In many multicultural workplaces, employees who are not fluent in the language of
the organization – usually the language of the majority culture – often fail to perform
well or to make progress in their jobs. They find it difficult to become involved in social
interaction and networking, often considered essential for career success. Supervisors
who cannot communicate with foreign employees in the employees’ own language
may experience continual problems of discipline and control.
That is precisely the situation facing a US manufacturing company which employs
English-speaking supervisors and a largely Spanish-speaking workforce. This volatile
mix leads to poor shop floor communication and high labour turnover and accident
rates.
Many companies with a multicultural workforce experience similar problems.
But management in this company declines to be fatalistic about the situation. They
agree during an Executive Committee meeting that more and better training is
needed to improve understanding between shop floor workers and their supervisors.
Appropriate training should have the effect of reducing or eliminating conflict and
improving productivity.
Training consultants called in
Following the meeting, training consultants are called in to design the training
programme required. They are told to make sure that all of the training sessions are
firmly anchored to job needs. Subsequently, training sessions are arranged to teach
the Spanish-speaking workforce basic English and the English-speaking supervisors
basic Spanish.
Thus Spanish-speaking employees learn the English words for various shop-floor
activities, and the meaning of terms such as ‘seniority’ and ‘incentive’ in the union
contract. The English-speaking supervisors learn how to give important instructions in
Spanish – for instance, by using Spanish phrases indicating ‘Don’t put your hand near
the blade’ and ‘Keep your goggles on at all times.’
The consultants monitor the training sessions and soon realize that the sessions are
unearthing a number of problems that have a cultural background and that should
prove easy to put right. These include workers’ resentment about the 20-minute lunch
break. The workers, like many other Spanish-speakers, eat their main meal in the middle
of the day and need more than 20 minutes – or at least they say they do.
After the training programme has been completed, the company sees a quick return
on its investment:
● Annual appraisal interviews reveal that supervisors are much better understood
with very few complaints being made by operatives.
● By the end of the year the accident rate on the shop floor has gone down substantially.
● Within six months, shop-floor output increases by 20 per cent.
The Executive Committee is satisfied that these improvements have been triggered by
the training programme.

1 Is management right to assume that output and accident rate improvements
have been brought about by the training? What other factors might explain the
improvements?
2 What management actions should now be taken with the aim of bringing about
further increases in levels of employee morale and job commitment?
3 Are mutual misunderstandings inevitable in a multicultural workplace? If not,
why not?