How do I adapt to manage employees that's first language isn't English?

[pepperrabit]

Hi guys,

I'm starting a new job soon, in which I will be higher management, upto now I've worked smaller jobs in 99% white English speaking area,

I'm now going to be working in a city and aware that a lot of the employees don't speak English as a first language and have been told the store has a language barrier problem.

Obviously, I want to lead with respect to everyone's cultural background.

Some things I've considered is finding out if there is a common denominator language and I can learn some of that as I believe if it was put to a vote English would not come out as the main language and so it would be a bit silly to expect people to learn English and not me learn the common language.

But obviously a new language isn't something to be learned over night, so need some things in place until that point.

I'd also considered finding some people who are bilingual and potentially training them up to be team leaders as I don't believe they should be on minimum wage and translating but I don't think I can give a discretionary pay rise but once I'm in the job I might be able to push that issue more.

And although a lot of our employees are multicultural our main customer base is English speaking, I'd like to also set up some customer based English. So that it protects the employee from rude customers and also ensures the customer experience that we are supposed to promote.

But if anyone has any advice on how to handle this properly or anyone whose first language isn't English, I don't want to appear patronising or rude trying to communicate with people. And protecting peoples dignity in the work place is a huge priority to me!

And apologies if anything I've said is closed minded, I'm trying to be well intentioned and hopefully improve the over moral of the store.

Thanks!

it would be a bit silly to expect people to learn English and not me learn the common language. Where is this? In an Anglophone country? Not silly at all.

It doesn't matter what their first language is. It matters that they have a sufficiently good level of English to be able to do their jobs.

There are very many people working in the UK whose first language isn't English. Some workplaces are very international. They get along fine. Sometimes someone doesn't know a particular word or phrase and seeks clarification. That's all.

I suppose my post is due to the experience I have had. In previous jobs, the small amount of employees that haven't spoken English very well end up leaving and I think it must be quite miserable as there is a lack of interaction due to the language barrier.

Definitely, from being a customer and my walk around there are a good few employees who know very little and barely enough to get by but what would be expected in that situation? I took it as management to try and make them comfortable whilst hopefully improving their English and if in turn I could learn some of the common language.

I’d think that English would be the common language.

If you are based in the UK they should be proficient enough at English to be able to fulfil their role to customers and the company. If they are not then this is an issue.

you could signpost to English lessons or have a teacher come in a teach each week but you learning a new language to communicate or employing people to if this is in the UK is madness. How would you know the correct info was passed on?

(of course if you are not this doesn’t apply)

As above!

How did they even get the jobs if they can't speak English? Or is it technical specific language skills they need to improve? Conversation is fine?

I think you're being patronising and overthinking this.
They are employed in English speaking country, in a shop to interact with English speaking customers. You can run some training in polite conversation and customer role plays but you definitely shouldn't be getting translators in.

I've been in management in a large store with lots of different nationalities. Most staff picked up more language quickly just from daily work. They did gain confidence from the role play type training as it gave them examples of what to say and it was always a fun team session too.

In previous jobs, the small amount of employees that haven't spoken English very well end up leaving and I think it must be quite miserable as there is a lack of interaction due to the language barrier.

If a majority don't have English as a first language, hopefully this won't be an issue in the same way, especially if they are all fluent in the same or a mutually understood language. It won't be a case of a few being isolated and othered.

It's a good thought to learn some of the majority language spoken by the workers, but at the same time, if this is a customer-facing job and the customers are mostly English speaking, there needs to be encouragement for those who aren't fluent in English to improve their skills. Would there be any appetite for setting up informal sessions for practising conversational English in a 'safe space'?

I agree with @pepperrabit.

Given the customer base is English speaking, it's completely appropriate for the main language of work communication in an Anglophone country to be English. Similarly there is no reason in this situation that you should be looking to pay someone more just for being bilingual. There absolutely are situations where being bilingual brings something more to the role and people should be paid more because they have an additional skill set, but in your scenario that would be if it was helpful to have people who could communicate with customers in another language. This isn't the scenario which you see in TikTok videos where people in the US are saying they should get paid more because they can communicate in Spanish as well as English - that's because it means they can support Spanish speaking customers and so they are more valuable to their employer and want to be compensated for that.

It may be that being bilingual is helpful for team leaders, in which case yes of course take this into account when choosing a promotion but there is a lot more to being a team leader than just the language that you speak. This post honestly reads as if you're trying too hard to show that you're inclusive.

If there is a language barrier, your focus should be on upskilling people's English because the job is in English and it sounds like it will be detrimental to their work if their English is poor. That's the important thing for you as a manager in this role. You might also need to look at how important information is communicated to ensure that is provided in several languages - effectively make sure you're focused on equipping your team with the tools to succeed in the role, and ensure that those who struggle with English are included and you make reasonable adaptations. It's also worth looking at whether you can make the fact that so many of the team speak a second language a selling point for the business - is there an untapped potential customer base?

If there is a really dominant non-English language, I might start trying to learn it but to be honest that would be mainly because I have known situations like this where employees make use of the fact that their manager doesn't speak the language to hide things from the manager. That's a long game.

And I agree with @OneFastDuck - you need to be careful here, it does come across as very patronising and actually 'othering' because you seem to be focused on the language not the people. I know this isn't your intention, but as I said you are trying too hard. Read back at what you said 'it would be a bit silly to expect people to learn English' and 'our main customer base is English'.

The majority language of the cleaners at my job is Bulgarian.

Although ability of speaking English is variable most cleaners can be understood. If they forget a word they normally Google it for me.

We all get along fine, generally. Some of my colleagues have learned a bit of Bulgarian, just greetings, that kind of thing, but the effort is appreciated.

I work in a factory were more than half the workforce are Romanian or Polish. The majority are bilingual. There is supposed to be a certain level of Engish understood and spoken but not always the case.
We get by. I work with four Polish people between them there is enough English to have decent conversations. We get by with miming, speaking slower and phrasing differently in basic English words. Got to say we laugh about it.
I've learnt to say thank you in Polish and am learning good morning.
We're not customer facing though.

If there is a predominant language, then I would try and learn this as best as I can.

I would also look into adult English courses (some of which are free) and advise them to attend as part of their working day.

Google translate is good but it’s hard to have actual conversations.

Any training/safety signs/videos should be available on their first language too to ensure they are getting the correct training.

This is England. English is the common language. If they are over here to work and the customers are English speaking, then it is up to the employees to learn it - surely that has to be in their best interests anyway?

I get your desire to be sensitive, but It is quite easy to respect someone’s cultural background without being able to speak their language or even be able to fully communicate with them.

if people are unhappy because they can’t speak English and so feel isolated, then that’s on them to change, not you. Part of being a manager is knowing you cannot keep everyone happy all of the time.

Thanks for the feedback everyone. Great fully received. I'm just very aware of how things affect peoples dignity and so that's kind of where this comes from.

There's a few things I feel I misconstrued or people have misunderstood. And that very fact made me realise communication and how it comes across is something that is a working battle even when you speak the same language, so that's made me more confident on how to be going forward.

Good response OP. You're going to smash this. The below is long but I hope helpful. I've worked in a lot of multicultural environments where people have very different levels of the 'official' language.

If it was my comment on paying more for being bilingual, I think the core thing is there shouldn't be a scenario where you are heavily dependent on unofficial translators. If the level of English is so low that translation is needed, it's not just about whether it's 'fair' they do this without reward - you need to have something more official in place and just because someone is bilingual doesn't mean that they're the right person to be doing that. There needs to some form of training, a process on how it will work and an agreement on what needs to be communicated in what language, and how you'll make sure that the right information is actually being communicated. Paying people more can be a part of that but it's actually a tiny part. Ultimately there is a large amount of trust placed in the translators here, and you can't just assume it is being done right. Eg if you say that an employee needs to work a certain shift, rely on a translator to get that message across, the employee doesn't turn up and says they were told the wrong information but the translator says that's not true, what do you do? Happens even if everyone speaks English but the language issues adds an additional level of complication that you need to work through.

It's hard to know from 'store' whether you're closer to the toilet cleaner scenario (where in reality customers do not have the expectation of material support in English), a large supermarket with high volumes of staff in warehouse roles and there are a large number of roles where customer interaction is similarly minimal, or a coffee shop situation where pretty much every staff member is going to have significant 1 on 1 customer interaction. In all of these it's important that there are official translations of critical information employees must understand (safety, data protection, confidentiality), including training. There's been a recent inquest where it was admitted that employees of a major coffee shop again would have had key allergy training in English only, allowed to take multiple credits and it was accepted they might need to rely on Google translate for some words.

Finally, you can't force someone to improve their English if they refuse to but you need to work out a way to upskill the people who are willing to learn because ultimately you want the best people in the more senior roles, not just people who happen to have been in the UK longer.

I'm working on the assumption that in reality you can't actually require fluent English for the roles because you won't have enough people who qualify who want the jobs and meet other key requirements. But even in the Bulgarian cleaning example, the cleaners are limited by their lack of English: I'll bet the manager speaks good English because there will be an expectation they can communicate on material issues and contract management in English. The company is also impacted (eg the safety / allergen labels on products will be in English so changing cleaning products is more complicated than it would be). Plus you set everything up based on Bulgarian and you might find you're in a position where good Bulgarian becomes a requirement for the role, and an influx of (eg) Romanian speakers to the area leaves you in a mess because you're not able to hire the best possible staff without redoing everything in a other language.

Dignity at work is very important, but core to that is ensuring that the workplace environment is set up so people can thrive. Inclusion comes from what people actually do, not the words they say. Not suggesting you think otherwise but I think in your original post you went down a rabbit hole.

If you're not going to require a high level of English to do the role, then you need to ensure that people who don't have good English can still perform well (and are supported in progressing in their careers if that's what they want).

And honestly I would learn the language but be careful to understand dynamics before you start using it. There's a difference between a customer learning hello in Bulgarian to be friendly, and a new manager coming in and immediately doing something to highlight that they're different to most of their team. In some teams it would work well, but if there is feeling that head office gives preference to Brits over the dominant nationality, it could make things worse and be taken as patronising. You don't know what you're stepping into initially so I would avoid until you know how it will go down.

Investing in learning the language will definitely be useful for you in the long term but it's clearly not something easy like French or you wouldn't be having the English language issues in the first place. That said, you may well find that in a year of two of learning (depending on language) you learn enough to know if someone is mistranslating or being disrespectful (to you or others) and people being aware of that goes a long way to stopping it happening. But of course, this could mean you spend years learning Bulgarian to find that demographics have changed, most Bulgarian speakers you're hiring are second generation now and so speak fluent English, and the people coming in are French speakers from Cameroon! I doubt you'll regret trying though.

So say 5 of 10 speak one language, you want to make the other 5 also learn that language aswell as learning English . That won’t work. It’s nice you are trying to be considerate but you need to be realistic

Is it that all the staff with poor English speak the same 2nd language? That would be unusual. In my work around 70% are from one broad area but not everyone and we mandate English only at work so nobody feels excluded.
How are the company managing health and safety if people don’t understand? Fire drills etc.

You are massively overthinking this.

The common language is English - your goal is to ensure that staff have good enough levels of English to do their job safely, and for those who are customer facing, to a standard that means customers are not frustrated. (And this is basically management - you’d have the same communication standards for people that are native speakers).

As for pay rises, and training up team leaders based on also being translators - there are so many potential issues here.

1. if being a translator is integral to the role - it would need to be included in the job description (otherwise why is person a who’s fluent in six languages getting over person b who is equally qualified skills wise - but only speaks one language).
2. Im sure there will be people speaking several languages - not just one “foreign language”. Which language do you want them to speak?
3. Pretty sure giving someone a pay rise based on their level of fluency against a colleague will not end well.

Your aim should always be to upskill - so whether that’s putting on extra English lessons, or straightforward customer service/professional communications training - that’s the route you go down.

Your own written English isn't too good so maybe work on that first before worrying about your future colleagues.

Exactly what I was going to say! It’s “whose” not “that’s”. Your attitude is coming across very patronising and “othering”. People who don’t have English as their first language have to work far harder than you do, they’ve got the job in the first place! I think you need to reassess your attitude before starting the new job, it could end very badly otherwise

OPs written english is fine, these are not major mistakes.

OP from my experience, you don't need to try to speak a different language, but you do need to keep your written and spoken language very clear, use simple words and be very specific about what you want to say. Bullet points can be your friend. Leave longer pauses at the end of sentences to allow people to assimilate what you have said.

Some of these practices should be common practice anyway. I found having to clearly state exactly what I needed to be done was actually very useful to me and avoided any misunderstanding.

Sometimes someone doesn't know a particular word or phrase and seeks clarification. That's all.

No, that’s not all. I work with someone (he’s in a v technical role) whose written English is excellent but he’ll often misinterpret conversations resulting in mistakes and he’s difficult to understand when speaking. I follow every conversation up in writing which is good practice but may not be easy to do in other industries/roles

Also I started working with a colleague who’d not long moved from Iraq. He asked me to speak slightly slower, that worked a treat for him.

You could start by speaking correct English yourself. In the title of your thread you use the phrase "employees that's first language isn't English". That is incorrect. You don't call human beings "that". Correctly, the phrase should be "employees whose first language isn't English".