The Internal and External Role of Language Proficiency in Business

group of professionals collaborating

Every organization has four primary audiences, whether they are in the private, public, or nonprofit sectors. They are their internal team (i.e., staff, leadership, stakeholders, board of directors, investors, etc.), their consumers, their vendors, and the community at large. Depending on the industry and the products or services that the organization provides, the internal and external language needs will differ; however they are more present than ever before and must be addressed to succeed in the current business climate. The U.S. is a multicultural marketplace, and we need to be equipped with the language skills necessary to compete effectively in a global economy.

Internal organizational language proficiency requires adopting employee hiring and retention processes that value language skills. Human Resources departments are tasked with the responsibility of securing a pipeline of talent that is reflective of the diverse consumers served by organizations and effectively investing in maximizing that talent’s potential and contributions to the organization. This includes assessing their command of different languages, a human asset that often goes untapped for various roles such as Customer Service, Marketing, Community Relations, and Public Relations, to name a few. Creating an environment where diversity and linguistic proficiency are embedded allows access to diverse audiences.

Language barriers can limit your access to diverse consumers, vendors, and community partners. With the growth in social media and the options people have for selecting the content they enjoy, it’s becoming more challenging to create messaging for marketing and advertising campaigns that resonates with everyone. Being able to communicate directly with consumers about the value of your products or services in their language of preference can be a major point of differentiation between you and your competitors.

The business community has also become very diverse in the U.S. in the last decade. Many suppliers or vendors that provide valuable products and services for you to carry-out your business endeavors effectively speak languages other than English. They serve as an extension of your operations and as indirect ambassadors to your brand in their respective communities. Having the ability to share with your diverse vendors the efforts you make to deliver on your customers language preferences creates an opportunity to become a champion for diversity, equity, and inclusion. In addition, by increasing the number of diverse businesses you establish procurement contracts with, you will tap into a larger pool of suppliers stimulating competitive rates and innovation.

As for your organization’s role as a responsible and committed corporate citizen, language and communication is at the heart of conducting meaningful outreach to diverse and underserved communities. Cultivating a respectful exchange with community partners is not just about building rapport, representation, and reputation. In URBANDER’s experience working with a wide range of industries – from beauty products to healthcare – language proficiency and cultural intelligence are instrumental to effectively embed meaningful cultural attributes into how your brand speaks to communities of diverse backgrounds to nurture long-lasting relationships that are high-impact, sustainable, and rewarding.

For 30 years, Language Testing International has supported the rise of multilingualism in the United States. As an exclusive provider of ACTFL language proficiency assessments in 120+ languages in over 60 countries, LTI allows for a quick and secure way to assess language proficiency of individuals anywhere, anytime. Learn more here.

 

Want to hear more from Sami? Listen to her interview with LTI here.

Linguistic and Cultural Proficiency Is Critical in Mitigating Healthcare Disparities

nurse assisting an elderly patient

In 2009, I went to a business networking luncheon. The Marketing Director of a major hospital campus in my neighborhood told me to scoot over in a booth I was sitting at because she wanted to sit next to me to talk. She had heard that my company specializes in multicultural marketing and maybe, just maybe, I could help her tackle a situation she was faced with. The hospital had recently completed a community assessment and discovered that over 40% of the patients that went to their emergency room were Hispanic. “I have no idea what to do with this information!” she added.

The healthcare industry has been an early adopter of linguistic and cultural proficiency for two reasons. First, there is a federal mandate known as the CLAS standards of care (Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services) that offers a detailed blueprint for healthcare providers to follow. Second, and more importantly, medical professionals that do not have the proper language and culture prowess to address the needs of diverse patients can do more harm than good.

From a business standpoint, the ability of a health organization to provide patient-centered care is measured by their ability to create an environment that is conducive to delivering equal access to quality care. It is well documented by research that patients from multicultural communities suffer from heightened levels of fear and stress when they face a language barrier or when their traditions and cultural preferences are overlooked. While there are many other factors that create healthcare disparities for diverse communities, such as income, health literacy, food deserts in underserved communities that limit access to fresh produce, and lack of transportation, language and culture proficiency are factors that healthcare systems can control.

It is becoming increasingly important for healthcare practitioners to create a roadmap to reach, engage, and provide interventions that are linguistically and culturally sound to diverse communities. This can include:

  1. Assessing the language skills of multilingual medical staff to ensure they are able to effectively convey sensitive information throughout the continuum of care, mitigating the risk of misinformation.
  2. Establishing an Interpreting Services team of certified professionals that can provide support in real-time in the languages that are used in the community that is being served.
  3. Developing a Multicultural Toolkit that will prepare caregiving and administrative staff that interacts with patients and their families with insights on how to navigate cultural preferences and traditions.
  4. Availability of Press Ganey and HCAHPS patient surveys in various languages to have an accurate picture of your patient satisfaction score as the U.S. becomes more diverse with each passing Census.

These are some basic measures that URBANDER recommended to the Marketing Director in crisis and helped implement quickly and swiftly while crafting a more comprehensive plan for them. Our role as a cultural lens to ensure that marketing and business strategies were linguistically and culturally mindful allowed them to increase patient safety, equity, and compliance with regulatory agencies in the healthcare industry.

Are you ready to assess your multilingual employees’ language proficiency? Partner with LTI for all your language assessment needs. Learn more here.

Want to hear more from Sami? Listen to her interview with LTI here.

Creating a Linguistically and Culturally Competent Patient Care Experience

doctor consoling patient

In a recent episode of “Language is Your Superpower” podcast, we embark on a dynamic and diverse conversation with Samí Haiman-Marrero, President/CEO of URBANDER. As a Minority and Women Business Enterprise (MWBE) solution-driven agency, URBANDER assists the corporate, nonprofit, and government sectors with overcoming their Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Multicultural Marketing challenges, with a special focus in the Latino/Hispanic market.

More specifically, as an agency of record for a regional healthcare system, Samí speaks about the importance of providing linguistically and culturally competent care to the increasingly diverse demographic shifts that are happening within U.S. society. “More and more people are realizing how important it is to have a certain level of cultural competency and language proficiency when you are living, working, and playing in communities that are very, very diverse…” Samí highlighted. At the same time, there is still much work to be done.

In an article titled Cultural Competency and Ethnic Diversity in Healthcare, the authors state that the healthcare system continues to be challenged “with cultural competency, and racial, gender and ethnic disparities” particularly with issues outside of the healthcare systems which are “social determinants of health (SDH)” (p. 1). These SDHs are inherent in meeting basic human needs, such as access to healthy foods, quality education and affordable housing, that not only contribute to a person’s physical health but also their mental, emotional, and psychological well-being. Therefore, when a patient is seeking care in a healthcare setting, not only do providers have to consider their medical history, current diagnosis, and treatment, but also how a comprehensive plan of care is maintained once the patient has returned home. As such, healthcare organizations must view each patient holistically. Podcast host Lisa March emphasized the importance of taking “care of the patient more holistically—their family, the environment they are coming home to, their diet, who their caregiver will be—as it takes into account how they live their lives beyond the medical setting.”

Here are three indicators that a healthcare provider is offering a linguistically and culturally competent patient care experience:

Recognizes that seeking healthcare can be a bit scary:  Navigating the healthcare system can be complex, and when you couple that with the fact that people seek out healthcare services because they are not feeling well only serves to complicate matters. Therefore, most people engage with healthcare providers with a heightened sense of anxiety, fear, and uncertainty. That’s why it is important for healthcare organizations and providers, from general health and wellness to specialties like women’s health and cancer care, to create a roadmap to improve their outreach to the community so that when patients come into the hospital, they know they will be cared for in a linguistically and culturally appropriate manner.

Assesses cultural competency at all levels in healthcare: “At the healthcare level, there is underrepresentation of cultural, gender, and ethnic diversity during training and in leadership.” therefore, learning to understand and effectively communicate, interact, and collaborate with individuals from different cultures is especially important in healthcare. This can also be enhanced by hiring and assessing the language proficiency of multilingual healthcare providers from the very community that is being served as it has shown to minimize disparities and maximize healthcare outcomes. “From the administrative to the clinical team, it is important to provide a culturally aware team and continuous help [to] provide the best quality care that takes into consideration not only cultural norms, religious belief, socioeconomic status but also in the patient’s native language,” the podcast offers.

Speaks the patient’s language with proficiency: Imagine you are seeking healthcare at a provider that does not speak your native or preferred language. How do you communicate what is wrong? How confident would you be about whether they understand your healthcare needs and can effectively address them in a way that is unique to you? A little nerve-racking to think about it, right? Linguistic proficiency begins with speaking, reading, comprehending, and effectively communicating in two (bilingual) or more (multilingual) languages. Whether in Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, American Sign Language, or another native form of communicating, healthcare providers must either learn another language or use an interpreter service to ensure that patient care needs are met and to also ensure that appropriate medical terminology is used. As a patient, it is your right to have your medical needs explained in the language of your choice.

As a patient, or family member of a bilingual or multilingual patient, you are an active participant in the care needed. You are essential to creating a quality patient experience which requires that healthcare providers communicate in the patient’s native language(s) and in a culturally competent manner. Remember, this does not only pertain to when you are in the healthcare setting, but also extends to a more holistic form of care that considers the social determinants of health that affect you and your family members once discharged. It also ensures that when the patient goes home, they are supported by a healthcare team with the cultural tools and linguistic knowledge necessary to guide in the healing process.

If you are a healthcare professional, the next step in your cultural and linguistic journey starts today. Test your language proficiency with LTI. Learn more here.

Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6571328/

Cultural Competence and Linguistic Proficiency Where You Work, Live, and Play

group of professionals sitting together As the owner of a Strategic Marketing and Business Development firm that specializes in multicultural markets, I am constantly looking for ways to better serve our clients. Corporate, government, and nonprofit sectors often struggle with understanding where to start with their multicultural efforts and still be cost-efficient and effective. Thankfully, my experience working for Spanish-language magazines prior to becoming an entrepreneur has allowed me the opportunity to guide and inform URBANDER clients about how to best harness the impact of diverse consumers on their businesses. Now more than ever, it has become imperative for brands to be adept at speaking to customers in their language of preference and recognizing the value they place on cultural intelligence as part of the engagement process.

For the past 30 years, I have experienced and studied U.S. Census data to tell the story of the importance of cultural competence and linguistic proficiency in business. It’s surreal to look back and remember when Hispanics were approximately 12% of the population, and we were forecasting that this market segment would grow to be 20% (1 in 5 Americans) by now. And here we are. Hispanics and Latinos, (which includes people of any race) reached 62.1 million in 2020—growing 23% in 10 years. And for the first time in history, the White non-Hispanic population decreased to under 60% of the total U.S. population. In addition, the 2020 Census reported that the multiracial population of the U.S. changed exponentially since 2010—from 9 million people then to 33.8 million now, reflecting a 276% increase.

So, it begs to ask: Where do I start? How do I responsibly incorporate a multicultural and multilingual approach to how I work, live, and play in my marketplace?

The following are three steps to begin the journey of aligning your business with the demographic shift that we are experiencing:

Do your research. When you know the demographic profile of your customers and their preferred languages, you can be intentional and strategic as you grow or expand your business. If you do not conduct the necessary research to figure out their exact concerns, perceptions, needs, preferences, and expectations, you will be off the mark with every strategy you try to implement.

Assess and benchmark your workforce. Representation matters, and customers are becoming more vigilant of the demographic profile of your employees, their language abilities, and degree of cultural knowledge. Consumers are attracted, and respond more favorably, to brands that properly represent their cultural identity. Investing in developing a team that can address diverse audiences authentically is paramount.

Take action and calibrate as you go. As business leaders we oftentimes suffer from “paralysis by analysis” which affects our bottom line because the longer we delay, the longer it takes for us to reach the next level of success. You can start by figuring out your company’s most evident voids (i.e., certifying language proficiency of multilingual staff, securing proper multicultural marketing support, hiring diverse talent, cultural competency training, translation services, etc.).

Understanding the culture, values, traditions, norms, lifestyle, history, beliefs, media consumption habits, gender identities, and language preferences of your customers will allow your business to reach its fullest potential by establishing a bond with our increasingly diverse U.S. population. Plus, you will foster an organizational culture that encourages the exploration of new ideas and perspectives, impacting people’s lives and how they interact with each other in society.

Are you ready to take the first step? Why not certify your multilingual employees’ language proficiency? LTI makes it easy. Learn more here.

Want to hear more from Sami? Listen to her interview with LTI here.