LANGUAGE BARRIER Alejandro Maldonado Jeffery Mc Mahon OVERVIEW

LANGUAGE BARRIER Alejandro Maldonado Jeffery Mc. Mahon

OVERVIEW Organization introduction. Issue: Communication in different languages. Purposed Solution: Bilingual employee always on sight, language classes. Recommendation: Follow our purposed strategy to hire employees, invest in your employees, retain clients, and increase profits.

DIGITAL WIRELESS Local-family business in El Paso, TX. Established in 2004 Offer a variety of services including : New lines of service Payments Repairs

How may I help you? / En qué puedo ayudarle? Living in a border city, we have a huge concentration of Hispanic clients. Not everyone is bilingual, and this tends to be an issue for businesses in El Paso. Many times a person who only speaks one language will encounter another person at a business who only speaks a different language. If there is no way for them to communicate, then potential business and profits can be lost.

CONCERNS If an employee and client are unable to communicate, how is business suppose to occur? If business does not occur, no transaction/sale is made. If sales aren’t made then revenues will not rise. Lack of sales will cause businesses to shut down.

LANGUAGE STATISTICS According to the Census (2007 -2011), 81. 4% of people in El Paso are of Hispanic/Latino origin. And, 74. 1% of people speak a language other than English at home. Majority of the 74. 1% are speaking Spanish to communicate.

PURPOSED SOLUTION – STEP 1 To fix this issue that threatens potential revenues we conducted a solution. (Goal 1) We need to begin in the hiring process. – We know that it is difficult to hire pure bilingual employees. It is hard to find people who are fluent in both languages. Goal 1, is to hire enough bilingual people to have one available at every shift. If we have someone who can communicate in both languages fluently, at all times, then potential sales can be made.

PURPOSED SOLUTION – STEP 2 As a business in El Paso, having your full employment force bilingual is ideal. After reaching our first goal of having a bilingual person at every shift, our ultimate goal is to have our full employment force fluent in both languages. We can do this two ways: 1. Continue to hire only bilingual employees until we reach our ultimate goal. 2. Provide language classes to the employees who only speak one language.

COST The cost to hire and train an associate varies. Time, patience, and money all go in to creating an employee for Digital Wireless. The cost of language classes can be costly as well. Rosetta Stone. – One time purchase that can be passed on from employee to employee. Or, weekly classes can be held by the company and they use the program to teach the language. English version - $500/ program Spanish version - $500/ program Language classes at a community college. EPCC - $200 - $400/ person

LANGUAGE CLASSES We recommend that the company purchases Rosessta Stone in both languages (English & Spanish). It would be more effective if employees used them to their advantage to learn the language that they lack. Management could set up a workshop and have multiple employees benefit from the program. This can be a lengthy process. Learning a language is not effortless. Investing in your employee education to learn a new language can benefit the company significantly.

LANGUAGE BARRIER Invest in your employees, and see your revenues prosper…

WORK CITED Maldonado, Alejandro. Interview by Jeffery Mc. Mahon. Digital Wireless 28 Jun 2013. Jun. Print. U. S. Census, . N. p. . Web. 2 Jul 2013. <http: //quickfacts. census. gov/qfd/states/48/48141. html>.