction stage, trying to compete solely on cost — you can be certain they’re simply aiming to acquire as many clients as possible. And that inevitably affects the quality of service.

As we mentioned at the very beginning, trying to save money on training can sometimes result in twice the loss if the provider turns out to be the wrong fit.

A real case that highlights the importance of risk assessment

A company selects an English training provider for its employees and signs a contract to launch ten groups.

After the first lesson, one group of students requests a new teacher. That’s not unusual — providers should anticipate such scenarios. However, in this case, the school responds that a teacher replacement is not possible.

Another group quickly realizes that the school is unable to adapt the training program to their professional needs. The material offered doesn’t reflect their work context, so the employees refuse to continue the training.

How do we know about this case? The company had to start the selection process all over again — this time, more thoroughly — and eventually turned to YAPPI. We successfully launched the training, but the lost time, employee motivation, and potential revenue missed during that period could not be recovered. Aside from these issues, companies can lose money in other ways — for example:

• Being charged for canceled lessons
• Facing training pauses due to technical issues (like platform outages)
• Delays caused by an absent teacher

To avoid such risks, the contract should clearly outline:

• An action plan for class cancellations
• A payment policy that’s fair and transparent in such situations

Pay attention to the provider’s flexibility and client-oriented approach in this regard.

A tip:

Ask about the mutual responsibility between the provider and the teacher. Not only should the school guarantee a replacement if a teacher is unavailable, but the teacher should also bear some responsibility for leaving the project mid-course.

A reliable provider will always hold a welcome session for the client to walk them through the platform. Don’t skip this opportunity — use it to clarify everything before signing the contract or launching the training.

And finally, one of the most valuable steps in a tender process is a demo lesson. It can answer most questions about the training approach and help you evaluate the real quality behind the proposal.

Justifying the cost of professional development services: a checklist for HR

So, you’ve found a provider who checks all the boxes — but there’s one concern: the price. Don’t worry. Here’s a checklist of arguments you can use to justify the investment to your procurement team. We’re confident that the number of boxes you tick will speak for itself.

• The provider’s specialization aligns with your company’s goals and training needs
• The training program can be customized to meet your internal requirements
• Teachers have experience in teaching business English tailored to your industry
• There is a modern learning platform with regularly updated content, interactive textbooks, and personal dashboards for both learners and HR/managers
• The provider has positive feedback from current and former employees, indicating a strong internal culture
• Your company will receive ongoing support throughout the training period
• The provider has long-term contracts with existing clients, showing reliability and sustained value
• Students receive extra perks such as free conversation clubs and grammar workshops.

At YAPPI, we’ve been teaching English to companies for 19 years. One of our key insights? Corporate training isn’t just about language skills. It’s also about team cohesion, setting new shared goals, exchanging experiences, humor, and inside memes. Training becomes part of the corporate culture that unites. And if it’s well-organized, it also becomes a powerful tool for employee and company growth.

How a provider can simplify HR’s life when organizing training

✓ Digital ecosystem for HR and employees

Today, a learning platform is a must-have for every provider. A standard LMS system includes data on student attendance and progress, schedules, and links to online lessons or in-person class timetables.

When a provider develops its platform into a full-fledged ecosystem, it significantly simplifies your training organization. In this case, as a client, you can access:

• each student’s attendance percentage;
• reasons for a student’s absence;
• data on lesson cancellations by the provider + the ability to cancel lessons;
• results of all employees’ entry tests;
• the percentage of lessons completed and material mastered by the student;
• the course program and expected outcomes;
• feedback on learning from both students and teachers;
• resumes of teachers working with your employees;
• access to group chats with teachers;
• detailed financial reports downloadable in PDF.

✓ Effective foreign language learning methodologies

The quality of material retention and, accordingly, learning effectiveness depend on the methodologies used to design the course. Key modern approaches — such as spaced repetition and the flipped classroom — are based on the research and experiments of H. Ebbinghaus (who developed the forgetting curve and explained how the brain best retains information) and B. Carey’s theory of disuse (which states that knowledge fades without practice).

Integrating these methodologies into the course:

• allows rational use of class time;
• activates learned material in speech, improving retention;
• accelerates progress through systematic practice, real-world application, and teacher feedback.

Regular interim tests and student progress monitoring demonstrate employee progress in real time without requiring additional oversight from HR or management.

✓ Working toward a specific result

When discussing our approach, we don’t sell English by the lesson — we work to achieve a specific result per course (i.e., mastering one level of English).

On our end, we guarantee seamless operation and ongoing advancement of the learning platform, continuously refine teaching methodologies, enhance material relevance and practical value, invest in educational technology integration, and support professional development for both instructors and our entire team. Yet these efforts represent only 40% of what makes a training initiative successful.

The rest depends on the student, specifically:

• attendance and regularity;
• engagement and participation in lessons;
• preparation, homework completion, and additional practice in speaking clubs/trainings;
• motivation, influenced by factors like salary/position dependence on English proficiency or employee co-payment for training.

Why providers don’t always meet expectations

Some companies come to YAPPI after unsatisfactory experiences with other providers. They share their failed cases and pain points, which we analyze to find solutions to common problems. For example:

• a company pays for English training for 70 employees, but only 30 remain by the semester’s end;
• employees stagnate at B1-B2 levels for months or years.

The result? Employees waste time, HR and leadership lose credibility, and the company wastes its budget (doubly so if switching providers and restarting).

From HR experience, employees drop out due to:

• Irrelevant materials;
• Inconvenient schedules (not all providers offer flexible time slots);
• Dissatisfaction with teachers;
• Ineffective or nonexistent learning platforms (no interactivity).

Why does a carefully chosen provider fail to deliver effective, engaging training? After analyzing mistakes (ours and others’) and studying client challenges, we’ve concluded:

✓ Prioritize quality over stated price

Focusing 100% on price and 0% on quality risks getting a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Tender bids should be proportional.

Quality/Price ratio:

• 70/30: Optimal
• 50/50: Acceptable
• 30/70: Risky
• 0/100: Unacceptable

Imagine wanting to replace a teacher mid-semester and being told it’s impossible. Or the teacher gets sick/quits, and students must wait months due to lack of substitutes. Or requesting program adjustments to retain employees, only to hear, “Stick with it till the semester ends.”

A case in point: A large pharmaceutical company signed with YAPPI after a failed semester with a cheaper, “reputable” provider. When their needs went unmet, employees refused to continue, wasting 4-5 months of potential English monetization.

If your goal is to profit from employees’ language skills, quality must guide your choice.

✓ Expand provider selection criteria in your tender table

When preparing the tender table, it’s crucial not only to account for all the company’s needs but also to articulate your requirements in detail. This ensures you can thoroughly research and accurately evaluate provider proposals.

The rationale for narrowing down criteria in the tender table is understandable: instead of unsolicited marketing from providers, you receive a clear list of services and tools they offer. But here’s what actually happens. Under a loosely defined criterion like “availability of a learning platform,” providers who genuinely offer an interactive platform with digital textbooks may check the box — but so will those who:

• purchased access to an LMS and uploaded scraped PDFs of British textbooks (often without copyright holders’ consent);
• simply offer Zoom classes paired with the aforementioned PDFs, marketing this as a “platform”;
• even label a basic Google Drive filled with internet-sourced materials as a “platform.”

By treating all providers as equal and selecting the lowest-cost proposal, a company may end up with:

• no competent teachers;
• no option to replace or reassign instructors;
• zero interactivity or digital learning tools;
• no systematic material development tailored to the client’s needs;
• inflexible scheduling and rigid teaching approaches;
• and ultimately, no visible results or employee motivation to learn.

How to properly evaluate a provider: selection criteria

Real example: A client chose a cheaper provider over YAPPI without verifying tender claims. Expectations? Cost savings and modern interactive platform lessons. Reality?

• no learning platform;
• stitched-together PDF textbooks;
• inflexible schedules due to teacher shortages;
• teachers canceling lessons (breaching contracts);
• no coordinator dashboard or student progress tracking;
• no personal manager or client support.

Sometimes, even after several lessons, it’s hard to assess a provider fully. But pre-contract research is possible. Detail your tender table. If it looks like this:

• Cost (per course/month/group, etc.)
• Group lesson duration
• Lessons per week
• Course duration
• Payment format (per course/monthly/etc.)
• Student replacement option
• Post-course certification?
• Online group option?
• Free trial group lesson?
• Pre-course student testing
• Methodology description (e.g., textbook used)
• Minimum group/student count for in-office classes?
• Materials included in cost?
• Classroom requirements
• Other specifics

At first glance, this table appears to cover the essential questions, but in reality, it fails to provide any real understanding of what services you'll actually receive or their quality.

Gather input from all departments and staff involved in training decisions about the criteria they'll use to evaluate providers. Dedicate time to developing the fundamental requirements that we'll now examine in detail.

✓ Provider’s specialization, curriculum, and textbooks

Selecting a school that specializes exclusively in corporate English significantly increases your chances of working with competent instructors and optimized programs. While most providers now include corporate courses in their offerings, many lack the specialized experience and materials required for effective business language training.

A dedicated corporate language provider can:

• customize both curriculum and materials to your specific needs;
• demonstrate adaptability through flexible group and individual training options;
• provide authentic testimonials from current corporate clients.

When it comes to textbooks, you can request confirmation that they are written according to international standards and correspond to the knowledge level of your employees. If a school uses textbooks from major publishers such as Cambridge, Longman, etc., find out two important things:

• whether the school is a certified center of the mentioned publisher;
• whether the provider has a team responsible for developing and adapting learning materials, including the integration of professional vocabulary.

The global idealization of British textbooks is undeniable. They dominate the market but often lag in localization and digitalization. The school should provide proof that their materials are up-to-date, locally adapted, and gathered on a single platform. Thanks to the work of a content management department, your lessons won’t focus on using a fax machine in the office or how Nokia is conquering the world, but rather on the latest developments in the world of artificial intelligence.

By the way, in the peak era of AI, it’s also worth checking whether the provider works with AI and how exactly — whether they optimize technical processes, use AI for content creation, or integrate it into their learning platform via API.

✓ Implementation of technological solutions for effective learning

A provider that is genuinely interested in their clients’ success invests in the technological component of their services. Interactive tools enhance learning effectiveness by increasing engagement, personalizing materials and tasks, and offering the ability to practice even without a teacher or group.

Based on our own digital ecosystem, we can highlight the following most effective tools:

• flashcards with spaced repetition algorithms that help students learn vocabulary and grammar without rote memorization;
• an AI-powered pronunciation trainer that analyzes a student’s speech and provides precise feedback on pronunciation and intonation;
• a wide range of interactive exercises for different language proficiency levels aimed at developing various language skills;
• simulations of real-life communicative situations that accelerate adaptation to a foreign-language environment.

Don’t miss the opportunity to attend a demo lesson and personally test all the features of the proposed platform.

✓ Teachers

In a typical foreign language teacher vacancy on recruitment websites, you will see the desired English level from B2 and a willingness to hire a student. However, in a tender, the requirements should go beyond just a higher education degree and a certificate of language proficiency. Consider the following:

• at least two years of teaching experience with adults;
• experience in corporate, specialized, or business English;
• possession of a DELTA, CELTA, TEFL, or TESOL certificate;
• qualifications obtained in the last three years, not only in teaching, because your students are looking for not only a teacher but also an interesting conversational partner;
• a list of companies the teacher has worked with.

Remember that a translator or philologist is not necessarily a qualified teacher. Pay attention to how the teacher’s qualifications and experience align with your requirements. Upon your request, the provider should provide their criteria for evaluating the expertise of teachers.

✓ Employer brand and corporate culture

A reliable provider not only sets high requirements for teachers but also offers appropriate working conditions, which you can check on job websites:

• a ready lesson plan and provision of teaching materials;
• professional development within the company (a training center for teachers);
• a certain degree of freedom in planning lessons with the opportunity to influence the learning process;
• financial and non-financial motivation, such as the ability to choose a schedule and work on interesting projects.

An English school should operate as a single organism. The client should have support from a manager, the teacher should have methodological support, and there should be departments for content development and HR, while the online platform should be supported by technical assistance. When everything works in sync, the teacher is fully prepared for their job.

It’s a good sign if the provider can talk about their R&D team and its work on lessons. Another advantage is when teachers can influence the process of creating programs and lessons by providing feedback on the lessons they’ve taught. Check the provider’s career page and find out how they’re doing with corporate culture. Some schools hire teachers for numbers and, regardless of their qualifications and experience, treat them simply as talking heads.

To find out what colleagues and teachers say about the working conditions, check the provider on DOU or forums. As one candidate honestly said during an interview, if the teacher is dissatisfied with these conditions, they will not perform their job effectively.

What else you need to know about the provider before starting the training

If the provider is slow to get in touch with you, fills out the tender documentation poorly or partially, leading to unnecessary clarifications, this might indicate that the training process will also be problematic.

On the other hand, the stability of a company is demonstrated by the following indicators:

• the average duration of contracts with the provider and teacher cooperation;
• recommendation letters with specifics about the collaboration, provided by current employees;
• availability of an annual school evaluation system among HR specialists, students, and teachers;
• the registered legal entity matches the provider delivering the services;
• provider’s activity in the media and social networks.

Additionally, you can ask the provider for the contacts of three HR specialists from companies listed on the school’s website, who are currently studying or have studied there previously. Get live feedback about the training, communication, the school’s response to challenges, etc. You know about HR groups without us. However, pay attention to whether the HR of the English school is recommending you to study at their own school.