Is Translating a Global Business?
Globalization, international business expansion and mobility of individuals across international borders outline the profile of the contemporary business environment and create numerous opportunities on the market. At the same time, this process of dilution of the international borders makes companies, employees, and consumers significantly more demanding and ambitious. It is difficult to argue that a company in a modern business world has much wider choice and options in terms of business model and the strategy. This is determined by a better access to technology, access to companies to specific skills and expertise, which professionals across the borders can provide as well as global supply chain, which can improve efficiency, increase outreach and reduce total operational costs. One can argue that these factors are only relevant for the companies that deal with products and not with services. There are several examples of industries, where challenges and opportunities presented by the globalization of economy are as significant and evident as in product industries. Translation agencies are great examples of businesses that grow rapidly and enter into an international business environment. While twenty and even ten years ago translation business was mostly in hands of entrepreneurs and small companies, today, more and more large international translation company's appear in a business field.
Translation business, irrespectively of the field of translation, whether it is academic, scientific, and technical or literature requires very specific set of skills and expertise. Cultural and professional diversity in this field, therefore, represent some of the major challenges for translation agencies. Recruiting and selection processes as well as employee training demand constant attention and continuous learning. When the company needs to hire Spanish, Polish or French translators there are several major challenges involved in recruiting and selection process. First of all, the person must have a perfect command of English as well as one of the above languages. Secondly, the individuals working on translations should have very good understanding of cultural, social and economic diversity between the countries for which the translation is done. Finally, these individuals should possess specific knowledge in their specific field of translation. That said, translators working with legal texts should be well acquainted with legal terminology and specificity of the field in both countries. Additionally, they should have certain of knowledge within the field itself. The above are the core elements that build on the job description and responsibility outline for the individuals that seek to join translation agency. Another side of the selection process is to be able to address diversity from employment contract perspective. When a company, headquartered in the US is hiring a native Spanish-speaking translator,it should recognize cultural differences, learning styles and possible differences in approach work. To be able to build on sustainable business relationships with employees, Human Resource Management (HRM) department within translation agencies should have very good understanding of diversity and implement diversity training in an organization (Bendick et al. 10-15).
The above makes companies develop different strategies, where some choose to work with professionals from the US and other adopt global hiring strategy. It is difficult to argue, which strategy is more appropriate for a company as there is no single rule for all. The decision should be based on the type of the operations, translations, and internal organizational culture as well as on the needs and wishes of the clients. One can argue that hiring only the US professionals will help an organization avoid issues related to cultural diversity, help to make standardized employment contract and ensure better control over the workforce. Others can counterargue that organizations that do not have global thinking in their HRM strategy loose by not utilizing local knowledge and can dilute brand identity as the quality of translation can reduce due to the lack of specific cultural and social knowledge of individuals that make translations. In many situations hiring professionals locally will give organizations the better competitive advantage in terms of internal competence and unique capabilities, but can significantly increase their operational costs, due to differences in legislation, transaction costs and management control. Companies that choose to hire locally often can benefit from economies of scale and reduce their operational costs by working under the same legal umbrella and by not requiring high investment in employee diversity training. These savings can be diluted in a long-term, however, by the factors outlined above. The decision, however, should be individual for each company and the stories of various international organizations demonstrate that there is no perfect recipe for all.
Diversity management is a great challenge for any companies. Many large corporations continue to struggle with poor retention rates and motivation issues among the staff, in spite of the experience and access to training that these companies have due to their size and scale. Managing diversity within a small organization is even more challenging. To address diversity and overcome potential cultural differences it is important to understand types of diversity. Hofstede (2001) outlines six major dimensions of national diversity: masculinity and femininity, uncertainty avoidance, power distance, individualism as opposed to collectivism, indulgence versus restraint and long-term versus short-term orientation. Companies should develop a methodology to evaluate their employees within these dimensions and to include it in performance appraisal system. Incentive-based pay should include not only operational and financial targets but also personal and professional development goals, built according to the diversity profile, identified for each employee together with his or her manager. Additionally, it is recommended that a company sets up several basic diversity awareness and management training for all he staff as well as makes individual online training available and obligatory for each new employee. Finally, even the smallest organization should have clear internal culture, which will ensure that each employee, with their individual qualities and differences, belongs to a group and associates with it. This will allow the organization recognize diversity and build a unique working environment, where diversity is a tool for productivity.
Works Cited
Bendick Mark, Egan, Lou Mary, and Lofhjelm Suzanne. Workforce Diversity Training: From Anti-discrimination Compliance to Organizational Development. 2001 Human Resource Planning. Vol.24, Issue 2: 10-25. Print.
Hofstede, Geert. Culture Consequences. Comparing Values, Behaviors, Institutions and Organizations Across Nations. 2001. London: Sage Publications.
