Managing team members that communicate in different languages and come from different cultural backgrounds can be challenging. So, how can you properly manage a team and keep it unified despite language differences?
Effective communication is critical to productive teamwork. It helps team members stay on the same page, resolve conflicts and meet training goals. Many challenges can hamper good communication, and in a multilingual workplace, those challenges can be compounded by language barriers.
Following are some tips from bestcompaniesgroup.com to help managing a multicultural workplace.
- Encourage language learning: Many companies have language improvement programs, either in-house or externally, providing subsidies or time for employees to attend courses.
- Make non-English speakers feel included: Focus on how cultural diversity creates a well-rounded team that can better meet overall business goals. For example, when collecting feedback, offer the translations of tools such as employee engagement and satisfaction surveys to ensure every employee can participate and feels welcome.
- Start with you: Your efforts to provide language training to your employees tells them you are committed to closing the communication gap. Take it even further by learning key phrases in their language to show employees you want to meet them halfway.
- Use language difference to increase employee engagement: Set aside one day per week when workers who speak different languages eat their lunches together and teach each other related expressions. Finding the right people who are flexible, sensitive and value open communication in the workplace will ensure language barriers will not affect your team’s productivity.
- Treat language skills as a business asset: Expertise in a specific language can augment your customer service and sales efforts. Staff with language skills can work outside their main job focus to support linguistic assignments such as cold-calling or translation.
Keep these five tips in mind to help you create solid communication strategies for managing and maximizing the productivity of a multilingual workforce.
