 Anne Arundel Medical
Center Lowers the Language Barrier For Entry-Level Latino Workers
For two and a half years, the Anne Arundel Medical Center
has offered a “shared” benefit to its Latino employees: the Medical
Center underwrites instruction costs and allows the employees to take the last
half hour of their work day twice a week to attend on-site “English as a
Second Language” (ESOL) classes. For their part, class
participants—most of whom are recent immigrants and members of the
housekeeping staff—stay for the other half hour of the one-hour class on
their own time.
The schedule works well, says Audrey Davis, manager of
organizational effectiveness and change management for the Medical Center,
since many of the employees have second jobs and would find it difficult to
return for an evening class. And to help reinforce the learning, the Medical
Center’s library offers participants who don’t have computers at home
access to an Internet-based course in both Spanish and English, complete with
sound, so that they can review English pronunciation.
The class has been well received, says Davis: “We
typically have 10 to 15 participants, with wonderful success stories now
emerging from our first group of students.” She cites as an example a
participant who had been a physical therapist in her home country. After taking
Anne Arundel’s ESOL classes—a more advanced version is offered on
Saturdays—and doing additional course work at the local community college,
she is now employed by the Medical Center as a physical therapy aid. And the
employee is continuing her studies, with the goal of earning her physical
therapy license.
Davis says that offering the classes was the idea of Anne
Arundel’s director of environmental services, who had noticed that
although recent immigrants from Latin America are typically hard workers who
want to do a good job, their difficulty in understanding instructions in
English can undermine the quality of their work.
There were other factors that led Davis to organize the
on-campus ESOL courses. “We wanted to show a level of commitment to a
growing segment of our county’s population,” she says.“We wanted
to convey that we see these positions as valuable in themselves, while also
demonstrating that they can be avenues for growth.”
In addition, Davis says there is a separate course on using
the in-house intranet and the Internet. The Medical Center offers this course
to eliminate staff “outliers” in computer literacy, since both the
organization’s intranet as well as the Internet are becoming important
avenues for disseminating employee information—from announcing staff
meetings to offering on-line classes in such non-clinical areas as career
planning.
The more advanced computer-based ESOL class runs for 14
weeks on Saturday morning. If space allows, employees are welcome to bring
their children with them, if they are old enough to benefit from the
experience. “I love seeing a parent and child work together,” says
Davis. “Sometimes the child is receiving computer instruction at school,
and can help the parent navigate the course more easily.”
There is a flip side to the story as well: Hospital
supervisors take a special course in Spanish, designed to help them explain to
Latino employees what needs to be done in their work, with particular attention
to safety procedures.This, too, has been well received, says Davis, even though
it involves a significant commitment of time—two hours a week for 12
weeks.Time for the course is carved out of supervisory meetings.
“Given our increasingly diverse workforce,” says
Davis, “we think the supervisor’s course provides a real benefit.It
also lets Latino employees know that we recognize and value their contribution
to our organization.”
Contact:
Audrey Davis
Manager, Organizational
Effectiveness and Change Management
Anne Arundel Medical Center
Phone:
(443) 481-1963
E-mail: Adavis@aahs.org
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