Refusing to speak spanish
marc
3,126 Posts
Here is a wierd one. We hired this case manager 5+ years ago. Her resume was a bit weak, but she had great bi-lingual skills and really played up that aspect of her talent. Her resume even indicated one of her career goals had to do with helping the local hispanic community get various services - and she would use her translation skills to achieve that goal.
Over the past 5 years, her performance has been marginal at best. About 6 months ago, her supervisor and Program Director wrote her up for all sorts of issues and basically said, this is it, get it together or you are gone.
She did get it together and for the last 6 months, she has been working better than she ever has in the past.
Now she is refusing to work with her spanish speaking clients unless she gets more money! Spanish speaking is not a requirement in her job description, but it is a plus. In fact, one could speculate that speaking spanish is the one thing that had us keeping a marginal performer. The Program Directo is meeting with her tomorrow to address all of these issues and basically ask her how she is going to serve her clients if she refuses to speak spanish. (The client must bring in their own interpreter in this situation). All of our other Case Managers deal with this issue every day.
I guess I don't really have a question, I cannot imagine where this person thinks this self-destructive behavior is going to take her. I can guarantee her that a stop at the unemployment office will be part of it.
Over the past 5 years, her performance has been marginal at best. About 6 months ago, her supervisor and Program Director wrote her up for all sorts of issues and basically said, this is it, get it together or you are gone.
She did get it together and for the last 6 months, she has been working better than she ever has in the past.
Now she is refusing to work with her spanish speaking clients unless she gets more money! Spanish speaking is not a requirement in her job description, but it is a plus. In fact, one could speculate that speaking spanish is the one thing that had us keeping a marginal performer. The Program Directo is meeting with her tomorrow to address all of these issues and basically ask her how she is going to serve her clients if she refuses to speak spanish. (The client must bring in their own interpreter in this situation). All of our other Case Managers deal with this issue every day.
I guess I don't really have a question, I cannot imagine where this person thinks this self-destructive behavior is going to take her. I can guarantee her that a stop at the unemployment office will be part of it.
Comments
James Sokolowski
HRhero.com
I don't know what the impact will be to losing her job but I cannot imagine an improvement in the situation.
Latest update, she has a meeting scheduled today with her supervisor and the Program Director - this will be at best a final warning, but most likely a termination. Last night at 4:45 she packed up to leave. Her supervisor asked where she was going because it was not yet 5:00. The EE stated, "I am burned out and I am out of here." In my opinion, this was almost a self-termination given all that is going on.
By the way, we had given her a tiny incremental raise 2 years ago for her "helping everyone else out around the office." Her supervisor at the time had lobbied very hard for that to be a bi-lingual bonus, but the Program Director changed the language to this more general description. I don't know if that would help us or hurt us in any subsequent UI hearing or other legal proceeding, but she without the bi-lingual ability, it is likely she would have been termed along the way.
Thanks for the feedback and allowing me to let off some steam - it helps.
Her economic situation, while certainly tough, should give you a clearer picture of her overall character. Most anyone in her situation would put forth extra effort at work in order to provide for their family. Given the fact that she is a single parent and behaves this way only solidifies my overall perception of her.
Best of luck.
For example my first job was as administrative assistant at an elementary school during the summer. Spanish-speaking parents would come in to enroll their children and were happy to see that I could help them fill out the enrollment form. I was more than happy to do so, but it got to be a problem when I was spending all my time helping them. It was also irritating when these Spanish phone calls came in and I had to take all of them because the other admin assistant didn't speak Spanish. So while I had several phone calls on hold she was at her desk talking with her boyfriend on the phone. I also had to work late several times on Fridays, and she got to leave on time or early. And, oh yes, we were paid the same.
My current job did require me to speak Spanish since I would have to create or translate many forms and policies. I had no problem with that because that was written on my job description. But I was not at all happy when I was told I would not receive a raise. (I was transferred to a new position with a subsidiary when my last job was eliminated.) Their thinking was get laid-off or take this other job for the same pay. I did end up getting a substantial raise. (I'm not just being difficult; this new job requires a LOT more including monthly travel).
Although there are people who think they deserve more just because they speak Spanish, there are also companies who take advantage of you because of that. So I suggest including the need for bilingualism in the job description.
We had a lot of hispanic employees, very few who could speak or read english. When I would send out payroll memos to the staff I would write them in english and use a free translation program on the internet to translate them into spanish, then put both languages on the memos.
Well, she came to me one day and said that the spanish translations were written very poorly, the grammar was wrong and didn't read well. I thanked her for letting me know and the next time I wrote a memo, I asked her for help translating it. She helped with no complaints. The next time I asked, she said that she would need to be paid a fee for this extra work b/c if she were a translator they would get paid for the service.
I was so taken back by this comment, I went back to doing it my old way and she would complain every time that it was written poorly. Anyway, long story short... it just amazed me that she had the nerve to complain about something when she was the one who had the talent to do it correctly but refused unless she got paid a fee for it. Anyway, my poorly translated memos still got the message across and I didn't charge a fee to do it.