According to the United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) expects the employment of translators and interpreters to grow by 29 percent between 2014 to 2024. Yes – this is one of the fastest growth rates of any occupation! Why? They attribute this to an increase in globalization and a more diverse population in the United States, leading organizations having more multilingual employees, ESL employees, and/or employees with limited English proficiency.
We're all familiar with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). OSHA updated its policy in 2016 to require employee safety training "using both a language and vocabulary that the employees can understand." If your employees are non-English speaking or limited in English proficiency, then safety translation is an absolute must.
Lingualinx exhibits annually at the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) Conference and Expo. We speak with quite a few Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) professionals on the best ways to remain OSHA compliant with safety translation. We are summarizing these conversations in a series of blog posts. Here are a few places to start:
Employee Handbooks
Employee handbooks are essential tools for communication between an employer and their employees. They contain crucial information, such as anti-discrimination policies, company policies, compensation, and more. Companies with high-quality translations of their Employee handbooks can ensure that all workers have and understand this critical information. Not only is this crucial for promoting company culture, and employee retention, but and corporate liability and Human Resources directly benefit as well.
Safety Data Sheets (SDSs)
Safety Data Sheets (SDSs) communicate the risks, hazards, and protocols for hazardous chemical products and materials. A lot of times, the wording can be challenging to understand (even in English)! Translating your SDSs will help multilingual employees better understand the risks, hazards, and protocols, which will, in turn, lead to a safer workplace. We'll look a bit more closely at SDS translation in our next post.
Employee Training Content
Employee safety training can help prevent injury and illness in the workplace. Whether it is personal protective equipment or forklift safety and operation, employee training is required and should be easily accessible. Training content may include videos, PowerPoint presentations, classroom training, on-site training, and eLearning.
If you are interested in providing any of these components in another language, there are solutions available. As a professional language services provider, our capabilities support HR departments of Fortune 500 companies everywhere. From audio and video translation and subtitling to video localization, interpretation, eLearning localization, and of course… translation, we're here to help.
