If you haven't figured it out, the number of Latino workers in the US is increasing along with the number of unnecessary accidents, fatalities and costs. There are approximately 35 million Latinos in the US, they represent 13% of our population, 11% of our workforce and have the highest fatality rate. Why should we care? First of all because people are unnecessarily suffering and dying from on the job accidents and secondly the rising cost of accidents and worker's compensation claims is having an impact not only on our organizations' profits but also on our economy. If we want to change this situation around for the better, we are going to have make efforts to have better communication and a better understanding of this hardworking and growing ethnic group.
As the title states, while it would be very valuable to know how to speak Spanish with your Spanish speaking workforce and some of you do, it is just as valuable to communicate with your Spanish-speaking workforce by using communication tools that you already know. In other words, you don't have to speak Spanish in order to communicate with your Spanish-speaking workforce. This presentation will take a look at what we as Supervisors, Managers, Directors, Consultants, Human Resource Specialist and others can do in order to communicate and have a better understanding of this Spanish-speaking workforce without having to speak Spanish.
The following bit of information is important to appreciate if we really want to understand and communicate with our Latino workforce. Latinos and in this case, the Mexican people have always been under attack throughout their history. First it was the attack by Spain under the command of Hernan Cortez. This unfortunate historical event took place over 500 years ago, and established feelings of mistrust and betrayal. With the passage of time came other historical events that added to the feelings of mistrust, betrayal and lack of self-esteem. They also suffered from other unfortunate historical events such as the invasion and ruling of the French by Emperor Maximillian. And then there was the taking away of enormous portions of their country by the United States. Land that today consists of states like California, New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona. This event is now referred to as the Mexican American War. In addition, there have also been events of betrayal from their own government officials. It is because of these types of invasions, attacks and betrayals throughout their history to present day, that the majority of the Mexican population find themselves living in poor economic conditions
People from Mexico and other Latino countries seek to relieve their pain, frustration and suffering by taking their chances to travel to "El Norte."
