Multilingual workplace can translate into opportunities

Before Tufts housekeeper Maria Teixeira began taking English classes, she felt uncomfortable talking with supervisors or visitors. Now, ‘‘when they talk, I understand them better. I feel more confident asking questions,’’ she says. (Suzanne Kreiter / Globe Staff)

Hola, America, we're going global, pronto.

By the watercooler, in the boardroom, around the cafeteria, a new multilingualism is burgeoning, sparked by a swelling immigrant population and our deepening ties to the world economy. Nearly 20 percent of Americans over age 5 speak a language other than English at home, up from 14 percent in 1990. That means say "hola" - hello - to a rising linguistic diversity that is spilling into the workplace "pronto" - or right now.

Yet when workplaces begin to sound like mini-United Nations, much can get lost in the translation. Co-workers can feel excluded when others chat in a different language. Managers must balance a bottom-line need for workers to speak English to get the job done with a growing demand for language skills. And workers with scant English struggle at home and work to cope with routine tasks, from attending a school meeting to reading a medical bill. The result: a cacophony of work-life needs and wants.

Try managing 300 workers who speak more than 30 languages. At Tufts Medical Center, Nora Moynihan Blake directs a housekeeping staff that sometimes can't speak to one another or give directions to a lost visitor. Most are hard-working immigrants whose careers often stall for lack of English fluency, says Blake.

"When I met with the employees to introduce myself, I realized almost immediately that a lot didn't understand what I was saying," says Blake, director of hospitality services. "You can have misunderstandings between patients and visitors and employees."

Her solution? Bring school to work. With crucial support from hospital executives, Blake helped partner with Boston's Asian American Civic Association last fall to start on-site English and high school equivalency classes for hospitality staff. With 35 enrolled and a growing wait list, Blake already sees gains as workers gain confidence - and a voice. "It's huge," she says. "They're talking more to be heard."

The Tufts program is unusual. While 80 percent of companies employ workers whose deficiencies in English limit their ability to perform their jobs, only about a third provide remedial language training, and then mostly if a worker asks for help, according to a 2007 Conference Board survey of 70 senior corporate directors of training. "For a lot of companies, it's a reactive rather than a proactive approach," says researcher Chris Woock.

Legally, employers can require that a worker speak English on the job - if there's a sound business reason, such as needing to deal with customers or dangerous machinery. However, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission discourages blanket English-only policies, especially those that try to restrict a worker's ability to speak the language of their choice during breaks or personal time. As the country diversifies, the "English-only" issue is fast becoming a political battleground.

A particularly high-voltage case erupted last spring with a federal lawsuit against the Salvation Army for firing two Framingham-based workers who spoke mostly Spanish at work. The government contends the two back-room workers didn't need to speak English. In response to the suit, Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee, has introduced legislation to protect companies that enforce English-only laws.

Cases related to language or accent make up a tiny fraction of the EEOC's work. Last year, the government filed a handful of lawsuits involving such issues and received 306 charges or formal accusations against employers, says David Grinberg, an EEOC spokesman. But it's likely that many cases go unreported because immigrants are afraid to speak out, he stresses.

"It's a fine line that employers need to walk," says Grinberg. "That is the key as far as implementing a policy that is not discriminatory, and being sensitive to people who may be language minorities."

Below the legal radar screen, as well, language issues pose challenges. Is it callous for a bevy of Spanish- or Vietnamese-speakers to keep to their own tongue in front of others at work? Where some see a bit of bonding, others argue that it amounts to exclusion.

"It's the rudest thing to do," says Myrna Toro, a Latina who heads the Philadelphia architecture firm Synterra Ltd. "It's a gift to speak two languages, but there's a time and place for it. If I see a Hispanic person, it's instant that I want to speak Spanish to them. But that's where it ends. 'Hello, how are you doing' in Spanish."

People should be sensitive to the need for using a shared tongue, says Roberto Avant-Mier, an assistant professor of communications at Boston College. When some members of the "Latinos at BC" network said they couldn't understand the plentiful Spanish spoken at meetings, the group switched to English. "The really cool thing was, it was no big deal," says Avant-Mier, who is fluent in both languages.

At the same time, those excluded from conversation by a group of speaking another language shouldn't assume that others "invoke their language when it's time to tell secrets, " he says.

For housekeeper Maria Teixeira, improving her English has been life changing. Her studies at Tufts mark the first English class that she's taken since moving to the United States from Cape Verde a decade ago. Before, she felt uncomfortable talking with supervisors, hospital visitors, or her doctor or her daughter's teacher.

"I always like to keep my mouth shut" in the past, she says. Now, "when they talk, I understand them better. I feel more confident asking questions." Soon, she will apply for a job as a nurse's assistant. "I want to take the next step."

Maggie Jackson, author of "What's Happening to Home: Balancing Work, Life and Refuge in the Information Age," can be reached at maggie.jackson@att.net.