How to Promote Internationalization Through Remote Team Management

Guest Post by Rio Fontanilla 

The COVID-19 pandemic has completely expedited the adoption of remote work strategies in an effort to maintain continuous business operations and profitability around the world.  Remote team management and the ability to enhance team communications in a work from home environment has become increasingly common.

Aside from this, the work from home setup has also made an indirect effect on the growing internationalization of the workforce.  As businesses move much of their operations online, the physical limitations of the traditional office setting have largely been blurred, allowing employers to source better suited talents from all over the world.  As more and more businesses adopt remote work as their primary mode of operations, particularly as the world plunges into the second wave of the pandemic, it is highly likely that remote collaboration will remain the new reality for years to come.

Internationalization of the workforce – Lost in Translation

With this opportunity comes a slew of challenges when it comes to managing a multilingual team remotely.

First, are the obvious physical hurdles that companies have to address such as being able to provide the right tools to employees or even something as basic as access to Internet infrastructure.  Even experienced team builders, HR heads, and operations managers would find sourcing the right hardware and software to support international collaboration different from furnishing one or two office spaces.  For this, the United States Chamber of Commerce has created an in depth report on how to create remote work policies that promote employee productivity and well being

But the greater challenge is being able to coordinate a team from different countries, not only overcoming geographical barriers and time differences, but more importantly overcoming language and cultural barriers.

This is why companies must put policies and initiatives in place to promote digital workplace internationalization. By working with experts, employers can make sure business processes across all verticals maintain productivity through multilingual support.

Employers must make sure that everyone in the company regardless of where they are in the world, what language they speak, or how big or small their teams are, must have the necessary tools and resources to carry on their tasks.  This means that everything including operations manuals; procedural guidelines; employee onboarding materials; handbooks; contracts; and even business related software and hardware must be standardized and be available in multiple languages.

It is then crucial for executives and teams leads to work with language, HR, and accessibility experts to formulate a standardized internal communications strategy that is clear, concise and culturally sensitive.  Companies should then make sure that this strategy would be implemented faithfully in all languages spoken within the organization.

Internationalization for Remote Multilingual Team Management

According to the University of California at Berkeley, human resources network, promoting productivity and teamwork requires clear goals and constant input from everyone in the team. Employers need to foster an open, digital workplace environment that is conducive to close collaboration and knowledge-sharing while promoting trust and cooperation among employees.

Understanding the implications of the internationalization of the organization is crucial in properly managing a multilingual team.  These concepts help foster a culturally sensitive approach towards not only customer facing communications but also internal communications as well.

The principles of internationalization and globalization are likely more familiar to marketing teams, but these principles are also relevant when dealing with international or multilingual remote teams as well.  A little bit of cultural sensitivity can go a long way towards cementing team member relations, even for remote and multilingual teams.  By promoting open communication among members of the organization, team leads will be able to clearly understand the hindrances to productivity and team cohesion.

To ensure better cultural and linguistic sensitivity, it is advisable for businesses to incorporate them into employee training and create initiatives that would celebrate the cultural diversity of the digital workplace.

Internationalization and multilingual communication

There may be occasions when the necessary team personnel has no capacity to communicate effectively with one another.  Tools and resources may be able to support multiple languages but human collaboration would often be a lot more limited.  Unless there is the off chance that everyone in the team is multilingual, there would definitely be misunderstandings and miscues along the way.

Perhaps the best way to avoid getting lost in translation during multilingual meetings and real time collaboration is by taking a page off of the United Nation’s book.  Many international organizations like the United Nations, the World Health Organization, and others have similarly resorted to software and hardware solutions for remote meetings like any other business, but utilize remote video interpreters in order to effectively communicate with one another.

While hiring professional interpreters or utilizing interpretation service providers may seem like a needless use of company resources, but by enabling clear and efficient communication among multilingual teams, businesses can eliminate miscommunication and essentially avoid potentially costly mistakes.

Communications consultant and author David Grossman, highlights the importance of a clear understanding of creating an effective and productive multilingual organization.  He notes that face to face conversations and feedback techniques are important in allowing one’s audience, in this case, the employees, to build a foundation of understanding.  This can only be done if the translation is done effectively.

Employees are generally more perceptive and open to providing well thought out input when they are allowed to speak freely in their native language.  In order to bolster the organization’s efforts to create an atmosphere for diverse ideas, leaders must incorporate translation or interpretation not only in core resources but also in everyday communication so that teams across different countries would not become segmented in silos.

While not all organizations find that the remote work setup works for their business model, many companies who have made the jump from brick and mortar, to mostly digital out of necessity would find that this new normal would better suit their goals for growth.  Digital transformation and internationalization provide agility and scalability of business expansion, allowing businesses to source the best human talents and resources as well as reach new consumers.  However, companies need to understand the operational and personal nuances of their internationalized workforce to be able to scale as efficiently as possible. To do so requires a heavy investment in providing employees with all the resources needed for them to perform their duties without language being an obstacle.