Seven ways to keep good employees

/in , /by

So I recently came across a post on LinkedIn which listed reasons why employees stay in a company. Having been an employee myself and now running a translation agency in London I thought I would elaborate on some of the points highlighted.

When running a business as you grow you are more than likely to employ staff and the more you grow the more employees you will have. With this comes several challenges and when it comes to managing employees there are several pointers you should always have in the back of your mind in order to create a positive work environment and most of all keep them.

  1. Pay them well – Some of you are wondering why this was listed first. Some yelling in their minds, pay is not the biggest motivator! Well let’s face it in this day in age with the current economic climate and the ever increasing cost of living especially in developed cities like London, pay is one of the biggest motivators for employees to stay in a company. However it is important to note that as much as you pay your employees well if you don’t treat them well they will eventually leave once they have achieved what they wanted (pay wise).
  1. Mentor them – Mentoring is a good activity which benefits both the mentor and mentee. For the mentor it is a chance to listen to the needs of the employee and help guide them into achieving their goals. For the mentee it is a chance to learn from experience and get one to one help. Such activities have huge benefits for the organisation as employees and managers develop a better understanding of each other and as a result have a clearer understanding of the organisations needs which are critical for success.

Treat employees like they make a difference

  1. Challenge them – As humans we have a tendency to want to solve problems. We want to feel as though we are the ‘man’ and this translates into the work place. As a species we easily get bored and when we feel we are not challenged enough we tend to look for a better opportunity where we can showcase our skills. It is however important for managers not to over-challenge their employees as this may backfire and result in a hostile working environment as well as a contributor to stress for the employee.
  1. Promote them – When it comes to staying in a company for years you will notice that the majority of people who have stayed within the same company for more than 3 years have been promoted in one way or the other. You cannot simply expect your employees to stay long when you keep them in the same position without promotion.
  1. Involve them in decision making (empower them) – This is very important as not only does this instil a great sense of authority within the employee but your business benefits from valuable insight from the people that are actually carrying out the day to day activities of the company. When employees feel they are involved in decision making they feel valued and who doesn’t want to feel valued?
  1. Appreciate them – A simple thank you or acknowledgement goes a long way. When employees feel appreciated they feel a sense of belonging to the organisation and therefore are likely to stay. Simply recognising their efforts and giving credit where it’s due are ways of ensuring your employees feel valued. Incentives such as employee of the month and other benefits are a good way of showing appreciation.
  1. Trust them – Trust! The word that makes or breaks relationships. Yes this also applies in work place relationships whether it is amongst employees or between an employee and a manager. If your workers do not trust you they are more than likely not thinking of staying in your company for the long run. When you show your employees you trust them and most of all you make them feel they can trust you, you create a sense of loyalty which will motivate them to stay.

What are your biggest motivators for staying in a company?

Are our languages shaped by the heat in our environments?

/in , , /by

An interesting new theory has arisen recently on just how our languages have developed, but could it really be down to the heat of the environment? Take the English language for example, with consonant heavy words such as ‘catchphrase’ in the vocabulary; it comes as no surprise that the language evolved in a cold, open environment. Well at least not to Ian Maddieson, a University of Mexico linguist as he explains how consonants do not translate well in dense forests or mountain ranges. “If you have a lot of tree cover, for example, [sound] will reflect off the surface of leaves and trunks. That will break up the coherence of the transmitted sound.” Although vowel sounds such as “a” and “e” are able to transmit much further through a dense environment, whereas consonant are likely to be drowned out.

translation services

Dense Rainforest

Added to the environmental factors, the heat factor could have a hand in shaping how words and sounds travel as in warm climates; the sun creates pockets of warm air that can affect the sound waves. As Maddieson explains “You disrupt the way it was originally produced, and it becomes much harder to recognize what sound it was.”

interpreting services

Open cool environment

Maddieson backs up this theory by further illustrating that an open, cooler environment produces a consonant thick language such as the Georgian language whereby on the other hand, compared to a warm, dense ecosystem such as Hawaii a language consisting of very few consonants have occurred. “In a more open, temperate landscape, prairies in the Midwest of the United States [or in Georgia] for example, you wouldn’t have that. So the sound would be transmitted with fewer modifications.”

Tecumseh Fitch, a linguist of the University of Vienna, who was not part of this study, has put forward an argument using bird songs which could relate to human languages developed in forest habitats. Fitch suggests that when a bird in a forest sings “Stree! Stree! Stree!” due to the thick, humid environment, others interpret and learn the song as “Ree! Ree! Ree!” as the “St” has filtered out through the environment.

Fitch, although impressed and intrigued by Maddieson’s hypothesis, proposes that there are too many factors involved in a formation of a language and until more research is carried out it is hard to know exactly, thus the hypothesis remains unproven.

Sean Roberts, a researcher from the Netherlands at Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, also not involved in the study champions such research carried out by Maddieson and claims that Maddieson’s hypothesis is just the start of research into how nature shapes our languages. Roberts further concludes that he has found that dry, empty places are unlikely to ever have developed tonal languages such as Mandarin. He even studied decade’s worth of Larry King transcripts, claiming he matched the days for the humidity data and on the dry days, Larry King used more consonants.

A story originally reported on http://www.npr.org

What are your views on this interesting piece of research?

How your business can benefit from professional translation services

/5 Comments/in , , /by

When it comes to doing business this day and age, as much as traditional fundamentals of business continue to be practiced technology advancement has contributed to the change in the way we do things. For instance most retail companies prior to the year 2000 could only target their local geographical region unless they had big budgets for tv commercials and customers willing to travel long distances, they were limited to specific regions. Post 2000 when the use of internet began to escalate a new window of opportunity arose for businesses around the world. The internet phenomenon opened up doors for the very same companies who were limited to their local region to reach a far much wider audience on a global scale. One way this was made possible was the use of professional website translation. It made it possible for companies to reach even the most remote town in Brazil with the help of the world wide web.

With the aim to reach a global audience, businesses are sometimes faced with language barriers. Although English is deemed a universal language and also the premier language of the internet, it is not the first language in many countries which attract trade. Countries like Brazil, China and Portugal do not use English as a first language. Most people in those countries don’t even speak the English language. With that being said companies have to look for alternative ways to effectively reach these audiences and that is where translation services come in.

software-translation

Businesses have had to use translation services such as marketing and website translation which can be tricky if you yourself do not speak the target language. As a result companies have turned to translation agencies who are able to assist them with ensuring their message is put across effectively in a different language. In doing so businesses have gone on to increase their audience engagement whether it is via their website or social media platforms, reach more customers and sell more products. In 2015 simply creating your website and expecting to reach the global market is simply just not enough! The need to not only translate but localise content is key in effectively communicating your message in another language. Not only does this attract more people to your business it helps build trust and customer loyalty as research Common Sense Advisory has found that people feel more confident making a purchase when information is in their own native language.

When it comes to translating your content be it your website or advertising campaign it is highly advised you do your research as to whether this is feasible. For example if you operate within the film industry just because a particular movie is successful in one market does not mean it will be in another. Research is key before making final decisions.

Examples of companies who have translated or localised their content and are highly successful include the likes of:

  • Uber – translated into more than 30 langauges and predicted to boast profits in excess of 1.5billion according to Techinsider.
  • Huffington Post available in English, French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, German, Portuguese, Korean and Greek.

So if you are ever unsure of why you need to include the cost of translation services in your budget remember these points.

  • Consumers prefer to use their own native language when making purchases
  • Reach more customers
  • Receive more enquiries
  • Sell more products
  • Build trust
  • Increase engagement on your site

7 Habits you Must Develop Now to be Successful

/1 Comment/in , /by

Be an Early Bird

So you want to be successful? Well you are not going to be successful by sleeping your days away. Successful individuals tend to get up early in order to start off their productive days before anyone else. The old saying goes “The early bird catches the worm” this couldn’t be any truer. As The US Centres for Disease Control Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report suggests that the more a person sleeps the better it translates financially for them. So if you want to be successful get some shut eye!

Plan/Goal setting

One of the surest ways to achieve anything or get anything done in life is to plan ahead or write down goals. Get into the habit of planning for the long term and short term, as goal setting will always give you a focus rather than just having nothing in mind and floating around in life. Your short term goals will always relate to your long term goals as they are the building blocks for your future plan. Without any plans or goal set it would be like walking around aimlessly with no destination in mind, you will be going nowhere and waste a hell of a lot of time and before you know it your life has past. So to be successful… Plan ahead! Prioritise! Start now!

Meditation

Meditation, you might be thinking, what has sitting in one spot, cross-legged and possibly chanting something have to do with being successful? Well the benefits that meditation could have on not only your success but on you as a person and your health in general is a whole article in itself. Just some of the benefits of meditation are improved focus, reduced stress, lowered blood pressure, clarity of the mind, emotional stability, increased creativity, and many more. Develop the habit of taking just 10 minutes out of your day to practice mediation or stillness will drastically improve your life and success. Successful individuals such as Oprah Winfrey, Sir Paul McCartney and Richard Branson are all advocates of meditation.

Stay Active

Most of us are lazy, its human nature to find the easiest way to do something. As time has gone on we have moved from brawn to brain, as we have gotten smarter we have also gotten weaker, but one thing we must have a habit of is exercise. Much like meditation, exercising and staying active has many benefits in life in general, too much to list. Staying active will also keep your mind active and increases serotonin levels which help ward off depression and helps keep you positive which will translate into success. Also being fit through exercise will boost confidence within you which is one of the most important things to have to be a success. When you look good, you feel good! So get exercising!

Read and Learn

Pick up a book and read! As simple as that, have the habit of always looking to expand your horizons, learn more, ask questions, anything you need to know? Increase your knowledge!

Balancing Act

Now what is life without balance? You will never be successful if all you do is play around and on the flip side you might be successful if you are a workaholic but what is the point of creating success if you never have time to enjoy it? So it is vitally important that you get into the habit of managing the workload with leisure time or in other words as you work hard you must also play hard!

Give back and have Gratitude

Never lose sight of where you have come from, always be grateful for everything you have in life and the journeys you have been through. Create time in your life to donate or volunteer time to help others, whether community, charities, or individuals every successful person knows that when you are grateful, you are truly successful.

Image by Roland