January/February
2016
Employers must
ensure all workers understand safety training, signage, and instructions
regardless of their English proficiency.
By Megan Quinn
At
one Midwestern scrapyard, two employees found themselves at odds over a simple
problem: A broken electrical cord on a fan needed to be rewired. The worker who
noticed the damage told his supervisor, but days passed and nothing happened.
That’s because neither one was completely sure what the other had said. The worker
spoke mostly Spanish, while his supervisor spoke mostly English. Finally, a
bilingual employee, who was attending an on-the-floor safety training as an
interpreter, explained the problem. Once the supervisor understood, he quickly
assigned the appropriate worker to fix the cord.
When scrapyard employees have different levels
of English proficiency, misunderstandings and miscommunications are common
risks. Businesses that hire workers with limited English skills say they handle
communication hurdles through a variety of creative approaches and a commitment
to finding language-based resources that will ensure workers understand safety
training and communications essential for their well-being.
Mark Lotzkar’s Vancouver, British Columbia,
scrapÂyard is many miles away from the Midwestern yard with the broken cord,
but he is no less familiar with the challenges—and benefits—of having a
language-diverse workforce. On any given day, the people who clock in at
Pacific Metals Recycling International, where Lotzkar is the president and
general manager, might speak Burmese, Chinese, Egyptian, Portuguese, Polish,
Punjabi, Vietnamese, or Spanish. “They all speak English in various levels of
competency. Some speak very little [English] and need an interpreter, and others
are pretty darn good,” he says.
Lotzkar says the company uses multilingual
safety signage, translation services, and know-how from bilingual employees to
make sure everyone stays safe on the job and understands the hazards of working
at a scrapyard. Regardless of the employees’ native languages, they all need
and deserve to be informed, and it is up to employers to make sure that
happens, he says. “Vancouver is a cultural mosaic for pretty much every
nationality in the world. Because of that, we definitely have to be aware [of
possible language differences] when we are hiring people … because we’re open
to hiring whoever fits the job description.”
There is no official rulebook for how best to
ensure employees with limited knowledge of English can understand and
communicate regarding safety. Deciding what methods to use depends on the level
of your employees’ fluency, their reading and writing abilities, and the
complexity of the subject matter. “Everyone is going to need something
different,” he says.
Legal
Obligations
In
the United States, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration requires
that employers present safety training “in a manner that employees can
understand” and verify that employees have actually understood the training. As
OSHA Assistant Secretary David Michaels explains in a 2010 letter, “Employers
are expected to realize that if they customarily need to communicate work
instructions or other workplace information to employees at a certain
vocabulary level or in a language other than English, they will also need to
provide safety and health training to employees in the same manner.”
For example, if an employee has a limited
vocabulary, your training must account for that. If employees are not literate
in the language you use for training purposes, telling employees to read the
training materials doesn’t count as providing effective training, Michaels
says.
Businesses can do several things to improve
communications during safety training as well as during everyday work
activities, says Mark Lies, a partner with the law firm Seyfarth Shaw who
trains clients on OSHA compliance issues. If employees receive their work
instructions in languages other than English, Lies says, consider providing
safety training in those languages, too. You also might want to enlist the help
of bilingual employees or hire interpreters for official training sessions to
overcome communication problems. Adding visual materials, such as pictograms
and photos, also helps, he says.
In
many cases, OSHA requires employers to verify that their employees understand
the content of the safety training. Lies says recyclers should consider
incorporating practical tests into the training, such as hands-on exercises or
a multi-question quiz, to assess workers’ comprehension.
Maintain detailed documentation of employee
training, Lies recommends, including copies of any practical tests employees
have taken. Alternatively, you can have your employees sign a written statement
that they have received and understood specific safety training. This document
can be in either your employees’ first language or English, in which case
someone can read it to workers in the language they best understand, he says.
This documentation is important during an OSHA inspection to show proof that all
workers have not only gone through safety training, but understood it, he says.
Tamara Deiro, director of safety for SA
Recycling (Orange, Calif.), says her company has used some of these techniques
to verify that employees are absorbing safety training and putting it into
practice. Of SA’s approximately 1,200 employees across more than 45 facilities
in California, Nevada, Arizona, and Texas, between 65 and 70 percent speak
Spanish as their first language, she says. SA has spent the last few years improving
its safety curriculum to give Spanish-speaking employees a better understanding
of the training. Most of the company’s supervisors are bilingual, so when they
go through training or learn about new safety issues, they can pass along that
information in the language that fits their employees’ comprehension level, she
says.
SA recently started testing employees in
writing after most of their safety training sessions, and as a result, both
English- and Spanish-speaking employees seem to have improved their knowledge,
she says. “We come up with our own questions in both English and Spanish, and
[employees] have to get a score of 70 or higher, showing us they understand
it”; otherwise the employee must do the training again, she says.
At Pacific Metals, Lotzkar says managers
verbally ask a set of specific questions to test employees’ knowledge before
they leave the training room. “When you ask pointed questions, it becomes
pretty clear when someone doesn’t get it,” he says. Managers also follow up
with employees later on. If they see someone doing something that contradicts
the safety training, they will discreetly approach the employee and go back
over the errors to avoid singling workers out in front of their peers.
Lies says in Canada, as in the United States,
businesses can face tough monetary penalties if they cannot prove their
employees received proper safety training in a manner that they could easily
understand. In the United States, he says, there might also be criminal
liabilities if someone “willfully violates” a regulation that then leads to the
death of an employee. These penalties can be a big deal, but the bigger deal is
employee safety, he points out. That is “the moral part, the human factor,” he
says. “Let’s pretend OSHA never existed. Wouldn’t you still have an obligation
to tell employees about hazards and help them avoid them if their lives are at
risk?”
Bridging
the Silence
Some
recyclers have learned the hard way that language barriers might prevent even
thoroughly trained employees from asking important questions that keep them and
their fellow workers safe.
Ryan Glant, general manager of Pacific Iron
& Metal Co. (Seattle), recommends encouraging workers to ask questions or
ask to clarify details that can get lost in translation or conversation. “The
biggest challenge is that employees who are not comfortable with English will
often be too embarrassed or shy” to speak when they don’t understand, he says.
“For a long time, we assumed that silence means understanding, but we are
trying to do a better job of getting affirmative acknowledgement from our
employees that they truly understand our communications,” he says.
Deiro agrees, adding that there are many
reasons an employee might not understand a safety communication, whether or not
there is a language barrier: The scrapyard is loud, for example, and employees
are learning about subject matter that is complex and detailed. Regardless of
the reason, supervisors have an obligation to make sure the lines of
communication stay open, she says. Workers “need to have the knowledge that
it’s OK to say, ‘I didn’t understand that.’” At SA Recycling, that message
starts at the top, she says: CEO George Adams made the phrase “speak up” part
of the employee culture. How do supervisors know their employees understand
what is going on in the yard and are getting their questions answered?
Encourage them to speak up, she says, either through an interpreter, through
written communication, or another avenue. “Listen more, and talk less,” she
says. “Listen to your employees [because] you need to have their involvement.”
In other words, don’t just ask your employees
if they “get it” and walk away, Lotzkar says. “The common-sense approach is to
be patient,” he says. “We want them to have every opportunity [to] propel our
company forward in a safe and effective manner.”
Bilingual
Heroes
In
many scrapyards, bilingual employees are communication MVPs: Their ability to
talk fluidly with people who speak different languages makes them ideal
interpreters during work meetings and site visits, and they often can translate
training documents or PowerPoint presentations. They even become critically
important to emergency medical personnel in the event of an injury or accident
in the scrapÂyard that involves people who cannot describe their injuries in
English.
Andy Wichman, environmental health and safety
manager for Schupan & Sons (Kalamazoo, Mich.), says that in the past, the
company’s Spanish-speaking employees watched training videos in Spanish, but
the primarily English-speaking trainers had trouble getting feedback from the
group when training was done. That changed when Schupan & Sons realized its
retail manager, Uriel Arechiga, is bilingual and has a good rapport with the
company’s other Spanish-speaking employees. The company asked him for help
interpreting workers’ questions and comments during safety meetings, and it
also asked him to translate the safety training PowerPoint slides into Spanish.
Arechiga says he noticed the difference right away. Once the company started
actively seeking out his interpreting skills, the Spanish-speaking employees
went from being the quietest “to being the most outspoken,” he says. “Out on
the floor, they always say, ‘I have questions.’”
Wichman says Arechiga’s interpreting skills have
made a huge difference in the way the company communicates with employees. It’s
not just that Arechiga knows two languages, he says. It’s that he is a member
of the team who has built relationships with his fellow workers and can
accurately relay information that might otherwise fail to reach those who need
it. “They already know him and trust him,” he says. “The Hispanic population
[of the company] has a better voice now when it comes to safety things.”
Arechiga recommends that other scrapyards talk
with their bilingual employees to see if they are interested in serving as
interpreters, thus helping employees who feel they have no voice. “If there’s
anyone who can help translate, start getting them involved in safety meetings
and trainings. It’s [hard sometimes for non-English speakers] when you’re
having trouble getting your point across and you don’t have the right words.”
Schupan values the work that Arechiga and other
bilingual employees do to keep the lines of communication open, Wichman says,
yet companies cannot always expect bilingual employees to spend time
interpreting day-to-day interactions while also doing the job they were
originally hired to do. The company hires an outside firm to provide
interpreters for some personnel matters, especially ones related to hiring, he
says. “Our HR department has just contracted with a service that will be
providing a bilingual person to assist in new employee orientations and
[providing] benefit information.”
An interpreter might not be necessary for every
communication, Glant says, but Pacific Iron & Metal makes sure to have
interpreters when discussing more complex subjects. “In general, our
communications are made in English with a translator for a few of our Spanish
speakers. We recently had a 401(k) [retirement plan] education session offered
in Spanish and in English because of the complexity of the subject matter,” he
says. In another instance, one bilingual employee recently became a certified
forklift trainer “so that he can offer forklift training to Spanish speakers
that are on staff or that we may hire,” he says.
A
Shortage of Resources
Take
a stroll through scrapyards in different regions of North America, and you will
see signage that reflects not just workers’ languages, but also the language resources
available in the region. In some yards, safety signage is only in English, even
if many employees speak Spanish as their first language. In other yards, the
signs are in many languages. OSHA does not require multilingual safety signs or
training materials, so how do scrapyards decide what materials to translate?
Recyclers say they would like to make those decisions solely based on the needs
of their employees, but many find it hard to get their hands on the right
language resources to get the job done.
SA Recycling is working toward translating all
training materials into Spanish, Deiro says, but it has only a few employees
with the language skills to make it happen. Translators tackle training and
safety-related materials first, then go on to translate items such as employee
bulletins. The translations are time-consuming, however, and they don’t always
turn out perfectly, she says. For example, the company once ordered notebooks
with safety tips printed on the front cover. The Spanish-language version was
written in a formal style—the kind some English-speaking students learn in
Spanish class—and it took several months before a native Spanish speaker
pointed out that the wording was not typically used in everyday conversation
and was confusing.
SA hopes to have more translation resources in
the future, but Deiro wishes the company also had more outreach. “Part of the
confusion [comes from] different dialects—there’s people from El Salvador, from
Mexico, people who speak what they call Spanglish, people who speak their own
slang in the yard,” she says.
Pacific Iron & Metal used a professional
service to translate its employee handbook into Spanish, but for smaller
internal policy documents and notifications, Glant says, the business often
relies on a combination of Google Translate and a bilingual employee to get the
wording right. There are even fewer safety resources available for their
employees from Laos and Cambodia. Every once in a while, Glant will see safety
bulletins in those languages and pass them along, “though in general, [those
employees’] proficiency with English is adequate for most communications,” he
says.
Lopez
Scrap Metal in El Paso, Texas, is just minutes from the border between the
United States and Mexico. About 99 percent of the company’s 61 full-time and 10
part-time employees speak Spanish as their first language, and about 65 percent
are bilingual in Spanish and English, according to Luis Carlos Loya, director
of purchasing and the company’s safety officer. Day-to-day operations in the
yard take place in Spanish, but you’ll find few Spanish-language safety signs.
Loya says even in a town where so many speak
Spanish, it can be tough to find Spanish-language signage or training resources
if you don’t know where to look. Yet his employees don’t always need everything
to be in two languages, he points out. Instead, the company uses commonly
recognized symbols. For example, you won’t see a sign stating “No Fumar” at
Lopez Scrap—employees know what to do when they see a sign depicting a
cigarette with a red line through it, he says.
At Pacific Metals, Lotzkar says most signage is
in English or uses pictograms that are easy to understand. More-complex safety
signs for emergency shutdown procedures, however, are posted in multiple
languages, including Burmese.
Available
Tools
When
hunting for needed communication tools, many recyclers look for resources in
their own yards first, such as a bilingual employee who can act as an
interpreter. Yet recyclers say they have found great resources outside their
doors, too.
Loya says Lopez Scrap has found essential
training videos, documents, and other Spanish-language resources from the
Occupational Safety and Health Consultation program, or OSHCON, a free,
OSHA-funded service available to private employers through the states, in this
case through the Texas Department of Insurance Division of Workers Compensation
(visit www.osha.gov/dcsp/smallbusiness/consult.html for options in your area).
OSHCON helps employers understand and comply with OSHA health and safety
requirements. Lopez Scrap uses Spanish-language training documents OSHCON
provides, and Loya says he often borrows Spanish-language safety videos free
from OSHCON’s library. “OSHCON was a blessing for us,” he says. “Having access
doesn’t cost us a penny, and they even mail materials to us [free] as long as
we return them in seven days.”
In Vancouver, Lotzkar says Pacific Metals works
with the Immigrant Services Society of British Columbia, which helps translate
résumés and job-related materials into other languages. The Vancouver-area
organization’s goal is to find jobs for recent immigrants, and it offers the
translation services as a way to connect the scrapyard to new employees and the
immigrants to new jobs, he says.
For
its Spanish-speaking employees, Pacific Metals also uses ISRI’s
Spanish-language safety videos, Lotzkar says. Some equipment companies also
have created training videos for specific models of equipment in languages
other than English, including Spanish and French.
OSHA also offers multilingual resources online
and in person. One option is to call a diverse workforce/limited English
proficiency coordinator, who can offer advice and resources for outreach,
education, and training to workers who speak a language other than English.
Despite the challenges of ensuring workers with
limited English proficiency get adequate safety training, many employers say
such employees also are a great asset in an industry that is becoming
increasingly global. In Vancouver, Lotzkar says he expects his scrapyard to
become even more diverse as time goes on, while Wichman and Deiro say their
Spanish-speaking employees will always be part of the fabric of their
operations. The message for all recycling businesses should be the same,
regardless of language, Deiro says. “The bottom line is, we’re doing everything
we can to provide a safe workplace for employees … . Employees deserve to go
home to their families every night without injury.”
Megan Quinn is
reporter/writer for Scrap.