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By Karen Gentry | MiBiz
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GRAND RAPIDS — The “Customized Workplace English” (CWE) program developed by the Literacy Center of West Michigan helps improve communication in the workplace, increase confidence, reduce turnover, and energize and engage employees who speak English as a second language.

Butterball Farms Inc. has worked with the center this year on the training program, which is designed to improve workplace skills with non-native speakers, according to Bonnie Mroczek, VP of human resources at Butterball. She knows the program works, although it’s mostly contributed to a noticeable improvement in soft skills at this point.

A long-time Spanish-speaking employee of Butterball Farms told the owner of the company a story at a birthday lunch in her honor. That might not be such a big deal, except she told the story in English.

“I never heard her speak English before. What we find with a lot of Spanish-speaking employees is that they understand English, but are not comfortable speaking it,” Mroczek said. “She did a phenomenal job.”

Butterball Farms is working with the Literacy Center in two areas — improving workplace skills and providing ESL classes to employees. Mroczek said Butterball Farms has very aggressive growth plans in place. In annual evaluations, employees will be asked about additional training and new skills, which will be one of the criteria for remaining an employee at Butterball Farms.

“In order to achieve growth plans, we need every single employee to continue to improve their skills,” Mroczek said. “As a result, additional skills are not going to be an option.”

Through the ESL classes that take place twice a week, employees learn how to better interact with customers and improve day-to-day communications between employees.

“It’s created a lot of energy and excitement among employees participating in the program to learn more,” Mroczek said.

She noted that classes focus on improving skills tested in the WorkKeys job skills assessment system. Employees have the opportunity to take the WorkKeys tests in locating information, reading for information and applied mathematics.

Vera Grishkina, Customized Workplace English program director with the Literacy Center, said Butterball Farms is one of seven companies involved with the customized English program through the Literacy Center. Through the program that started six years ago, program leaders work with businesses to determine their needs and issues. Grishkina said a key employer concern is whether employees understand the instructions given to them.

“Sometimes they’re not open enough to tell their supervisor that they don’t understand,” Grishkina said. “We teach only in English. It’s a great place to practice and feel comfortable in making mistakes that can be corrected in the right way, and they don’t feel scared about learning.”

Grishkina said typically training programs last 10-12 weeks and take place on-site. Along with better communication between workers and supervisors, the classes and training result in fewer accidents and safety violations and increased productivity.

Jane DeGroot, second from right, program coordinator for the Customized Workplace English program, is the instructor for the ESL class at Butterball Farms. The Basic Workplace English course includes an English immersion approach and targets comprehension of workplace policies and procedures. COURTESY PHOTO

The Literacy Center of West Michigan reaches out to companies about the CWE program, especially those with sizeable populations of non-native speakers. Grishkina said CWE is fee-based depending on the number of classes, although sometimes grants are available to offset the cost.

The customized training can include specific lessons important to the company such as procedures or instructions that are unique to the company, Grishkina said. This leads to increased productivity and ultimately more profits.

“If they have a specific machine that a group of employees is working on and need to understand instructions, we can create a specific lesson,” Grishkina said. “It takes the load off the supervisors who have to train how to use the machine.”

She said companies see improvements with participating employees. As an example, a first-shift employee may need to write a note in English to communicate to a second-shift employee.

“They become more motivated and open to participate in staff meetings,” Grishkina said.

One Spectrum Health employee took the workplace ESL training and continued working on her English skills for a period of about two years. She took the WorkKeys tests in reading and demonstrated that she was ready for a more challenging position.

“I was basically able to recommend that yes, she would be able to perform in the job,” said Grishkina, noting that the employee is doing great in her new position.

In another example, a group of employees at Leprino Foods in Allegan County worked to gain a level of English proficiency necessary for them to retain their jobs because of the new technology. The company and employees were very satisfied with the results.

“They had to be able to understand more in English and be able to read better,” Grishkina said. “We worked with them on instructions about a specific technology so they would be able to retain their jobs.”

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TAGS:

• allegan county
• bonnie mroczek
• butterball farms
• customized workplace english
• grand rapids
• leprino foods
• literacy center of west michigan
• vera grishkina