A positive company culture and safety environment are not always easy to accomplish. The larger the company, the more diverse the workforce, the greater the potential exists for difficulties arise. This is especially the case when you also add an immigrant workforce with the language barrier. All these different backgrounds and cultures often create a recipe for conflict at the workplace.
What one person considers to be harmless humor, may offend another. Many companies find themselves having to offer sexual harassment training. Why? Because even when it comes to something as serious as sexual harassment, what some consider to be highly offensive, other people might think it’s nothing. I often see different ethnic groups banding together instead of integrating with the rest of the work team. At times, there might be difficulty communicating because of the language. However, often I find the problem to be cultural. Training can be done to help employees bridge those gaps to foster a more unified workplace.
Although people are hired to perform certain job tasks, the way they act often turns out to be just as important is the skill and knowledge they have for the jobs they perform. Soft skills development training enables employees to interact effectively with one another in a harmonious way. Employees learn to work with one another, management, and customers so that everyone can get along. For some people, these types of working relationship skills must be learned and don’t come naturally.
When employees work well together, morale, productivity, and profits soar. When employees are content, they tend to stay in the workplace, reducing high turnover rates. The longer an employee stays at his position, the more efficient and effective he is at that job. It can be an exceedingly difficult thing to transfer that type of knowledge to other newer employees. It takes time to gain experience.
Whether they are new or have many years of experience, employees can benefit from a respectful and collaborative culture. Ultimately, businesses are in it to make money, but they must have a happy and efficient workforce in order to do so and be successful.
We have had experience teaming up with companies to provide a conference interpreting team for these types of soft skills training. In fact, we have teamed up with attorneys who specialize in sexual harassment training. Alfonso Interpreting also provides company surveys that we use to develop plans for training supervisors and leaders. Often the programs we develop focus on improving communication skills and better understanding of diversity.
