Workforce Language Services

Living in an urban area in the Northeast, where bilingual employees are common, I was surprised to read an article in the Charlotte Observer about a seemingly new phenomenon, a bilingual School Department secretary. 

In addition to handling phone calls and visits from Spanish speakers, she also interprets letters for Northeast Learning Community staff members.

Merced says students should pay attention in their Spanish classes.

“There’s a great demand in this area for people who do what I do,” she says. “I was surprised when I moved here and learned how large the (Latino) population was.

“And now I can use my ability with the language to tell people about the great schools we have. That is fun.”

I’m happy that Lillian Merced is filling an important need in her community, but wonder whether she is the exception rather than the norm in Charlotte.  

Another thing that concerns me is the fact that bilingual employees are often over-utilized and obligated to fill roles that they aren’t comfortable with just because they speak two languages.  It’s important to remember that simply speaking two languages does not a translator or interpreter make.  Furthermore, the added challenge of being called away from other important job responsibilities to interpret for a customer can create a burden for bilingual employees. 

Having bilingual staff in any organization or company is certainly an asset.  Nevertheless, at some point a company may have to make the decision to contract qualified translators or interpreters so that the need for multilingual documents or interpretation services is adequately met without taxing existing employees.

The Washington Post reported on the findings from a review of data about the effects of diversity training on U.S. companies.  They found that diversity training is often implemented in a superficial way, and therefore can even be counterproductive.

Several experts offered two reasons for this: The first is that businesses are responding rationally to the legal environment, since several Supreme Court rulings have held that companies with mandatory diversity training are in a stronger position if they face a discrimination lawsuit. Second, many companies — with the implicit cooperation of diversity trainers — find it easier to offer exercises that serve public relations goals, rather than to embrace real change.

It’s frustrating to see that training on how to manage and work within an increasingly diverse workplace isn’t looked upon as a necessity, but rather a necessary evil.  The first step would be to create employee buy-in so that they see what can be learned from diversity training as valuable and meaningful to their work lives.

I also think that it’s important to continue the dialogue begun at an initial training session so that employees can revisit what they learned and expand on how to include lessons learned into their daily interactions. 

While slightly depressing, this article illuminates the importance of consistently applied strategies designed to create a more inclusive workplace:

Women and minorities often fail to get ahead, he said, because people tend to form social groups with others who are like themselves — and many managers are simply unaware of the talent in their own organizations. Policies that require or explicitly encourage managers to meet with subordinates in different departments can alert managers to talented employees with different social and ethnic backgrounds and help younger employees figure out what they need to do to get ahead.

Newspaper articles about supporting a diverse workforce and creating strategies for integrating multicultural employees almost always focus on the positive, even when talking about the challenges faced.  I’d like to know more about how to combat true resistance to having a diverse workforce, whether it comes from management reluctant to change or from employees who don’t want to learn more about working with a diverse population. 

This article from Deseret Morning News about the changing demographics in Utah also focuses mostly on the positives of the increase in foreign-born immigrants in the state.  The article quotes some wise words from a human resources specialist:

He said managers have to realize that what feels good to them in a workplace may not feel good to someone from another culture. Those managers should work harder to relate better to those employees for the good of the company and for the good of the morale of its work force, he said.

“Walk in their shoes, understand what it’s like to be in a situation where you are not the dominant individual,” Cain said.

“If people in an organization see that the senior leaders are actually taking the time to learn more and gather some tools to help overcome the challenges of diversity and inclusion, then it drives the issue down to the lower levels to actually do the same.”

Very important points to keep in mind, but I’d like to hear more about how it’s done in less than ideal situations, especially because often the “old guard” feels threatened by the influx of different cultures, customs, and languages. 

After having learned to speak Spanish in Mexico and then returning to the U.S. to work with people from the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, I was surprised and delighted to find how varied the accents, vocabulary, and dialects within this common language are.  Even within my small classroom of native Spanish speakers, there was always room for misunderstanding and subsequent discovery of new forms of expression.  I’ll never forget the day that a Mexican woman asked a Puerto Rican woman “Vas a coger la hua-hua?” and then looked at me and giggled.   The use of the verb coger and the noun hua-hua, instead of camion to refer to a bus was foreign to both of us, yet necessary to be able to communicate with her Puerto Rican classmates.

A CUNY linguist’s study on language and assimilation in New York makes concrete what Spanish-speakers in the U.S. experience every day:

“The longer they’re here, the more they become involved with life in America,” she said. “To say that immigrants become American is pushing it, they don’t all speak English — but their language is more and more influenced by English, and that fits into what we know about immigration.”

The different groups often adopt new vocabulary words from their new neighbors, Mr. Otheguy noted, giving the example of Mexicans living among Dominicans in Washington Heights who pick up the word hua-hua to refer to a city bus. The Mexican term is camion.

The different groups also tend to drop different pronouns, with Mexicans and others from mainland Central and South America eliminating the singular pronoun for you, tu, while Puerto Ricans leave out the third-person pronoun for he, she, or it.

Those who commented on this New York Sun article pointed out that this phenomenon is not unique to New York, but the effects can be seen wherever Spanish-speakers of different national origins intermingle.   I tend to agree, and have found that the Spanish of any urban-dweller changes when they come into contact with English and Spanish from other countries.

Myelita Melton’s article reads a bit like Hispanic Culture for Dummies, and may not be useful to managers who have already given some thought to how to manage a diverse group of employees.  But her points about Latino culture serve as a useful reminder and could be the starting point of a discussion about managing in a multicultural environment for those who have just begun to think about it.

 Her mention of nationalism among Latinos should be highlighted:

Nationalism: Nationalism is deeply ingrained in Hispanics. This is a fact that most Americans don’t realize fully. When we see a person speaking Spanish, many automatically assume that the person is Mexican. Often that just isn’t true. Spanish is spoken over a wide geographic area that includes many very different countries.

All of us are deeply proud of our roots. Latin Americans have deep attachments to their homelands and the unique culture that comes with that. Because you speak English, would you like to be mistaken for a Canadian instead of an American? Probably not!

I’ve often seen instances in which people assume that Spanish-speaking countries’ populations all behave and think the same way.  Managers would do well to keep in mind that the cultural and linguistic differences between people from the Dominican Republic and Argentina are just as profound as those between the U.S. and Australia.

Hewitt Associates’ research study on the best employers in Canada provides data showing that cultivating employee engagement is a critical piece of creating a diverse workforce with low turnover.  Companies that scored high in the study were able to successfully engage an increasingly multicultural and intergenerational workforce. 

This comprehensive summary also provides specific steps that companies can take to effectively manage and retain a diverse workforce. 

Two points stood out as especially important when working with ethnically and racially diverse employees:

Increase awareness and knowledge. Employees, particularly managers, may need some education to make them more aware of cultural or other differences. Managers need the training, coaching and support so that they can confidently manage a diverse team on a day-to-day basis.

The best way to increase managers’ awareness and knowledge is through ongoing diversity training that builds upon and puts into practice the information and strategies learned.

Use targeted communication to get the message across to different groups. Without targeted communication focused on specific groups, many employees may not understand the value of their current employment deal. For example, younger employees may not recognize the value of a retirement savings plan.

For companies in the U.S., this may mean providing native language translations of especially important safety information or complex policies and procedures. 

By providing safety information in employees’ native languages, the security of the entire company is increased as there is less room for misunderstanding due to language barriers.  And if those who speak English as a second language have company policies explained to them in their language, this will allow them to fully understand what is expected of them and therefore increase employee engagement.

An agreement which sets percentages for the ethnicity and gender of construction workers hired for a new project could change the face of construction work in Philly if approved.   While I’d be interested to know what the demographics of current unionized construction workers is, it seems that no matter the breakdown, work needs to be done to address issues surrounding race:

The urgency of addressing the issue and overcoming a past history of exclusion, racism and division was underscored by a recent report of a white worker taunting a Black worker with a noose on another Center City project. The Human Relations Commission is investigating.

As Philadelphia takes steps to diversify its construction workforce, comprehensive diversity and multiculturalism training would be extremely useful, both to remedy past issues and avoid future problems as the city’s newly integrated consturction workforce learns to work together.

Details about the pending approval of the agreement here.

In her article for Realty Times, Blanche Evans provides extremely detailed demographics for the growing Latino population and focuses on Mexicans.  She then shares lessons learned from Kiss, Bow, or Shake Hands: How to Do Business in Sixty Countries by Terri Morrison, Wayne Conway, and George Borden. 

While the book’s advice is meant for those doing business abroad, one can also apply the authors’ insights to business dealings within the U.S. 

She ends with both specifics of how Mexicans treat each other when doing business as well as universal truths about respect for clients:

Acceptance and intimacy can be reached very quickly in the Mexican-American culture. Conversations can take place at very close personal distances. Mexican men make a lot of physical contact on the shoulder or arm. Shake hands with everyone, and be prepared for an affectionate greeting punctuated with a hug after three or more meetings.

These courtesies toward Hispanic customers will be appreciated, but the greatest courtesy of all is treating any customer, whether foreign-born or native-born, as if they are the most important customer a Realtor can have, and making sure that they every access to the best services in loan processing and other transaction services possible.