Workforce Language Services

The author of this article aptly describes the importance of recognizing, fostering, and utilizing diversity in the workplace.

THE CHANGING WORKPLACE
Firms doomed if they fail to tap diverse talent pool

New statistics from the 2006 census confirm what leaders of Canadian corporations have feared for years.

The workforce is aging rapidly; the ratio of new to retiring employees is approaching 1 to 1. Labour is going to be increasingly in demand in an expanding economy.

To avoid succession and staffing crises, Canada’s corporations, now more than ever, have to tap into groups traditionally under-represented in the workplace.

Many Canadian corporations are already diversity leaders; more need to follow. Here are seven key principles of diversity management:

The business case for diversity is strong. By 2011, immigrants will make up 100 per cent of Canada’s labour force growth; 70 per cent of them are visible minorities. Immigrants, more than native-born Canadians, have credentials and new perspectives that can help overcome the lag of innovation recently noted by the Conference Board of Canada.

Organizations that do not get the business case for diversity today will be wiped out tomorrow.

This article describes an Ontario school board’s new program that teaches local immigrants the language and skills they need to work in the health-care field.  With the correct language and job skills, immigrants are able to fill the need for qualified workers in the ever-expanding health care field.

The Limestone District School Board is launching an innovative program to teach local immigrants the language and skills they will need to work in the health-care field.

With a grant from the provincial government, Limestone Community Education will train two classes of as many as 20 students apiece in health-care terminology and workplace training. The pilot project will help the students can pursue further education in health care or go directly into a job in the sector.

“We know that the health sector is a job market that is expanding, where employers are facing challenges in recruiting trained, qualified applicants,” said Laura Patterson, who is co-ordinating the program for the board.

“Kingston is a city that is getting older and there is a big demand for people in that field.
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The program will be run at no cost and 15 of the 20 available places in the first course that begins in September have already been filled, she said.

Students who have already enrolled come from as far afield as Africa and Pakistan. While they all have a basic command of English, the 200 hours of classroom instruction, with another 150 hours of internships and job placements, will teach them to navigate the technical and often jargon-ridden world of health care.

This article provides an example of the “English-only” argument, using references to the Bible.  According to the author, America is becoming “hampered by multiculturalism.”  While the author recognizes linguistic and cultural diversity, he pins it as “confusion.”

“Coming Soon: One Pure Language” - theTrumpet.com

The solution to the linguistic and cultural confusion that divides our world

“We didn’t cross the border! The border crossed us!” “America is a continent not a country!” “If you think I’m ‘illegal’ because I’m Mexican, learn the true history because I’m in my homeland!”

These sayings and dozens of others like them are shouted and plastered on signs during pro-immigration marches, recited on political talk shows, spouted during debates in cities across the United States. They represent a firmly held conviction among a growing number of individuals living in the U.S.: not just that U.S. law is meaningless, but that assimilation is evil. These residents are planting foreign flags on U.S. soil, inch by inch, claiming territory through a kind of subversive cultural imperialism.

The unity of the once-common American culture is being rapidly compromised. The “melting pot” joined by millions of immigrants in the past who learned English and entered American public life is being replaced by a noisy collection of competing languages and cultures.

Rather than expecting all immigrants to speak English, U.S. schools are spending billions teaching children to maintain their parents’ culture and speak in their parents’ language. Bilingual education has grown to the point where many families now claim racism and discrimination if their cultural and linguistic differences do not receive preference. The rest of society is being required to cater to all personal language and cultural needs. This concept of separate public languages is even spreading to the workplace. The U.S. government is funding the lawsuits of many foreign-speaking workers against American employers who require their employees to speak English.

America is willingly inflicting itself with the age-old curse God once placed upon a rebellious world at the tower of Babel.

This article discusses the growing need for translation in the global economy. In response to this need, a new translation memory technology has been developed. This technology is meant to prevent a human translator from having to translate the same phrases repeatedly. However, there are still doubts about the effectiveness and reliability of any automated translation.

Crossing the language barrier
Developing a strategy for translating languages has never been more important for global companies and growing numbers of firms reckon they can offer an automated solution

The internet has made it possible for even small organisations to have a global reach. However, translating from one language to another remains one of the biggest hurdles for firms wishing to cash in on the globalisation boom.

Most of the world’s population does not speak English competently and technical language can be hard enough to understand even in native tongues. In translations, nuances and local culture must be reflected, and quirks of languages also need to be factored in. For example, German uses about 30 percent more space than the same text in English.

Firms seeking internationalisation have tended to rely on human input to translate technical documents, legal contracts, marketing materials and other files. Now, however, with demand for fast translation of web content a pressing requirement, an automation technology called translation memory is being used more widely to recognise and store phrases for subsequent reuse.

However, the doubt still remains: Can we rely on technology for accurate translations?

While translation memory is making localisation easier, nobody believes the problem has been cracked, and a lack of standards is a particular worry for some.

“For a very long time, people thought the ‘e’ in ecommerce meant ‘English’ commerce,” said DePalma. “The technologies are getting there but the industry still needs the equivalent of an ODBC [database connectivity standard].”

At the University of Missouri, the Residential Life Department have taken huge steps to improve safety, communication, and staff morale, and cultural sensitivity.  This article describes their plans to begin workforce English classes and to translate important work handbooks into Spanish.

MU bridging language, culture barrier
Classes help workers learn English, Spanish.

Doralisa Calmet left Peru four years ago in search of better opportunities in the United States. But when she arrived in Columbia, English was as foreign to her as the weather.

She landed a job as a custodian at the University of Missouri-Columbia Residential Life, but through the years language has proved to be an impediment in completing her tasks.

“Sometimes students ask me where the cleaning supplies are, and I don’t know how to properly communicate with them,” she said through a translator.

Beginning Aug. 20, Calmet and 49 other employees from her department will attend one-hour classes twice a week for 16 weeks to learn workplace Spanish for English speakers and English for Spanish speakers. The classes are free to employees and are offered in partnership with the Adult Learning Center, which is operated by Columbia Public Schools.

MU Residential Life Director Frankie Minor said the department decided to offer its employees the language classes to create a safer, more productive and more enjoyable work environment.

“Our growth in employees for whom Spanish is their first language has been dramatic in the past few years, and they have consistently been some of our best employees,” Minor said. “However, their varying levels of English proficiency has limited their ability to interact with co-workers, supervisors and the resident students with whom they interact daily. Equally, many of our English-speaking employees were also interested in learning Spanish for many of the same reasons.”