The modern workforce is more diverse than ever. The American workforce has become increasingly diversified in terms of bilingual, multilingual, and LEP (limited English proficiency) employees.
While linguistic diversity offers definite advantages for companies that embrace the concept, it also presents a unique challenge for HR directors and other company leaders. For example, managers may wonder: "Should we invest in translation support? If so, how can we implement it effectively?"
Let's talk about some of the reasons why you should explore translation support solutions in human resources, and how you can make them work for your business.
First of all, let's establish why it's important to provide translation support in the first place. In addition to avoiding discrimination lawsuits and creating an inclusive company culture, there are other compelling reasons to invest in multilingual support, such as:
1. Increased employee loyalty and retention
It should come as no surprise that language barriers often prevent hard-working employees from staying with a company for many years. One study found that a lack of appropriate management skills will make employees 4x more likely to quit a job. Part of having appropriate management skills is being able to clearly communicate with your employees, including those who are not proficient in English.
Having translation and interpreting support in place can help both managers and employees to communicate effectively, leading to a more harmonious, productive workplace. In turn, employees that speak another language will be more likely to stay with the company, resulting in less turnover.
2. Better customer service
Fostering a multilingual work environment also contributes to better customer service, especially if your company is targeting a culturally diverse customer base. With enough staff on hand to support customers of different languages, nationalities, and cultural backgrounds, you'll be able to grow the company's reach and enter markets that would otherwise be inaccessible.
3. Enhanced leadership development
Finally, language support can help you to better equip your leadership team. They can help leaders to connect with and better manage all employees, as well as gain a better understanding of different marketplaces that you operate in. Encouraging such skills and awareness can enhance the company's overall performance. In fact, one study found that:
"Lower-performing companies were more than twice as likely as higher-performing companies to say they do not require multilingual skills or provide language training of any kind [for "high-potential employees"] (48 percent v. 23 percent)."
In addition to this, without translation support you could be cutting yourself off from a large pool of untapped managerial talent among non-English speaking workers.
Now that we've discussed why translation support is so important, let's discuss some practical ways to implement it.
In summary, there are a number of compelling reasons to invest in professional language services from an HR perspective. For instance:
Of course, the way you implement translation support in your HR department and company will depend on your particular business needs. Nevertheless, by investing in language services, you'll promote a more diverse, inclusive workforce — and contribute to the bottom line in the process.