More and more businesses are developing into multinational firms, and acquiring the skill of a foreign language could result in better career opportunities for the employee as well as higher productivity for the organization. While it is widely accepted and encouraged to have a multilingual workplace today, some industries must be more proactive than others.
Here’s why multilingualism is a necessity in your industry.
Gunnarsson believes that technological advances and the phenomenon of globalization have transformed work practices and corporate culture throughout businesses spanning the world. In their opinion, the overall concept of globalization has given birth to employee mobility and workplace diversity, therefore emphasizing and acknowledging language and culture as two major factors capable of causing a positive or negative affect on work practices. In addition, they further highlight the fact that employees from all levels of the hierarchy must be ‘linguistically flexible’ in order to communicate with clients, leaders and colleagues of a different language background.
Baroness Coussins, chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Modern Languages in the U.K., commented that the U.K. economy was losing £50 billion a year because of business contracts lost due to a deficiency of linguistic skills in the labor force (The Guardian, 2014). She also mentioned a loss of more than 27% of clerical jobs unoccupied because of the identical problem. Esser (cited by Beblavy, Fabo and Lenaerts, 2016) concluded that, “language is an essential part of human capital and points to its impact on labor supply and labor market allocation.”
As an employment candidate part of the labor force, the advantages of being multilingual are unprecedented. ACTFL (The American Council on Teaching of Foreign Languages) researched that further business opportunities are possible abroad for the American companies due to globalization, and it is vital for employers to recognize this pressing need for the labor market to be more culturally aware and linguistically diverse in order to take advantage of the opportunities. Industries are expanding worldwide in order to achieve higher and better profits.
While it is widely accepted and encouraged to have a multilingual workplace today, some industries need to be more proactive than others.
Hospitality
Workers in the hospitality industry encounter people from all over the world. Not only are language skills important for effective communication, but they are also vital to successfully satisfy the guest at every opportunity possible.
The hospitality industry runs on ‘word-of-mouth’ marketing, and a ‘poor’ or ‘unsatisfactory’ service review can hinder the entire reputation of the company. Clear and understandable communication is essential.
Willard InterContinental in Washington, a luxurious hotel only a small distance from the White House, was reported to have 570+ members of staff from 42 nations, speaking 19 languages as of 2010. The hotel offers foreign language courses to its employees as part of training and development to help them do better in their profession. Due to this, the hotel has been a favorite of many diplomats throughout the years!
Healthcare
Employees working in the healthcare industry need to be familiar with more than one language as they deal with patients of diverse backgrounds. This is an example of when language learning can literally save lives.
Encouraging multilingualism in healthcare institutions and professionals doesn’t just contribute to safety and rapid response times; it also contributes to communication and psychological comfort by understanding diverse cultures and making patients feel at home in their hour of need.
Education
With families migrating to new countries for better opportunities, educational institutes have also seen an increase in students from diverse cultures and linguistic backgrounds. As an educator or a member of the education industry, being able to successfully understand and communicate with the student is an essential skill. Teachers and instructors are considered a primary source of information for many students and their understanding of a learner can define his or her future.
As schools, colleges, etc. become a hub for diverse cultures socializing under one roof, educators need to be fluent in more than one language to not merely communicate with the learners but also understand his or her background and culture to implement suitable teaching strategies.
Customer Service
Customer Service employees are required to deal with clients, answer their queries and be of assistance in any way possible. This, however, cannot be done to benefit the business and the customer without using a common tongue for conversation. Multilingual employees are highly valued in this industry due to their ability to communicate with consumers in a familiar language and solve the issue effectively.
All of which is a key factor in building up a company’s market and customer base, and increasing repeat sales.
Media and Communication
Whether a person is a TV presenter, journalist or editor, language is the key to earning their ‘bread and butter’. Misrepresentation of information due to language barriers is more common than realized.
ING Media, a Public Relations agency with an international customer claims that hiring multilingual employees is directly correlated to the success of the business. Similarly, Sylvia Laws (founder of the PR agency Technical Publicity) comments that ‘being able to communicate with a native speaker means business is done faster and more efficiently across big and complex markets.’
Benefits
Though the impact of having a multilingual workforce may differ from industry to industry, the advantages are clear for all:
- Improved interpersonal relations with foreign partners and customers
- Flexibility in terms of shuffling staff from country to country
- Improved communication and customer service
- Competitive Advantage
Some of the world’s top entrepreneurs, such as Mark Zuckerberg (Founder and CEO of Facebook), Paul Bulcke (CEO of Nestle), Michael Bloomberg (CEO of Bloomberg LP), are fluent in more than one language and agree that multilingualism should not only be encouraged in the business world but should also be practiced in any way possible (Shoshan, 2015).
To conclude, Multilingualism is a sensitive issue in the business environment. Often it can be considered to be a strategic issue and may even be confidential. It can bring about a change in strategy and in company management targeted towards the best competitive advantage for optimizing sales and developing business.
How does your industry shape up to the challenge?
Andrie Steliou
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