Employer’s Tendencies on Employees Who are Multilingual
When I decided to tackle this topic one question I wanted answered was how much of an edge does know more than one language give you? As an attempt to answer this question I searched for some studies done on the topic but from an employer’s perspective. As a result, I came across a very interesting article on the internet. The article, “The Demand for Multilingual Human Capital in the U.S. Labor Market” by Rebecca Rubin Damariet al. (2017, February) described their base knowledge, method of research and conclusions from their research. As their research confirmed, foreign language (FL) skills are a great asset to employees in the hiring process, but there are interesting details once you begin researching whether companies care about an employee’s depth of knowledge. Their research also created correlations between the career field and its demand for people with FL skills.
Being bilingual is an asset in every job field, and Rebecca Rubin Damari et al’s. (2017, February) research proved this by sending surveys to a variety of companies. The administrative sector had the highest recognition of FL skills, with 100% of surveyed members reporting that they report identifying FL skills. Other industries such as agriculture, public administration and information services were also highly likely to identify FL skills.
Although these sectors are likely to identify FL skills, they are much less likely to identify their level of knowledge. For example, although 100% of administrative services members reported FL skills, only 71.40% of them record their level of competency. This trend is evident is every field they researched. It is a clear advantage to have bilingual employees for companies with multicultural clientele or international employees. This results in a high rate of identification of FL skills, yet some companies are not testing for competency in these FL skills, proving their lack of commitment to the importance of employees with FL skills.
With the information given in this study it is clear to see that employers are searching for people with additional languages at their disposal. Within the article one of the studies conducted was a survey of 686 companies. The survey stated that 639 or 93% of the participants agreed or strongly agreed that they value employees who can work effectively with customers, clients and businesses from a range of different countries and cultures. Rebecca Rubin Damari et al. study also stated “The vast majority of companies in the sample stated a clear need for staff who can interact with a multicultural and global clientele. However, the data in this survey were mixed in terms of the extent to which language skills were prioritized in hiring to meet this need” (2017,February). After seeing the results of this there is a clear edge for being multilingual.
Another conclusion that was reached from this research was that there is a gap in supply of employees with FL skills and the demand for people with FL skills. This is an issue that should be made apparent to educators and should become a new topic of discussion, so educators can begin making more marketable employees. The language industry is growing faster than the global average; therefore, educators should seriously rethink how they are approaching FL skills.
Sources:
Rebecca Rubin Damari et al. (2017,February). The Demand for Multilingual Human Capital in the U.S. Labor Market. Retrieved from https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.gate.lib.buffalo.edu/doi/full/10.1111/flan.12241
