This article is not, dear reader, a reply or a response to one of the most-read pieces from two weeks ago, titled Un col·legi és, també, una empresa, by Xavier Roig. It is, rather, another reminder that what we broadly understand as a company—a productive economic unit for goods or services—has, since time immemorial, carried with it an educational dimension without which it could neither have been born, reproduced, nor evolved.
Contrary to popular belief, the company did not arise with the industrial capitalism of the 18th and 19th centuries. It may well be that, at that moment, it shifted toward what our post-industrial imagination recognizes as the origin of the modern world: the factory system, the steam engine, the growth of cities... Yet before all that, there already existed the artisanal enterprise, based on small specialized workshops that later came together in corporations of craftsmen or guilds—also called colleges—formed by colleagues, that is, professionals or tradespeople working in the same craft or activity.
It is well known that to open a workshop and be a member of a guild, an apprentice had to train under the supervision of a master craftsman. Training, therefore, was both compulsory and essential—a characteristic that, duly transformed, has survived to this day in modern companies.
So, what does all this have to do with Catalan? In a society like Catalonia’s, where 40% of the working population between 25 and 45 years old was born abroad and has therefore received little or no schooling in the Catalan language, the company must become a school: a place where Catalan is both learned and used. The reasons are clear and straightforward in the case of employees who interact directly with the public. In all other cases, it is a matter of common sense to appeal to companies’ social responsibility to train their workers in a form of knowledge and practice that is fundamental to avoiding a labor force divided between those who can access more qualified jobs and those who cannot—simply due to their lack of knowledge of Catalonia’s own and official language.
Large Catalan companies—especially in the services sector—need to hire workers they cannot find among those born in the country. The lack of language knowledge among workers who are already beyond school age must therefore be compensated later on. For this reason, in the near future, we will likely see major Catalan brands adding language learning to the list of training programs they offer employees.
These initiatives aim to foster an inclusive work environment and promote professional growth through the gradual acquisition of Catalan. Sometimes, it will be enough to design programs based on real workplace contexts, or to create internal mentorship systems where employees with a strong command of Catalan act as linguistic role models for others.
Schools and colleagues within companies will thus be key for new workers who must become active participants in a more cohesive society.