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HABLA ESPANOL?
Many companies compete for bilingual workers
Real estate agent Philamenia Rivers said she gets some strange looks from people on her daily walks. Rivers uses her exercise time to practice her Spanish with an audiotape course. She didn't put that much effort into learning Spanish in school but now feels the need to know conversational Spanish for her job.
Of the growing Hispanic population in metro Atlanta (estimated at more than half a million), Rivers said: "Hey, they're not going anywhere, and we're not going anywhere -- we need to learn to talk to each other. I'm already enjoying being able to converse with people at church."
When her employer, Metro Brokers/GMAC Real Estate, started offering a course in Spanish, she was among the first to sign up and pay the $295 tuition. "How can you put a price on a skill that will only help me in the future?" she said.
One of her fellow students, Realtor Christopher Barron, had a similar motivation.
"My goal is to learn to speak fluently and attract some Spanish-speaking clients," he said. "How can I best service their needs if I can't speak the language? Communication is everything."
Their employer agrees. Last year, Metro Brokers/GMAC Real Estate became the first real estate company in Georgia to launch a Spanish language Web site, www.metrobrokers.com/espanol. The twin of the English version, it gives Spanish-speaking home buyers all the same search tools.
"We felt that the Web site would be a definite advantage for our business, and it's something that our customers really like," said Tisha Gay, director of public relations at Metro Brokers/GMAC Real Estate. "Metro Atlanta has the fastest Hispanic growth rate in the country, according to the U.S. Census Bureau (2003), and Hispanics account for $10.9 billion in buying power in Georgia. The same report showed that Hispanic homeownership grew at a rate of 16.7 percent from 1994 to 2001 and is slated to grow faster."
Because buying a home is such a huge investment and can be such a complicated process, it's no wonder studies show that Hispanics prefer to work with an agent who speaks their language, Gay added.
Penny Brown, an agent in the company's Buckhead office, had a college degree in Spanish and already was teaching other agents privately. When she asked to offer a course through the Metro Brokers/GMAC Real Estate Academy, the answer was an immediate "yes." She's already added an intermediate course.
"I love teaching, and once someone makes up his mind, it's not difficult to learn," Brown said. "Spanish-speaking people really appreciate it when someone takes the time to learn their language. It opens up a whole new market."
Tom Sutula, president and CEO of Workplace Spanish Inc., originally taught foreign phrases to travelers. He saw the demand coming and switched to language skills for workers in 2001. The Atlanta-based company publishes Spanish-teaching materials for colleges nationwide and provides customized on-site training to employers.
"The need is all-pervasive, and even a little language can go a long way in promoting good will and increasing efficiency, productivity and safety," Sutula said. "Every industry needs people with bilingual skills -- health care, firefighting, public education, government, construction, banking, automotive, manufacturing, utilities. Our latest course is for the court system. Big companies cannot afford to not be responsive to this growing population."
His company has provided customized training for more than 2,800 employees of corporations, organizations and government in five years.
Holly Patrick, manager of the language programs at the Latin American Association, has seen enrollments jump in both the organization's English (for Spanish speakers) and Spanish (for English speakers) classes.
"We used to get calls from people in international business; now it's everyone!" she said. "Being bilingual is a great benefit for anyone involved in customer service or any employee interacting with people on a one-to-one basis."
Cultural understanding
"While learning the language is a good start, understanding different cultures is just as important," said Todd Shinholster, director of language and cross-cultural programs in continuing education at Kennesaw State University.
His department recently taught a two-week language and cultural immersion course for Occupational Safety and Health Administration inspectors of construction sites, where the majority of workers are Hispanic immigrants.
"The inspectors didn't trust the workers, because [the workers] wouldn't look them in the eye," Shinholster said. "From the workers' perspective, the inspectors were authority figures, and [the workers] were showing [the inspectors] respect by not looking at them directly."
Taught every quarter, the "Spanish for Healthcare Professionals" course helps providers learn how to talk with their Hispanic patients and to understand cultural attitudes toward health care and home remedies that families may have tried before seeking professional help.
"If you're in any service field, learning how to communicate with speakers of other languages is what you need to do -- like we all had to learn to type when PCs changed the workplace," Shinholster said.
Conversely, he said, immigrants who want to gain entrance to college or advance in their careers need to learn English.
"Language and cross-cultural understanding are no longer soft skills. They're hard skills for today's marketplace," Shinholster said.
Incentives to learn
Jodi Chavez, metro market manager for Robert Half International (the finance, technology and accounting division), has seen a 5 percent to 7 percent increase in employers seeking bilingual candidates in the last six months.
"Of that 5 [percent] to 7 percent, 60 percent of the requests were for Spanish, with French and Japanese the next-[most-]frequent," she said.
Demand was highest in customer-service-type positions.
"It's not easy finding bilingual candidates. We have to go out and attract them," she said.
Chavez encourages candidates to highlight secondary language skills on their resumes, but she notes that companies will pay extra only if they plan to use those skills.
"If the skill is needed, a company may pay as high as $10,000 a year additional salary," she said.
Expecting to see more demand, Chavez is taking Spanish classes herself. "I want to learn and do anything to further educate myself in my employment and recruiting business," she added.
Growing needs
Forward-thinking companies have been steadily increasing their diversity initiatives.
Tom Sutula
"We're competing with every other company for bilingual employees; it's a hot employment topic," said Del Clark, community development project manager for Georgia Power. "Out of 8,714 employees, we have 115 who are bilingual. That may not sound like a lot, but when I started 14 years ago, there was none.
"The Hispanic community is our fastest-growing customer base, and we strive to mirror our base and be a good citizen wherever we serve."
Four years ago, Georgia Power formed a committee to study Spanish-speaking customer initiatives. Since then, the company has greatly increased the hours for the Spanish-speaking customer-service line and has increased the number of bilingual representatives at its offices.
"Many Hispanic customers pay their bills in cash, and they'll stand in line for a Spanish-speaking representative. They feel more comfortable transacting business in their own language," Clark said.
A brochure in English and Spanish tells people how to read their electric bills, and bilingual DVDs in the offices give customers tips on energy savings and other information. Spanish phrase cards are available to field service representatives, and all signage in plants is bilingual for instructive and safety purposes. Employees can learn workplace Spanish free through online courses at Georgia Power's The Learning Source site, and they can practice their skills with one another through the Conversational Partners group that meets each Tuesday.
About 100 employees of all backgrounds have joined the company's Amigos affinity group, which assists with diversity recruitment efforts, employee cultural education and community outreach efforts.
"They volunteer many hours with Hispanic and other community organizations and are a great asset to everyone," Clark said.
A December 2005 satisfaction survey of 450 Hispanic customers showed the initiatives were working. On a scale of 1 to 10, all responses were either 9 or 10.
Carolyn Cartwright
"Hispanics are very family-oriented and friendly. It means a lot to them that we're reaching out," Clark said.
SunTrust Bank began assessing the multiple-language skills of its Atlanta employees in 1996 in order to meet the needs of Olympics visitors, said Carolyn Cartwright, senior vice president of diversity at SunTrust Bank.
"We began focusing on diversity initiatives in 2000, but in the last two years, we've ramped up our efforts and developed new products to address the growing Hispanic communities in our markets," she said.
The bank has hired more Spanish-speaking representatives for its retail branches and call centers, printed bilingual brochures of products and services, and launched a Spanish online banking Web site in 2005.
"In a grass-roots effort to serve all our customers, different regions have created databases of employees who are fluent in other languages and willing to interpret as needed," Cartwright said. "Now we have a task force working to make that a company-wide resource."
Knowing that clients want to feel valued and understood, SunTrust employees work with diverse community organizations, including Hispanic associations and chambers of commerce.
"When you build real relationships, you build the community," she said. "And when you build the community, you build the bank."
