Bilingual Employees Bring High-Impact Benefits to Your Business
More businesses are taking advantage of the benefits that come with hiring bilingual employees from the ever-changing workforce. In step with many things in our post-pandemic economy, a study from The Language Connects Foundation found that one in three employers report shortages among bilingual talent.¹ If you are a business that does not already have the ability to offer more than one language to your customers base, take into consideration the following ways bilingual employees can positively impact your business.
E-commerce and the global marketplace have boomed in the last 20 years thanks to technology and the internet, which has increased the demand for bilingual employees. Not only does having bilingual staff increase market share going into countries where other languages are spoken, it has been concluded that even consumers who are bilingual still prefer to transact in their native language.² Bilingual employees serve as a bridge to that market while also providing cost-saving measures. Contracted translating and interpreting services can be expensive and are oftentimes not readily available when customers need it, leaving a gap easily filled by competitors who do have bilingual employees at the ready.
In addition to closing the language barrier, having bilingual talent on payroll means that those employees are likely to have increased cultural fluency when working with others.³ These abilities to tactfully transact across cultural lines increase the strength of business ties through perceived trustworthiness achieved by understanding and empathy from a shared language. This often creates deeper relationships with your consumers and within your workforce. Furthermore, not relying on interpreters for communication is more productive with regard to both time and budget.
There are many benefits to being bilingual that positively contribute to employee assets in the workplace. Multilingualism results in several cognitive advantages including increased multi-tasking skills, better decision-making processes, and creative problem-solving fluency (read more here). Many employers seek bilingualism in their workforce simply for these increased competencies alone. These advantages provide for increased productivity and greater customer service skills on the job while also fostering a robust and diverse staff.⁴ Bilingual and multilingual people also benefit from better communication skills and increased social awareness and competency over monolinguals.⁵ These factors are all invaluable when it comes to creating a strong employee base.
Many successful businesses are recognizing the benefits of bilingual workers and are willing to adapt to stay competitive.⁶ Having bilingual talent in a business creates endless opportunities for revenue and even more for positive brand awareness and expansion. With the global market as competitive as it is today, businesses striving for survivability and success simply cannot thrive without bilingual employees.
The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. (2019). Making Languages Our Business: Addressing Foreign Language Demand Among U.S. Employers. https://www.languageconnectsfoundation.org/uploads/files/general/MakingLanguagesOurBusiness_FullReport.pdf
Van Vaerenbergh, Y., & Holmqvist, J. (2011, December 13). Speak My Language If You Want My Money: Service Language’s Influence On Consumer Tipping Behavior. CORE. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/34577524.pdf
Lazar, M. (2021, September 8). The Bilingual Advantage in the Global Workplace. Language Magazine. https://www.languagemagazine.com/2018/06/07/the-bilingual-advantage-in-the-global-workplace/
Lobell, K. O. (2022, May 9). Why Are Companies Hiring More Multilingual Workers?. SHRM. https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/employee-relations/pages/why-companies-hire-more-multilingual-workers.aspx
Jaros-White, G. (2022, August 16). Why It Pays to be Bilingual. Language Testing International. https://www.languagetesting.com/blog/why-it-pays-to-be-bilingual/
Bilingual Employment 2023: Statistics and Trends. GITNUX. (2023, August 2). https://blog.gitnux.com/bilingual-employment-statistics/