The Spanish you learned in high school might be enough for you to ask where to find the bathroom or a library, but whatever’s left probably isn’t enough for you to delve into the nitty-gritty details of health insurance and employee benefits with a native speaker. Unless there are fluent or native bilingual speakers on hand to translate, effective communication surrounding these complicated and nuanced topics can quickly become a logistical nightmare for HR departments facing workforces that include Spanish-only or ESL speakers. Aside from accommodations to fulfill minimum legal requirements, there are many reasons to take the extra step and improve communications with bilingual or non-English-speaking workers.
Speaking the Same Language
Companies’ methods of communication speak volumes about their interest in their workers. Where are they placing the burden of understanding? Does the company go out of their way to provide messaging that’s accessible to everyone? What resources do they provide for those who need more information or are those only available in English?
Investing in Spanish-friendly communications tools and solutions shows an awareness of and respect for impacted workers, who are probably more familiar with feeling overlooked or undervalued. You want workers to feel like you’re investing in them and their well being. Higher level and quality investments tell employees you’re interested in making improvements for the sake of more than just productivity and profits. Budgeting for more effective and Spanish-friendly employee benefits resources and materials is an excellent way to send such a message.
Is Your Budget Bilingual? We Can Help with That
Investing in benefits education for a multilingual workplace is tricky because budgets only stretch so far and most benefit communications companies either have severely limited or wildly expensive Spanish-language solutions. Even when it comes to something that should be simple, like short videos explaining common benefits terms and concepts, finding a solution that addresses everyone’s needs can mean a choice between breaking the bank or compromising on quality and depth across the board. Translation services have sometimes been used to add Spanish subtitles to English videos as a last resort for strapped HR departments.
We’ve developed a better option.
At Flimp, we’ve produced affordable full-Spanish versions of nearly all our employee benefits video library’s English titles, which means HR departments no longer have to struggle or compromise on communications solutions for the Spanish-speaking segments of their workforces. Our full-Spanish videos match their English counterparts in both style and content, which can easily be seen when they’re viewed side by side. Going back to our original scripts and storyboards, these videos have been translated from the ground up to ensure consistency and quality. We offer special pricing to license both the English and Spanish versions of a video, for multi-video bundles and for the entire library.
Beneficios Adicionales
Studies have shown that employees need and want more education from their employers, especially around their benefits. Better-informed workers are more likely to enroll in options that both meet their needs and ultimately save their employers money. If you’re not taking advantage of tools that break through the language barrier in your benefits communications, your employees won’t have the foundation they need to effectively make those decisions. For those planning open enrollment, now is the time to think about how you can improve messaging and the employee experience. Being able to rely on supplemental materials like explainer videos so your employees understand how HDHPs work and save them money means your HR department spends less time answering one-on-one questions and in meetings—both made more difficult and time consuming when language barriers are involved.
Open Enrollment Season Is Just Around the Corner
We’re also getting ready for open enrollment so we’re adding more videos in both English and Spanish. And we just launched a new website, EmployeeBenefitVideos.com, devoted to showcasing our HR video library and all it has to offer. Visit the site to discover new titles, our featured freebies (right now, we’re offering our Benefits Key Terms video for free in both English and Spanish), and other special offers.
