Article

Adecco talks: Language barriers, human sustainability, and the new Industrial Evolution

Learn about the trends and research we're talking about this month.

4 minutes

March 20, 2024

Two factor workers in business casual clothes, safety vests, and hard hats look at a tablet.

Overcoming the language barrier

21.6% of the US population speaks a language other than English at home. That’s 66 million people in total.

Chart: Immigrants' share of US civilian labor force from 2006 to 2023

It’s becoming crucial for companies to develop effective strategies to overcome linguistic challenges that could impact their day-to-day operations.

Integrating bilingual programs into the workplace can be challenging. We know because Adecco recently took on a client with more than 740 temporary workers who spoke 23 different languages.

Employers and managers can navigate these situations by:

Holding trainings in English and the prominent language employees speak
Producing all signs, labels, and forms in various languages
Hiring bilingual supervisors/managers to support the process

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Understanding “human sustainability”

Worker happiness, well-being, and purpose are essential drivers of better performance. A new term is being used to reflect those key drivers: “Human sustainability.”

“Human sustainability” is defined not by how much people benefit their organization, but how much the organization can benefit its people.

Higher productivity and performance comes when a company leverages the information gathered about its employees to benefit everyone—individual workers, teams and groups, the company, and the larger community.

Chart reading: Business leaders who are taking a fresh approach are 1.7 times more likely to achieve higher performance. The most likely organizations to unleash human performance are the ones who can close the gap.

By focusing on employee well-being, employers can improve performance across their organization.

To see one example: Our parent company, The Adecco Group, spent last year focused on implementing an inclusion and well-being framework for its global workforce, prioritizing both analytics and measurable impact.

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Changing dynamics in manufacturing and other “physical labor” industries

Industries that have been traditionally associated with physical labor, including manufacturing, transportation, and warehousing, are undergoing a significant transformation. That’s in thanks to the growing adoption of digital technologies.

This transformation, also known as the Industrial Evolution, will require a strategic shift towards hiring individuals who possess human skills as well as digital ones.

Many employers are already seeing the shift: Job postings requesting digital skills increased 86% from 2017 to September 2023.

Chart showing the growth in job postings requesting digital skills from 2017 to September 2023.

Challenges of the Industrial Evolution

A large amount of knowledge is being lost from physical industries due to retirements, while fewer people are willing to enter these fields because of the stigma attached to traditional “blue-collar” jobs.

This, coupled with the increasing demand for “blended roles,” adds to the complexity of hiring in the age of the Industrial Evolution for employers in physical industries.

When it comes to new technologies, workers are making their feelings known – and many are asking for better training and upskilling. Check out The Adecco Group’s “Global Workforce of the Future 2023” report to learn more about employers’ and workers’ feelings about the skill sets needed in the next five years.

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What’s your next step?

At Adecco, we understand that every industry, employer, and individual work site is unique. We’ve helped our clients support worker well-being as well as multilingual workforces.