Precast Inc. - May/June 2008 - (Page 57) • Some have trouble reading – either Spanish or English. • Bilingual supervisors, who themselves lack proper safety training, are sometimes placed into positions where they must explain hazards to workers. • The need to provide for the family outweighs the danger of being placed in harm’s way of an accident or injury. • When they have safety concerns, most are afraid to talk about them. • They are more frequently employed in trades that pose safety and health risks. However, all immigrants are not the same just because English is not their native language. Culturally, they may have different attitudes, values, beliefs, behaviors and even vocabulary. It’s a reality that makes safety training and communication even more difficult. How to conduct training OSHA requires safety training regardless of language barriers, and the employer must provide that training and assert that such training has been understood. It is important to emphasize that most, if not all, of this training requires that the company have in place programs or policies that adhere to the OSHA standards and Canadian regulations. In the case of OSHA they must be site specific. This is a case where one size does not fit all, so if you purchase or obtain a “generic” program it will have to be customized to your operation. The best approach to safety training is to have managers, supervisors or safety coordinators who are fluent in both languages and can offer the necessary training in Spanish and even translate the needed material. This is the ideal situation, because communication is established and information flows. Plus it helps to eliminate the “culture” barrier. The second approach used by some plants is to present the material in English and have a lead person or supervisor translate the training to the employees. The problem with this method is that a lot is missed during the translation and the employee does not really get the full benefit of the training. In some cases, office employees with no experience in safety training are placed in a position to deliver the content, which may result in ineffective training. A third approach is to purchase training programs written in Spanish and give them to the employees to read. Without the benefit of a qualified trainer, this can be disastrous, because the employee may not understand the dialect in which it was written or, worse, may not be able to read Spanish at all! If you must use this method, however, BOOTH 701 MAY/JUNE 2008 | WWW.PRECAST.ORG 57 http://www.preciseforms.com http://www.precast.org
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