Each year, workforces are becoming more diverse and increasingly multilingual due to remote working and globalization. A multilingual workforce is beneficial for a variety of reasons as it expands the culture of the work environment and makes the company more inclusive for customers, clients, and employees. However, managing a multilingual workforce is not always easy.
There are different ways of communicating in each language that could make communication, trust, and embracing diversity in a multilingual workforce challenging. Here are tips for communicating with a multilingual workforce to bridge language barriers and build trust in the workforce.
Develop Communication Policies
To ensure everyone in the workforce is on the same page, no matter what language barriers there may be, develop communication policies and procedures that allow you to hear everyone’s thoughts and concerns. When team members and team managers speak different languages, there’s a chance for misinterpretation.
Providing key documents and various informational materials in multilingual formats ensures accessible communication policies for all employees.
Of course, these communications should be available in the language that each employee speaks. Approaching employees in their own language, and giving them the peace of mind that they can also share their thoughts in that language, further improves engagement and trust.
Offer Multilingual Training
Provide training that makes each team member feel included and appreciated. Multilingual training will make communicating easier for every team member. The training you provide your workforce can include multilingual documents, instructions, and materials to account for all employee backgrounds. This can be a great way to celebrate diversity and overcome language barriers in the workplace while also allowing employees to learn tangible professional skills.
Provide your employees with a guide that discusses common workplace safety phrases, sayings, and policies in each of the languages present in the workplace. This makes sure everyone is on the same page about safety while also showing each employee that they are valued.
Hire a Translation Service
The best way to manage communication, celebrate diversity, and embrace a multilingual workforce is by ensuring each employee can comprehend every document and communication. Companies such as International Language Services offer full translation services to advance any and every workplace environment.
Services delivered by International Language Services include professional translators, comprehensive processes, sophisticated linguistic tools, and unmatched quality control, empowering business initiatives. ILS can take any workplace document, meeting, presentation, or report and translate it accurately and effectively into the desired target language.
Translation services allow your workforce to continue working at a fast pace without leaving anyone behind. Translation solutions also enhance communication and trust in a multilingual workforce by breaking down language barriers.
Embrace Multilingualism
Finally, to communicate effectively and productively in a multilingual workforce, your team and workplace must embrace multilingualism. This is the most crucial step. Embracing multilingualism tells your employees that you appreciate and celebrate them for their differences. It also demonstrates initiative for overcoming difficulties, like language barriers.
When everyone on the team embraces and celebrates multilingualism, each employee feels encouraged to communicate their concerns, questions, and feelings productively. Be sure to enact the steps above to show that you and your company truly embrace multilingualism in the workforce.
Your multilingual employees will feel like their voice at the workplace truly matters because those in charge are taking the time to hear each voice accurately.
Upgrade Your Multilingual Workspace
Managing communication in a multilingual workforce is not an easy task, but it is necessary for the growth and sustainability of any company. Show your employees you are proud of multilingualism in the workplace and acquire translation services.
International Language Services can translate documents, projects, handbooks, and anything else your workforce needs to communicate more effectively in the workplace. Contact ILS today to get started!