MiResumen
all articles

Recruiting Hourly Workers
A Changing Landscape The... more>

Best Hiring Practices
Anyone who has ever had t... more>

Employee Induction
Induction is an area of r... more>

Painful Necessity: How to Fire
Firing people is an unfor... more>

Coping When an Employee Quits
If you've been an employe... more>

Training & Development
Training and development ... more>

How to Interview Well
When it comes to job inte... more>

High Staff Turnover
High staff turnover is an... more>

Recruitment in the Hospitality Industry
The hospitality industry ... more>

A Great Construction Worker
The construction trade is... more>

Managing a Bilingual Workforce
American companies are in... more>

Maintaining a Safe Factory for Workers
Factory safety is an extr... more>

How to Limit High Staff Turnover
High staff turnover is a ... more>

The Growth of the Latino Community
Latinos make up 14.5% of ... more>

English in the Workplace
The Situation The United... more>

Cultural Differences amongst Latino Communities
All too often, news repor... more>

Communication in the Workplace
It's surprising how much ... more>

Rewarding Good Work
One of the best ways to m... more>

The Best Qualities of Restaurant Workers
The restaurant trade is f... more>

Finding Good Help
One of the perpetual crie... more>

Screening Employees
Pre-employment screening ... more>

The Role of Latinos in the Job Market
The Latino population of ... more>

Evolution of Online Recruitment
Online recruitment has co... more>

Cultural Sensitivity
Cultural sensitivity in t... more>

How to Incentivize Employees
One of the most tried-and... more>

Keeping Staff Happy
They say that a happy wor... more>

Languages in the Workplace
Diversity brings a compan... more>

Workplace Diversity
Workplace diversity issue... more>

MiResumen
MiResumen
Languages in the Workplace

Diversity brings a company many different perspectives and ideas and tends to add significant benefits to the workplace environment. Most businesses have thus accepted the necessity for hiring all types of workers. And while this is a very positive step, it is not necessarily the easiest transition for a business.

With diversity of people comes diversity of language and as much as we like to pretend that everyone speaks English that is simply not the case. As a manager, we must now create a harmonious environment of work, where collaboration is constant, but with severely limited communication.

The question is how to bridge the language gap for employees, while maintaining the sense of diversity in the workplace.

There is no easy answer and there is no golden rule. What I can do is lay out some simple steps and guides that will at least provide the basic groundwork for solving this highly complex issue:

  1. Do’s
    • Always encourage communication
    • Push for collaboration
    • Find common ground between the different cultures and languages
    • Look for shared experiences
  1. Don’t
    • Encourage everyone to speak the same language (whether you ask it or not, people living in the United States are trying hard to learn English).
    • Focus on the differences between employees
    • Let divisions occur between groups of employees

Most importantly, encourage everyone to attempt to learn some of the other languages present in the workplace. Even if it is only a few words, it will bring everyone closer and show the employees that they are a group, striving to include rather then exclude.

MiResumen

Home | Services & Pricing | Support | About Us | Privacy Policy | Terms of use | Site Map

Emerging Demographics Inc. All Right Reserved. Copyright 2009