One of the most important and time consuming facets of any business is ensuring your employee’s safety and continued good health. No matter what type of industry you’re in or service you provide, your employees need to be healthy to function well; not to mention the issues and costs associated with any on the job injuries. Most businesses provide an Employee Handbook to help provide good safety practices, as well as general business guidelines, but what if you employ a multi-lingual staff? It is vital that you have accurate Employee Handbook translations in order to head off potential workplace injuries and unsafe or unwanted behavior.
Every language is full of it’s own nuance and subjective wording, and while it may be easy to plug your handbook into a computer program word for word, the result will be full of misunderstandings that could end up costing you or your business big time. Something that we take for granted in English, like masculine and feminine designations are handled very differently in a language like Spanish, and direct translation by a program will not know to provide you with the sensible designation for each sentence. This has the unfortunate consequence of making your Employee Handbook translations read like a bad grammar text book without getting your point across.
Good interpretation requires a human mind behind it to pick up the threads and ideas behind what you want to get across and successfully translate not only your words but also your intentions into another language. A professional translator can read what you’ve written and convey exactly how important something is. For example, he can translate ‘lift with your knees,’ using the proper adjectives and emphasis so that any employee reading your manual understands the real importance of the safety procedures you’ve laid out.
Bad or nonsensical translations get in the way of comprehension, which only increases the chance of workplace accidents or mishaps. Making your instructions as simple and easy to remember as possible is of paramount importance. The harder it is to absorb safety techniques and tips, the more of a chance you’re taking with each and every employee you can’t reach. That’s why making sure you’re getting accurate Employee Handbook translations is so important.
Also important to consider, from a legal standpoint, is if an employee is injured in the line of duty then any court will want to know what safety material was available to them prior to their injury. Being able to provide a strong presentation of your company’s safety procedures and guidelines can go a long way to making sure that you and your company are protected in any case.
Taking the time and money to ensure that you provide accurate and readable Employee Handbooktranslations is a smart investment in the future of your company, one that can help keep your workplace safe, protected and standardized. Don’t avoid the reasonable investment and put yourself at risk for a big loss down the road