Let’s face it. Interpreting and translating materials takes time and costs money, but translating your business’ materials can seriously improve your company. However, one of the mistakes many employers make is refusing to use a professional translation service and handing over translation projects to bilingual employees. Ideally, doing so would save the business money, right?

Unfortunately, no. Unless you’re a professional translation company, chances are that your bilingual employees aren’t professional translators. In the end, using employee time and resources will cost you more than initially hiring professional translators in the first place. Here’s why:

Why Translate?

Internally, translating company materials is essential for fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace, improving safety, empowering employees, and expanding business reach. By providing translated resources, employers create a welcoming environment where bilingual workers can perform their jobs effectively. Workplace safety also improves when employees understand training materials, especially in high-risk industries. Additionally, translating legal and onboarding documents ensures employees fully grasp their rights and responsibilities.

Regulated institutions like credit unions, doctors’ offices, and banks benefit significantly from translating customer materials, too. Well-translated content ensures compliance, accessibility, and trust, and accurate translations of financial documents, contracts, disclosures, and marketing materials help institutions meet legal requirements and avoid costly misunderstandings. For non-English-speaking customers, having information available in their native language fosters confidence in their financial decisions, leading to stronger relationships and increased loyalty. Additionally, translated materials reduce operational risks by minimizing misinterpretations that could lead to disputes or regulatory issues. By prioritizing language accessibility, regulated institutions enhance customer experience and position themselves as inclusive, community-focused organizations committed to serving diverse populations.

Reasons Why Bilingual Employees Shouldn’t Translate Your Content

Now that you know why you should translate your content, it’s time to know why you shouldn’t use your bilingual employees to do so. Overall, using bilingual employees to translate content will increase the overall cost of translation in a few ways:

It is Outside of the Employee’s Scope

When you hire an employee, they expect to fulfill a specific role and work within the scope of that role. Usually, translating content isn’t included in the job description. Not all bilingual employees are professional translators; they shouldn’t have to be. Aside from being outside an employee’s scope of work, using bilingual employees for interpreting and translating company materials will also:

Reduces Worker Efficiency

This one’s pretty obvious; if you ask your employee to do something outside their job’s scope, they’ll have to step away from their job to complete the task. These distractions disrupt an employee’s workflow and can reduce engagement in the workplace. Reductions in engagement hinder an employee’s ability to focus on their work, leading to higher stress levels and potentially missed deadlines.

Create Inaccurate Translations

Your bilingual employees aren’t necessarily professional translators, and asking them to do a translation project outside of the scope of their job will also introduce problems in your translated materials. Some translated information may be inaccurate or strongly aligned with a specific dialect.

The average employee is also not always equipped to handle aspects of interpreting and translating materials aside from providing subject matter expertise. For example, a bilingual employee who works with heavy machinery will certainly be able to explain how their device works. Still, they won’t be able to mimic the original training material’s tone or appropriately reach its target market.

Professional translation services always employ a team of translators when working on a project, including subject matter experts, demographics consultants, graphic designers, and cultural experts. Each team member plays a vital role in ensuring that a translated work stays accurate to the source material while meshing with its target audience.

Takes Longer to Complete

Finally, the third costly drawback of using employees as translators is that it takes extra time. In a world where time is money, the cost of translation will always increase the longer a project takes. A single, inexperienced employee will have to step away from their job duties and potentially work overtime just to translate materials. On the other hand, a professional translation team can efficiently and accurately work through interpreting and translating content— in some cases, multiple pieces at a time.

It Can Violate Privacy Laws

Aside from being outside of an employee’s scope of work, using bilingual employees to translate content may sometimes violate others’ privacy. For example, medical files are highly confidential but may need translation if a patient travels somewhere or lives in a place with more than one primary spoken language. Having an employee translate these confidential documents will expose the translator to private medical information, violating HIPAA guidelines.

Looking for someone with expertise in interpreting and translating private medical documents? A professional medical translator is a licensed and experienced translator specializing in translating and interpreting these materials, all within HIPAA guidelines.

It Can Cause Legal Problems Down the Line

Violating HIPAA guidelines is undoubtedly one way to incur legal problems, but there are plenty of other ways a mistranslation can cause legal problems. Another example in the medical industry involves a Florida hospital charged with malpractice after a doctor misunderstood the Spanish word “intoxicado” as “intoxicated” in English. In reality, “intoxicado” means that someone has been poisoned. This mistake cost the hospital $71 million in a lawsuit.

Legal troubles aren’t just limited to medical mistranslation; employees unaware of their legal rights may be exploited in the workplace, or a mistranslated training manual could result in severe workplace injuries. Avoid legal difficulties adding to the overall cost of translation; use a professional legal translation service instead.

Translation vs. Interpretation

Using bilingual employees as professional translators is probably not the best idea, but what about interpreting? In some cases, interpreting instructions to another employee or a customer who doesn’t speak your native language seems beneficial, right?

While it is true that having a bilingual employee available to assist non-native-speaking customers is beneficial, there’s a bit more to interpreting than sending someone onto the floor to help a customer. Other facets of interpretation are also best left to professionals:

What is Interpretation?

To start unraveling the intricacies of interpretation, let’s define it: in short, interpretation is the process of actively translating what one person says into another language. For example, you may see an ASL interpreter onstage during a presentation to help people in the deaf or hard-of-hearing community understand what the speaker is saying.

Interpretation always comes in handy: during presentations or court cases, talking on the phone, speaking with customers and potential business partners… The options are endless. That’s why OPIs and phone interpreter services are so important.

What is OPI?

An over-the-phone interpreter (OPI) is a professional interpreter with particular expertise in the language and subject matter they’re interpreting for. OPIs are vital resources that employees can call over the phone to translate for a customer. As professionals in both a specific field and in language, they can quickly and effectively relay information to people needing specific interpretation services. You’ll most often find over-the-phone interpreters working with banks, hospitals, doctor’s offices, and customer service companies.

What is a VRI Interpreter?

A video remote interpreter is a type of interpreter who specializes in video calls. Just like phone interpreting services, video remote interpreters often have specific expertise in a given field. You’ll often see VRI interpreters when working with the deaf or hard-of-hearing community. Video remote interpreters are especially useful for interpreting during presentations, meetings, and webinars, but you’ll also find professional interpreters working in person from inside translation booths at on-site workshops and conferences.

What about AI Interpretation?

AI interpreters, like Traduality’s Fire Lingo, are another excellent resource for interpretation, especially when working in customer service. Unlike OPI and VRI services, AI interpretation is almost instantaneous, so customers won’t have to sit on hold for several minutes to get service. In addition, AI interpreters are more secure– no one has to give out their personal information to a random person on the other line.

When Should I Get an Interpreter

Of course, you don’t need to use phone interpreting and translating services in every situation. In the example from earlier, where a customer needs help identifying a product, a bilingual employee can quickly fulfill the interpreter role for a brief moment. Even then, there are times when a specific employee can’t always be there to interpret for a customer. Plus, some inquiries may need subject matter expertise a bilingual employee simply can’t provide, including:

• Frequent interactions, especially over the phone (your employees will thank you!)
• Long-form content, like speeches
• Confidential materials, like legal or medical information
• Highly specific material, like financial information
• You are working with a deaf or hard-of-hearing client

The Long-Term Solution: Professional Interpreting and Translation Services

With the help of professional interpretation and translation services, you can:

Save Time and Money

Professional translators work fast and have tons of experience in their field. This means it’ll take less time overall to translate projects, and you won’t have to pull a vital employee away from their job duties.

Plus, keeping an employee working within the scope of their job will reduce the number of distractions and external stress they may experience while working—  this will increase productivity overall and ensure that your employees are doing what they love, not something else.

Ensure You’re Interpreting and Translating Accurately

If you’re looking to save money in the long run, opting for professional translation services right away will lower the cost of translation simply because you’ll get accurate material the first time. AI translation is often too direct and translates content word-for-word, leading to a grammatically and contextually inaccurate translation. Bilingual employees who aren’t experienced in professional translation may not know the jargon you use or translate the source material into something from a specific dialect, making it harder for native speakers who don’t share the same dialect to read.

Inaccurate translations can also lead to financial loss through losses in reputation. For example, the American Dairy Association’s “Got Milk?” campaign didn’t translate well in Spanish-speaking areas. The direct translation, “Are you lactating?” doesn’t sound nearly as appealing to shoppers.

Similarly, a Chinese ad campaign for Dolce and Gabbana almost completely destroyed their market standing in China. The ad featured a woman attempting to eat spaghetti with chopsticks. At the same time, a narrator spoke over the footage ridiculing the woman for using chopsticks and explaining how Italian food was better. Yikes! With the help of a professional localization team and cultural experts, chances are this ad would have been very different and far more successful.

Avoid Legal Complications

Circling back to the example in Florida, accurate translations are essential for ensuring you don’t make any legal mistakes. Whether it’s informing an employee of their break or diagnosing a patient that doesn’t speak your native language, an accurate translation will save you lots of trouble down the line.

Why Fire Lingo?

Our Fire Lingo interpretation software has everything you need to translate accurately and confidentially in day-to-day member interactions. Plus, our team of expert translators and interpreters are here whenever you need a human touch– schedule a demo today to learn more.