Recruiting Strategy

How Could Your Company Benefit From A Multilingual Employment Drive?

How Could Your Company Benefit From A Multilingual Employment Drive?
HireHive Team

HireHive Team

HireHive

Nine out of ten UK employers now report their reliance on a multilingual workforce, and that figure is only set to grow as the ability to conduct business overseas and serve the needs of increasingly diverse customer bases becomes essential.

Unfortunately for employers, this increased demand, and a reduction in the availability of multilingual hires post-Brexit, has made multilingual roles harder to fill than ever. And, when you consider that challenge, it can seem far easier to leave multilingual employment by the wayside.

In reality, though, the benefits of multilingual employment far outweigh the challenges that employers face to achieve it. To prove that, we’ve put together a list of the main benefits you could enjoy from committing a little extra effort to a multilingual employment drive.

Overseas Opportunities

If your team speaks one language and one language only, you’ll struggle to do business anywhere but at home. This will significantly hinder company growth, especially if your competitors do go that extra multilingual mile. Before you know it, they’ll be building a global reputation, while you struggle to make ends meet.

By comparison, a structured multilingual employment drive that’s tailored towards specific languages will make it far easier for you to secure business in prime overseas locations. Done right, a long-distance multilingual recruitment drive could even see you employing remote hires who know and can sell in your chosen locations.

This can make a huge difference to your company’s global appeal. It could even see you securing trusted, worldwide brand ambassadors who, when your growth looks good enough, can head up global offices as required. None of which will be possible if you don’t branch out into the world of multilingual hires.

Enhanced Client Trust and Satisfaction

Whether you have your sights set on overseas domination, or simply like the idea of appealing to a diverse audience closer to home, multilingual employees can significantly enhance client trust and satisfaction. After all, as well as showing yourself to be a thoughtful and diverse employer, multilingual employees will be far better able to speak with non-native customers in their own language. This small effort can instantly help to get even disgruntled customers onside, and also increases the chances of client recommendations down the line.

The ability to speak to all members of your client base in their own language can also make it easier to understand exactly what your audience wants. This will make it easier to perfect everything from your products to your marketing drives, which will in turn lead to significant sales boosts, and clients who feel like you’re taking the time to truly listen to them.

Higher Employee Satisfaction

Studies have consistently found that diverse workplaces can be beneficial. In fact, according to LinkedIn, inclusive teams can be 35% more productive, while diverse teams make better decisions 87% of the time. Those are great stats, and they highlight the fact that making time for multilingual hires could also lead to higher employee satisfaction levels overall.

In terms of multilingualism, in particular, the ability to talk to people in their home language could help every member of your team to be both happier at work, and more productive throughout the working day. Not to mention that, when your teams can communicate better together, they’re more likely to produce great results.

Of course, this only works if you’re employing multilingual hires with the same target language. But, considering that you’ll likely want to target this employment drive towards certain locations, the chances are that multilingual hires can make everyone much happier in the long run.

Improved Decision Making

The points we’ve spoken about so far are largely commonsense benefits of multilingual hires. Something that you might not expect is the fact that multilingual hires can also bring improved decision-making to your workplace.

Why?

Well, for one thing, studies have revealed that the ability to seamlessly switch between languages makes multilingual people far better at skills like multitasking and, indeed, decision-making. It’s thought that this is because such individuals are far more likely to use the rational, resolute areas of their brains. Multilingual individuals may also approach any challenge in two different languages, which can help provide a fresh perspective that hires who only speak one language will struggle to achieve.

Going back to our previous point about improved communications, employees who can seamlessly communicate with as many of their team members as possible are also better equipped to collect all evidence, collate all viewpoints, and make a decision based on that. All of which would be great attributes for a decisive, fair, leadership role.

people sitting at a table looking at a laptop

A Determined Team

Learning a language isn’t easy. In fact, on average, languages take between 600-1100 hours to perfect. That’s a pretty impressive feat, and it’s also a clear indication that a multilingual team is likely to make a pretty formidable force.

After all, these aren’t individuals who give up at the first hurdle. They’re people who set themselves a goal and are willing to put in the work to achieve it. By placing a focus on the employment of individuals with at least two or more languages, you can rest easy that you’re building a team of people who are more likely to push for things like lucrative business deals, promotions, and even just desirable job skills. All of which will help your business to go further in the long run.

Make Multilingual Employment Easy With HireHive

The benefits of multilingual employment are plain to see. Unfortunately, they also mean that more employers than ever are fighting for an ever-dwindling multilingual workforce. While there’s no question about whether or not you should pursue a multilingual team, there are, therefore, questions surrounding the best ways to do that.

Attracting the highest quality multilingual candidates means simplifying every stage of the application process. Using HireHive, employers can more easily achieve this using an in-built multilingual ATS. By allowing you to easily vary the target languages on any job posting, this helps you to stand above the crowd by attracting clients who speak a variety of different languages according to your company’s needs. HireHive also makes it easier to employ multilingual employees for even your overseas offices by allowing you to select different employment locations for every listed role.

Multilingual employment really needn’t be a challenge. Simply start your free trial of HireHive today to take your team’s diversity to the next level.

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Hilary Dempsey Head of HR at Life Credit union

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