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Follow on Google News | Bilingual Employees: Debunking Some Common MythsEmployers have several serious misconceptions regarding the potential benefits of bilingual employees.
By: President Ivan Markiet Q: How important is it for a company to have a bilingual staff? RD: That depends. If the company is very small, serves only a local, unilingual community, and has few, if any, growth aspirations, it may not need employees with multilingual capabilities. However, few modern businesses fit that mould. They operate in multicultural environments – even on a local scale – where a bilingual or multilingual staff can give them the competitive edge they need to achieve and maintain success. Recent marketing and psychological studies clearly show that customers are far more willing to buy from companies with which they have social and cultural ties. It is a question of comfort. We seek out those who are similar to us, who understand us. And while English remains the language of choice for businesses the world over, studies have demonstrated that sales people and customer service professionals who interacted with clients in their mother tongue were 50-60% more successful than their unilingual English-speaking colleagues. Clearly, bilingual or multilingual employees are an asset that will enhance your company’s image, boost your revenues, and strengthen your competitive position in the marketplace. Since language training can sometimes be a costly and time-consuming option, particularly when budgets are tight, recruiting personnel with multilingual capabilities is often a more viable option. In fact, given the increasing globalization of today’s economies, bilingual or multilingual employees are no longer an advisable option, but a necessity. Q: Many employers are convinced that they simply cannot afford to hire bilingual professionals. Is this true? RD: Nothing could be further from the truth. As a matter of fact, companies cannot afford NOT to hire bilingual staff if they want to stay in business. And since from a staffing perspective, it is an employer’s market, companies have a unique opportunity to strengthen their competitive edge by recruiting multilingual and experienced professionals without straining their budgets. Q: But how can employers find top-notch bilingual or multilingual employees? RD: Good question! Especially since hiring mistakes are easy to make and costly to fix. There is just one sure-fire way, and that is to deal only with reputable companies that specialize in multilingual recruiting. Take the example of Bilingual Experts (www.bilingualexperts.com) Q: What about the added cost of the testing procedures that are required to verify potential candidates’ language proficiency? RD: Once again, deal only with reputable bilingual/multilingual recruiting experts, who at the very least must be proficient in more than one language if they are to be effective. My ability to speak six of the world’s most common languages for example is a useful time- and cost-saving interviewing tool that allows me to test a candidate’s language claims at an early stage of the hiring process, before the start of the formal testing process. Q: Considering how valuable bilingual or multilingual employees can be, I would hazard a guess that the local supply of top-notch performers is quite scarce. What can companies do then to attract the talent they need? RD: While it is true that multilingual top achievers might be more difficult to find locally, we at Bilingual Experts, have built strategic alliances with reputable recruiting partners around the world. For example, we are currently finalizing partnership agreements with several key players in Europe, each with their own area of expertise. These agreements enhance our ability to locate, for our North-American clients, bilingual or multilingual professionals with unique education, skills and experience qualifications in a wide range of industries, such as transportation, oil & gas, manufacturing and IT – all in a timely and cost-effective manner. Q: What else are employers looking for in today’s challenging economy? RD: Given the increasing competitiveness of today’s marketplace, companies are constantly looking for creative ways to expand their client base. One proven approach has been to target multilingual communities. To address the associated demand for professional translation and language training services from its clients, Bilingual Experts has partnered with three highly reputable and established companies: Dussault Translation (www.dussault- Contact: President Ivan Markiet Bilingual Experts 45 Sheppard Avenue East, Suite 300 Toronto, ON M2N 5W9 Canada 416-518-3338 consultant@bilingualexperts.com http://www.bilingualexperts.com End
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