Spanish spoken in the Office

VickyB · July 2004

How do you deal with an employee who speaks spanish in an English speaking office? This occurs when he is on personal phone calls 7 to 15 times a day. The problem actually is that the employee shares an office with other co-workers and they find this very distracting, not the amount of telephone calls, which has been addressed but not corrected. It has been addressed with management, and they do not want to make any issues out of this because they do not want any problems with any outside organizations coming in and claiming discrimination. Any suggestions on how to handle this problem?

blw · July 2004

Address the number of calls if everyone is held to the same standard and address the volume level of her voice if it is distracting to co-workers. Do not address the Spanish speaking. She has the legal and moral right to conduct her personal conversations in the language she is most comfortable with.

Whatever · July 2004

Do you have any rules concerning the use of the telephone for personal calls. If yes, follow the rules for all. If not, write them now.
If the co-workers are not concerned about the number of calls this employee makes each day, it may be they are just as abusive of the phone.

NM _Tom · July 2004

You mention that the number of personal calls has been adressed, but not corrected. This is your issue. Continue with discipline (I hope you have a policy) and terminate if it doesnt stop. The language is irrelevant. Address the behavior- abuse of personal privledges through excessive personal phone calls.

Gillian3 · July 2004

Correct -deal with the real issue.

dchr9203 · July 2004

Discipline for the excessive personal phone calls only, and do it for all. Correct behavior (in this case speaking loudly) that is distracting for the environment, and do it for all. Speaking Spanish on a personal call is not grounds for discipline nor management intervention. If the coworkers are distracted because the personal calls are excessive and loud, then you should get involved. If they are uncomfortable just becuase they don't understand the other language, that's their problem and I wouldn't go there.

Spanish spoken in the Office

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