#62: Eliminating Language Barriers in Worker Safety

In this episode we welcome our good friend and employee George Mazzuca to chat about a huge potential risk in safety: miscommunication and wrong translations.  George covers challenges he's personally come across in his career in the plants, along with solutions for translating safety training & documents for multiple languages.  Full episode summary below

Episode Summary: "Breaking Down Language Barriers in the Workplace"

In this episode, hosts Joe and George discuss the significant challenges that language barriers pose in the workplace, particularly in industries like food production. They explore common scenarios such as new employee orientations and safety training, emphasizing how language differences can complicate communication. George explains how companies use tools like language lines and certified translators to bridge these gaps but notes that misinterpretation still occurs, especially with technical jargon. The conversation highlights the importance of finding effective methods, like using visual aids, videos, and certified interpreters, to ensure safety and consistency in communication.

The episode also touches on how different dialects and terms can add layers of complexity to training and how video tutorials can standardize procedures to avoid variations in teaching methods. Joe emphasizes the importance of keeping training accessible, efficient, and clear to minimize turnover and ensure worker safety. The hosts wrap up by offering advice on maintaining a safe and productive work environment while navigating the complexities of language barriers.

Key Words: Language barriers, workplace safety, certified translators, language line, orientation, bilingual employees, technical jargon, video training, communication challenges, lockout/tagout, food industry, safety procedures, interpreter, visual aids, employee turnover.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, today's episode language barriers.
I mean, is there any?
Hola, hola, that's what we'retalking about today.
Stay tuned.
All right, this is George, thisis Joe.

(00:20):
So what we do is George canspeak two languages languages
fluently.
I cannot, and I I tried, but Icannot, and so we were like
let's do an episode on some ofthe things that happen, like
orientation.
You walk into any job thatthere is, you have some kind of
orientation, right, and thenwhat's the first barrier?

Speaker 2 (00:39):
well.
So, essentially, if you don'tspeak the primary language,
right so for us to be english.
If you walk in, from the momentyou go through orientation,
every single thing that you dohas to be translated.
You either have to have aninterpreter, all your documents
have to be translated.
So, right off the bat, if youdon't speak English, you're
already, you know, starting offwith having to deal with that.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
Who do you think can do that?
Who can translate it?
Can it meet me?
Can, can it meet me?
Can I go to like some kind ofthing and say, type this in and
it's going to give me the rightwords, or how does it work?

Speaker 2 (01:07):
So a lot of facilities will use a language
line and they also some actuallyemploy a certified translator
or interpreter.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
So tell me about language lines.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Essentially, a language line is a third-party
service that you can call in andyou should have access.
Anybody who needs thattranslation service at the
facility would be able to haveaccess to that number and call
in, and then a person is thereto translate.
They're totally unbiased.
They're literally just going totranslate what you tell them.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
Now we've had, we've used it for like medical events,
hospitals, plants, evacuation,user different things.
And one of the things we didnotice is sometimes there's
still some misinterpretation ofwhat people actually saying, or
maybe the wording.
Maybe somebody will use a wordand they're like well, how does
that really translate right?

Speaker 2 (01:49):
do.
You have a lot of jargon, a lotof different.
You know acronyms and thingsthat are used in the facilities
in your food plants andessentially it's really hard to
translate some of those directly.
So just because I'm translatingthe word directly from english
to spanish or any other languagedoesn't necessarily mean the
person is going to understandyou Makes sense.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
All right, so now we go to.
I'm going to new language, soSpanish.
We're going to translate.
Boy comes in orientation, youhave to be certified or anything
, or can anybody translate it?

Speaker 2 (02:16):
So essentially to do documents, you really should
have a certified translator.
Unfortunately, that does nothappen very often.
A lot of times we'll pullsomebody who's bilingual.
We'll have them help ustranslate If it's any kind of a
certified document, especiallyif it's something that requires
any kind of agency, some kind ofgovernmental agency, that's
where you're going to struggleif you don't have a certified
translator.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
All right.
So now we've got a translator,now we've got documents.
What are the barriers we got?
We got learning, like, maybe,refrigeration.
We have refrigeration in a lotof our plants.
We're going to learnrefrigeration, but people know
Spanish.
They go learn refrigeration,they learn English and we've
seen that no-transcript hpr andyou're like, okay, how do you

(02:55):
say that?

Speaker 2 (02:56):
and they get it all and they say hbr.
So unfortunately, what happensis that that person does have
some knowledge of english, sothey may speak some english.
They're predominantly spanish,let's say that's their, their
first language.
And then when they learn thesystems and they learn how to be
a refrigeration technician or arefrigeration operator makes it
, then they'll start using hpr,because that's what everybody

(03:17):
calls it, or compressor.
So then in their language theydon't really ever use that word
in Spanish.
So then when you ask, you knowwe asked to translate some of
those words.

Speaker 1 (03:27):
They're kind of like well, we always say compressor,
we always say HPR.
That makes sense.
So we don't.
We don't want to just educatethem on the subject, but we may
look at the edge game how totranslate it.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
Yeah, a lot of times you will have to have a direct
translation and say, look, thisis what it says in the book or
this is what it is, you know thedirect translation, but then
also say this is what they'regoing to actually understand.
These are the words that I canuse so they can actually
understand me in their everydaylife.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
Well, for Lockout, tagout, we do write lockout
procedures, but the main thingwe try to do is stay out of the
language barrier by doing morepictures.
And we do that with picturesand arrows, because that's been
an opportunity we've seen isthat we've tried to write it out
and say this is like ourprocedure One, through three,
four or five steps you give itto somebody and it's so hard to

(04:10):
figure out the translation ofeveryone and the different
dialects and the different waysinterpreted.
So, we said you know what?
We just do pictures in ours.
So it's a picture of how you dothis, a picture where you're
going to check for power, and apicture of when it's good, and
it seems like most people seemto be better with that Of course
.

Speaker 2 (04:26):
And then you know, picture says a thousand words,
right, the other thing too, withpictures, or a lot of the
facilities using video for therecording right, that's a good
idea.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
I've seen that when people like video, the job yep,
so in orientation.
I'm like this is your job andyou can actually see how it
moves, so I can show you step bystep so we can actually do that
lockout as well.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
Right, hey, this is step one.
Show somebody doing it thatkind of takes out the guesswork,
like I don't know the wordsyou're using because I'm just
barely learning english, whereasif you say, watch this video,
you know, look at this, that'sexactly how we're going to do it
.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
That makes sense.
I like that idea All right.
So now we've got someorientation, now we've got some
training, now we've got somelockout, now we've got
refrigeration.
What's the weird one?
The weird one to me is thatwhen people are doing a job test
so whatever that is like maybewe videoed or something they new

(05:21):
job task and it seems like allthe trainers that we hired to do
that job had their own littleversion of it.
So I think maybe your your ideaof the video and it kind of
kind of breaks down that barriertoo, because I've seen that
where somebody will trainsomebody to do a job cast, they
do it one way and and eventhough maybe it wasn't maybe a
language barrier, they'll trainthem on how to do it a different
way, someone else.
So you're trying to do the samejob, three different people
doing the same job.
They're all doing differently.
But it could be language, itcould be interpretation, it

(05:43):
could be whatever.

Speaker 2 (05:44):
But I like the video because it's like this is how
we're going to do it here andit's the process right, and one
of the big things to remember isthat is as a new hire, as at
least when I went into a foodplant for the first time it's
very overwhelming, so,especially somebody who doesn't
speak the language first.

Speaker 1 (05:57):
First feed it.
I mean it's a lot.

Speaker 2 (05:59):
Just first month or so when I was at the plant I was
like I never been a plant thisbig, a lot of moving parts,
anything's moving around, yeahit's crazy, and it's essentially
got its own little mini city,and so people are trying to get
their bearings on top of thefact that they don't speak the
language, the primary language.
I do think that a lot offacilities have done a really
good job of having documentstranslated, having certain

(06:19):
trainers, having people that caninterpret for them, but either
way, it's still pretty, prettydifficult.
It's pretty overwhelming.
So we have to keep all that inmind and try to make it as easy
as possible to for them toacclimate and also to keep them
safe absolutely.

Speaker 1 (06:32):
And then, you know, there's that word turnover yeah,
and the turnover.
You feel like you get everybodytrained and then we just kind of
start over some days.
But I do agree with you thatthe, the locations are doing
better with the languages andthe documents.
I still think there's a longway to go.
I still think, when you look atthe overall documents that a
person would read like myself,when I went into the food plant

(06:54):
I was like there's a lot ofdocuments, there's a lot of
stuff going on and you're likestill struggled.
You're like okay, I'm notreally sure what we're doing.

Speaker 2 (07:02):
Even if you speak the language it's a lot right.
Sometimes you feel a little bitlost.
So definitely those languagebarriers are, you know, they
present an issue.
Also, a lot of times we'll gointo a training.
We had an interpreter andbasically we gave somebody a

(07:23):
training, let's say on hascom,yeah, something along those
lines.
And then they, they had aninterpreter, and then we'll have
them either sign where theysaid, hey, this person
translated, but that persondoesn't necessarily know exactly
what happened, it was justbased on whatever that
interpreter said, absolutely sothat's again open to
interpretation, right, no punintended, but unfortunately
sometimes the message doesn'talways get across that's our
ideas for today.

Speaker 1 (07:39):
If you want to listen , we do have other episodes and
the idea of these is is how theindustry works, things you can
do in the industry and justdifferent ideas to keep your
people safe.
Thank you for watching anddon't forget everything in this
is our opinions.
Please do a thorough riskassessment.
Yeah, how do you want to do itat your own location?
But we appreciate you listeningand watching this week and I

(08:01):
think we're kind of done.
Gracias, good day everyone.

Speaker 3 (08:04):
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(08:27):
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(08:49):
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