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Forcing groups or individual workers to communicate in a non-primary language can present employee safety concerns.
There is also a hit to overall productivity, as communications include hesitations or slight pauses and is not nearly as detailed as it could be.
Employees should communicate with each other in the most effective way possible.
leaving someone out is never effective. So it is often good to force one language for work purposes. Though personal convertations can be whatever.
"Never" is carrying a lot of weight here. Leaving people out can be super effective, especially if they're not needed for a task. They might be needed in 20 minutes when it's time to do their thing, but if a group doesn't need that person and can communicate more effectively without using that persons language, there's no need.
Imagine an EMT crew. All of the medics speak Spanish and the ambulance driver only speak English. He needs to know how to get to the emergency, and which hospital to take the victim to, among some other things I'm sure. But I don't want my all Spanish EMT crew fucking around in English and miscommunicating with each other just to make the driver feel more comfortable.
Allowing multi lingual communication for work purposes can also cause employee safety concerns and breed abusive work environments.
Sadly this very VERY much goes both ways.
It's why context matters so very much.
Bunch of random super market employees? Doesn't really fucking matter. Health care workers? Of fucking boy does it matter a LOT.
I work at a place where half of the people speak dutch, the other half come from all over the world.
It helps when everyone speaks the same language, English in this case, and can jump in and out of conversation whenever.
It's illegal for them to actually ban the use of Dutch, as this is in Belgium. But it's also just a dick move to exclude people from conversation, just because it's convenient to some.
I also work in a very international community, with a small minority Norwegians (in Norway). While we often communicate in English, I have to admit that I find it a bit strange that people choose to move to Norway and work in Norway, but don't learn the language well enough to participate in a conversation at the lunch table.
Sure, often we'll swap to English if a non-Norwegian speaker comes in, but sometimes I'm just tired and don't want to bother with the extra effort. I massively appreciate the colleagues that bother to learn Norwegian.
I find it a bit strange that people choose to move to Norway and work in Norway, but don't learn the language
Depends on whether they intend to move permanently, no? Most of my non‑Belgian colleagues don't intend to stay in Belgium long term. I can't fault them for that. :)
When they do intend to move permanently, I share your point of view.
I don't think it really makes a difference, as long as you're staying somewhere for any significant amount of time (i.e. months) it makes sense to start learning the language.
I mean, it's common courtesy to try to learn enough of the local language to buy stuff and ask for directions when your just on vacation.
I was in Germany for half a year during my studies. To me it was obvious that I needed to learn the language from day one, because I had no intent of going around and expecting everyone else to adjust to me not knowing the language. I have a very hard time understanding how someone could move to a country for years, and still not learn the language because "it's not permanent".
enough of the local language to buy stuff and ask for directions
You convinced me on that one. Perhaps they should learn enough of the language for day-to-day niceties. The particular problem with Belgium is that this means they should learn both basic French and Dutch :-p Most french speaking Belgians don't even do that.
When you're working you need to communicate in a lot more depth than that though. That's exactly why they want to talk Spanish, to speed up communication or be more precise.
Social language skills are on the easier side. You can get away with a lot of mistakes.
This is a just a correction, but it seems fitting on a post about language and learning languages.
"Half" is the noun you are looking for. "Halve" sounds slightly different and means "to split in half."
Thanks, I corrected it :)
I'm pretty sure this would be straight up illegal in my country.
Came here to say the same thing. The entire company would be cancelled.
my work has an english only rule when talking about work. we hire from all over the world, so making sure there is a common language is nice when i have to message someone in another country.
non-work-related talk is whatever, though.
With the NLRB it would have been illegal in the states. A form of preventing workers from organizing.
Big corp and their pawns wanna listen in on every conversation to stop people from talking shit about the big corp.
Could also be xenophobia (I mean, unless its a company meeting, or some safety requirements where everyone need to know what's happening (like inside the cockpit of a plane that has an English-only crew member, for example) otherwise its unreasonable to enforce language policies when two peoplr are just chatting.
I find it stupid, because some of them would use Spanish to better explain to the new nurses how to do certain procedures
Ahhh, so its on the job? Could be slightly problematic. I don't know how your hospital/clinic works, but is it possible someone could miss important info form the converasations?
I think some plane crashes were attributed to communication issues between ATC and the crew, sometimes its miscommunication between crew members. Also can apply in factories, warehouses, where you can get hit by a pallet of stuff if there is miscommunication, for example.
TLDR: If its on the job, it can be reasonable depending on circumstances. If its during break/lunch, fuck no lol, speak whatever you want.
If I'm intended to be a part of the conversation (such as a group demonstration) it's offensive if they don't make an effort to keep everyone on the same page.
The manager is also potentially concerned that she can't monitor the chatter for mistakes. (And ego)
Depending on context it might be stupid or make sense.
At my company, which has 100% Spanish employees, we can talk among ourselves in Spanish. However, in things "for the record" such as jira tickets, git commit messages, documentation pages, they have to be in English.
It makes no god damn sense. Nobody is going to read Jira ticket #6738 in 40 years when we are a multinational. It's a ticket about fixing a typo in page 567 of the documentation. 100% of employees speak spanish, and some have dogshit English.
It's weird to me. As long as the people speaking to each other understand each other that's what should matter. We shouldn't limit folks.
I once was in a meeting and was told they'll speak Polish instead of English since I was the only non Polish speaker.
I no longer had to attend that daily meeting so that was nice.
Another time I was forwarded an email at work. I opened it but couldn't understand the thread. The two people in the thread were speaking Portuguese and forgot that I didn't.
They then happily translated and we had a good laugh about it.
The only time it's uncomfortable for me is if people are talking about me, but like I have no reason to think they're doing that so no problem.
I could see an argument that it creates cliques and can cause issues between coworkers, especially since they may feel safe gossiping about other coworkers or things like that.
However, I don't agree with that. All of that can happen with everyone speaking English. I don't think it's an issue. I think potentially what it could be is the boss not wanting them to be able to communicate discretely. It seems like something that could be an anti-unionization move. Maybe I'm being too cynical, but that's often what these weird rules that don't seem logical seems to be.
I once worked somewhere that required English for written things, because you never know who might need to read them later. But spoken conversations or even meetings in another language was okay.
That sounds reasonable
A sign of fear. And weakness.
For a while I was the only non-spanish speaker on a shipyard barge loading / cleaning crew. The other guys spoke varying degrees of English and I was learning Spanish. Despite the job being incredibly dangerous with huge overhead weight, cranes, massive ships on floating docks, and other heavy equipment abound, we had no real accidents and communicated well. If I didn't need to know a thing, it was probably said in Spanish. Buy, we kept all radio comms in English, for my sake and for safety.
We decided that, as the workers. Not because some Karen didn't like Spanish. As long as the work is done safely and communication is timely and in a language understandable by the intended recipients there is not issue. Karen can fuck off.
As a joke you should all go in on a copy Rosetta Stone for her.
I kind of get it if she's around and cannot tell if your chat is work-related or not. You could be telling your colleagues to go cut the red wire but she knows it ought to be the blue wire. She could've jumped in at that point to correct you, had she understood. But the bomb went off already and everybody died. I'm exaggerating the stakes here obvs.
I would try to keep shit in English when she's within earshot. And if she sneaked up on you while you're practicing your Spanish, apologize, acknowledge her wishes, and tell her you were just talking about the weather or the game or whatever. She might just be nervous about you talking about her behind her back - while she's in the room. So put her mind at ease. Don't piss off the higher-ups unless you're willing to lose the job.
I've only ever worked a single job that tried to enforce that shit, and those motherfuckers were the most racist pieces of shit I've had to deal with in person. They thought because I was the only white guy that I was on their side. I still wonder what they did when after the 3rd day of the season, everyone just quit and walked off an hour before lunch.
Stupid, petty.
This would be a non-starter where I work and employees would sue for discrimination. Rightly so.
We thrive on diversity. It's crucial for customer service.
It is ridiculous of course but I do have one strange anecdote about this. I have been in a lot of retirement and assisted living homes and there can be some serious tension between racist resident and their non-white caregivers when they speak there languages around them.
One old Vietnam vet would get the fuck triggered out of him when the Filipinos would talk in Tagalog around him. They ended up making a rule that they can't speak non-english around him. Not saying that this was right, but it was understandable.
I think in a Healthcare setting this has a lot to do with these types of rules.
Regardless of the fact that most communications in other languages will not be this, there will almost certainly be cases where a second language is used to talk about a patient or coworker in their presence. This builds an outgroup/ingroup dynamic that can undermine confidence in healthcare outcomes and cause patient distress.
Essentially, if some people hear another language being spoken in their presence, and especially if they are in a vulnerable state, they will assume they are being talked about disparagingly or conspired against. Avoiding causing undue distress to patients is a standard of care concern.
That feels like it butts it's head against various other laws.
Triggering someone's PTSD routinely could easily be considered an unsafe and abusive work environment.
And if the employee is aware they are triggering and then keep doing it. At that point it very well could be seen as malicious.
PTSD does not fuck around for many.
the responses in both threads are clearly split between those who speak one language and agree with the manager, and those who speak multiple languages and think the rule is bullshit
Hello, I speak more than one language and depending on the situation I can see why such a rule might make sense.
Same :)
I speak multiple languages, live in a country that tries their god damn hardest to promote racial harmony, i still believe it would be best in most cases to keep it to 1 common language that everyone understands
dumb because other places have other languages
Racism is expensive. Can't wait til your former company tanks.
I don't think this policy is enforceable in my state. Not that we have much of a mixed language anyway.
I don't think its appropriate to have as a rule in general. I can understand having a universal language for work related topics if there is someone who doesn't speak the language present (or isn't fluent), but a straight out ban on all other languages but the target language? that's just unneeded and creates a hostile work environment.
Work related? Sure, 100%. Everyone might need to hear what's going on and if English is the dominant language that's what should be used. Personal conversation? Fuck that.
If Spanish is the dominant language I would expect all business to be conducted in Spanish.
edit: but yeah, if someone needs it explained in their native language, for sure use it. In that case one should do both languages.
Not sure what country, but in the US, wouldn't that technically be illegal (at least between co-workers)? I know some places, such as call centers, won't let you speak another language to customers without approval (for liability reasons, I assume).
She would get very angry really fast if she heard anything in a language she didn't understand.
Karen es una cabrón.
It's a common mandate in high volume manufacturing here in the US. It includes all time except for breaks.
I worked at a place that manufactured avionics boxes and most of the assembly line were super sweet little old Vietnamese ladies. The line supervisor was an old bat white lady-- a total Karen.
One day during our morning standup, they reinforced that it's an English-only workplace. About an hour later, a few of the ladies were joking around in English and Karen, in her typical patronizing fake-sweet voice, reminded them that looks this is an English-only workplace. I butted in, loudly, "Karen, they ARE speaking English, you just can't understand them." The entire line erupted haha. Karen had her tail between her legs after that.
The Vietnamese ladies would always brought in good ass home-cooked lunch and have a little potluck. Every. Single. Day. They invited me to eat with them after every day after that. It was awesome. I even brought in homemade American food to share, which they actually liked and appreciated. It felt good. I miss those sweet old ladies. They were so fun to be around.
Let people communicate however works well for them. Especially, if it increases speed/productivity. And even if not, it will raise workplace morale, which in turn will most likely increase production again.
The vacancy required German, but the department is from all over the place and we speak English a lot of the time. Nobody cares because they're not bigoted asshats.
imperialistic discrimination
I’m American in the middle of the country and I’m liable to greet you in any of like half a dozen languages. I’m the weird guy at work.
I only speak English fluently but I’ve picked up a lot.
I also prefer English to American English but not in all contexts. Like, have you seen how the English write maneuver? I could never. (I can spell it, but I can’t wrap my mind around that spelling.) (My iPhone changes everything to American English though.)
I believe awareness and immersion in multiple cultures, even if it’s just one you favor, it will make a person that much more interesting.