Workforce globalisation, language and discourse

The globalisation of the labour market creates new challenges for organisations when hiring. This article addresses one such challenge that is rarely in spotlight: implications choice a language proficiency test non-native speakers by hiring organisation. We use UK National Health Service (NHS) recruitment practices as an example. With help staged experiment, this practice-based study argues current international procedure to NHS tends underestimate some important differences between formalised system words and grammatical rules discourse ‘language action’, causing loss staffing capacity. It follows from our analysis setting requirements objectives test, recruiting need consider more explicitly social cultural context which their employees operate impact on communication demands faced staff.