Like many manufacturing organizations, DS Smith encountered hiring troubles in the wake of the pandemic. At its Lebanon, Ind., facilityâwhich opened in 2019 in a state given a severe rating by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for only having 72 available workers for every 100 openingsâHR struggled to fully staff the plantâs three shifts.
Throughout the manufacturing park surrounding the business, there were signs enticing workers with everything from sign-on bonuses to free food.
âWe had people who would start, and then theyâd ghost us for 25 cents more; theyâd walk out at lunch or at breaks,â says Monica Anderton, CHRO of the North America Packaging and Paper Division of DS Smith.
The organization was already checking all the boxes for recruiting: running billboards, attending career fairs and recruiting at public transit stations and churches. But Becky Gordon, a member of the HR team at the Lebanon facility, suggested getting more creativeâwith targeted recruiting to Hispanic communities.
âShe saw an opportunity to hit an untapped market,â Anderton says.
Breaking down language barriers
Gordonâs team started working with an Hispanic temporary worker agency, which funneled the organization a significant amount of talent. But many candidates couldnât speak English, prompting the team to pitchâand get approved forâhiring three Spanish interpreters.
In time, the organization moved away from the temp agency and took over recruiting and hiring, with the help of the interpreters, who assist with translation services throughout the hiring and onboarding processes.
âAs we get candidates in now,â Anderton says, âweâre able to speak to them with full translationâtalk about our processes, our safety orientation, what the job is.â
One interpreter is present for each of the plantâs three shifts to support workers on the job, and they also assist with ongoing training, company-wide communicationsâfrom policy and procedure updates to open enrollmentâand offer translation services for leadership teams.
âWe do company meetings bilingual now,â Anderton says. âEverything weâre doing, weâre doing English-Spanish, Spanish-English, to keep that cadence going because the population has gotten so large.â
Since the interpreter program rolled out two years ago, the plant has become fully staffed, with 262 employees, and its Hispanic talent population has skyrocketed from 6% to 42%.
Ultimately, the plant reduced time-to-fill by more than half and grew production by 200%âtripling output.
Building the business case for a language program
DS Smith isnât alone in recognizing the value of language support services in the workplace.
Online language learning platform Open Education launched more than 15 years ago and now operates in more than 30 countries, including a recent expansion into the U.S. Open Education has amassed more than 2 million users, including more than 10,000 corporate clients, who look to the language skills and training programs to capture the value of bilingualism within their workforces.
The rapid pace of globalization has made it essential for employers to invest in language skills, says Andrés Moreno, founder, chairman and CEO of Open Education.
âIf you turn the clock back 10 or 20 years ago, globalization wasnât at the point it is at now,â he says. âMost companies have revenue from abroad, providers for their products from abroad. Itâs tough to find a company thatâs completely isolated in the U.S.â
Ensuring your workforce has the language skills to penetrate the markets that will drive business growth is going to give companies a competitive advantage in that landscape.
âThere are markets youâre going to miss if you donât have speakers of a foreign language,â Moreno says.
Investing in language training can also be an employee attraction and retention tool, similar to DS Smithâs experience. Open Educationâs research has found that such offerings heighten employee engagementâalongside profit margins.
Of more than 400 HR managers in the U.S. that Open Education surveyed, more than 70% say English and Spanish training programs create more inclusive work environments, while nearly as many say such initiatives can improve collaboration and teamwork. More than half of those surveyed say language training can reduce employee stress related to language barriers among diverse teams.
âThere are few things a workforce would value more than having a high-quality program to learn a second language, especially if they have to use it in their work,â Moreno says.
Open Educationâs approach, utilizing live human instruction, differs from many language-skills apps on the market today. That human-to-human connection drives adherence to the program, which Moreno notes can also boost retention, as employees utilizing such a benefit want to see the 18-month program through to completionâand, in the process, recognize the companyâs investment in their development.
However, Moreno notes, there is space for tech to play a role in employees’ language skills development. For instance, Open Educationâs AI-powered virtual tutor Jenny complements the live instruction, offering participants personalized feedback and recommendations at the end of each session.
Tech can also give HR key insights about the efficacy of language programming.
âThereâs so much data now about how weâre learning and we give that to HR and to managers, which is a big departure from the past,â Moreno says. âThat wealth of information allows HR to measure the ROIâto see that people are really learning using these products youâre providing to them.â
A long-term transformation
For DS Smith, the ROI of its language support program has been clear, Anderton says.
âItâs been so successful in helping us recruit and creating this very sticky factor that has helped our engagement and turnover,â she says.
Itâs an investment that has fueled a larger cultural transformation, creating a more âwelcoming environmentââwhere workers in Lebanon have together celebrated holidays like the Fourth of July and Cinco de Mayo, sharing food and traditions.
At the same time, Spanish-speaking employees are bringing in significant numbers of referrals and recognizing the potential for their own growth in the company. Anderton says a number of non-English-speaking employees have been promoted multiple times at the Lebanon plant because of the support of the language programâand many have gone on to enhance their English skills.
âWe have some employees who have become bilingual because weâve created this natural bridge,â she says.
DS Smith has leveraged some of the interpretersâ workâsuch as their translation of training and development videosâacross its North American system, and Anderton says, the company would consider investing in interpreters at other sites with large Spanish-speaking populations in the future.
The success of the program, she adds, illustrates the potential of empowering HR talent to pursue opportunities for innovation.
âIt really took off with an idea by a local HR manager who was open to kind of pushing the envelope,â Anderton says. âWe have a really strong values system at DS Smith that allows employees to be creative and innovativeâand that has helped us create this program that has been a total business win.â