Cultivating A Multicultural Talent Pool:
Key To Growth
When the economy heads towards a contraction, businesses serving a multicultural customer base will fare better than their “English-only” competitors.
Old news: language skills and cultural diversity in the talent pool are key to business development for exporters.
Current news: On the domestic front, with the hispanic population rising in numbers and purchasing power, failing to hire Spanish-speaking candidates is not an option.
Back in 2019, Language Magazine cited an ACTFL-IPSOS survey highlighting these key findings:
• 90% of employers relied on multilingual employees. A third of them reported a high dependency on such skills.
• Language skills in Spanish, Chinese, and Japanese were the most sought-after… and all in short supply.
• The imbalance between perceived needs and their satisfaction clearly showed: about 25% of the respondents reported wasting business opportunities due to a lack of language skills in their talent pool.
This puts a premium on multicultural candidates. Not just multilingual. Language mastery is only one component. Hiring candidates with a foreign culture background is key for any business aiming to survive in the coming years.
This is true for sales, marketing, and customer support, but also at the managerial level. Multicultural executives can manage multicultural talents much more expertly.
Sociologists talk about tribalism. We like more those people who can identify with us.
