Article: Bridging the gap: Local employers reach out to growing multicultural work force

Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal, September 24, 2004.
Neil Orman, Contributing writer

Before this year, restaurant worker Maria Magalon didn't feel comfortable enough with English to speak with customers.

She works at the 2600 Hennepin Ave. location of Chipotle Mexican Grill and had only cleared tables and served salsa before her boss started teaching English classes in January.

Denver-based Chipotle launched English-as-a-second language (ESL) classes in its first locations in 1996, and in the Twin Cities in June 2003. Classes are taught by managers in the stores, and employees are paid their hourly wage for attending the 90-minute lessons.

Armed with new knowledge, Magalon has now graduated to sometimes working as cashier, a position that requires talking directly to customers.

The 21-year-old Mexico native felt fortunate to have as her teacher Uptown store manager Pauly Hoffman, who has studied Spanish extensively.

"I like Pauly," said Magalon, who still struggles with English sometimes but feels more comfortable speaking it thanks to the classes. "He's very funny. We play and learn at the same time. And it's helped me talk with the customers."

Rather than classes that stress grammar and verb-conjugation, Chipotle's curriculum centers on "occupational" Spanish, which includes basic words and phrases needed in the workplace. In the restaurant's case, examples include "spicy shredded beef (barbacoa)," "free-range pork (carnitas)" or oft-heard phrases such as, "May I have a side of guacamole?" Lessons cover practical topics such as answering the phone or communicating about numbers and money.

"Some of our [Spanish-speaking] employees know a lot of English," said Magalon's manager Hoffman. "But they're afraid to talk to customers, because they think they'll come back with complicated phrases they don't know. This helps them feel more confident."

Chipotle has been particularly aggressive in its ESL initiatives because such a large portion of its work force, 75 percent, is Hispanic. That compares with 17 percent across the industry, according to statistics from the National Restaurant Association.

Minnesota's classes are overseen by Jill Bishop, Chipotle's culture, diversity and language regional consultant for Minnesota, Illinois, Wisconsin and Texas. Her role includes training managers to teach the course, receiving calls via a 1-800 number for employees to report problems in English or Spanish and translating company literature into Spanish.

Bishop said every market has special needs, and the courses are tweaked to suit them.

"In markets like San Antonio, Texas, there is much less of a language issue," said Bishop, who has a doctorate in linguistic anthropology. "In the Twin Cities, there are some who do a great job with language and others who have been with Chipotle for three or four years, and haven't been able to make the jump to [speaking English with customers]."

In addition to linguistic differences, there are also cultural differences between Hispanic and non-Hispanic employees. Bishop said the language lessons try to recognize these differences.

"We teach employees not just how to say things, but what's appropriate to say, or the importance of eye-contact, for example," Bishop said.

Right now, there are nine courses running in various Chipotle locations around the Twin Cities. They're spread out so employees in any of the chain's 29 metro-area locations can find a class nearby.

"A lot of them take the bus to work," said Michelle Buendia, who's now teaching the course for the Chipotle she manages at 3324 Promenade Ave. in Eagan. "So if a crew member can't get over here, then there's usually a location pretty close to them that will have classes running."

On the other side of the language barrier, Chipotle also offers Spanish training for its non-Hispanic employees. Buendia, for one, doesn't know much Spanish; she has a Hispanic surname through marriage. But she recently took an occupational Spanish class at Normandale Community College.

Chipotle contracts with outside institutions like Normandale to teach "Command Spanish" to non-Hispanic employees. Each 16-hour program, which accommodates 18 students, costs the company about $2,500, including materials.

Normandale has tailored different versions of the class for different industries, including law enforcement, health care, hospitality and retail.

"Rather than learning, 'What did you do on the weekend?' one of our law enforcement students might learn 'Put your hands up, turn around or I'll shoot,'" said Doug Bruce, the business development consultant for Normandale's Center for Applied Learning.

Normandale is the local licensee of the program, which is owned by Command Spanish Inc. of Petal, Miss.

Kristin Boda, chairwoman for the college's world languages department, helps oversee the design of the various course offerings.

"We have four or five native speakers on staff who shadow businesses and occupations, and help us design the programs," Boda said. "We've come up with 200 to 300 pages of phrases people need. Our motto is 'less Spanish is more Spanish.' "

In addition to teaching employees some Spanish, the Normandale classes serve another purpose for Chipotle.

"It shows our Spanish-speaking employees that we're trying to meet them halfway," Buendia said.

Another client of Normandale's program is Scott County. Between 1990 and 2000, Scott County's Hispanic population grew 485 percent, from 406 to 2,381.

"We were looking around for courses for some time, because we've had just an explosion of Spanish-speaking clients," said Jeff Hudson, Scott County's training coordinator.

Normandale has offered tailored instruction to several different groups within the county's Shakopee-based government, including child support, sheriff's deputies and the license bureau.

About 100 of the county's 700 employees have gone through the program.

Across other industries in the Twin Cities, few companies report offering live ESL courses the way Chipotle does, but many offer computer-based instruction.

Medtronic uses an online training program called GlobalEnglish. Similar to Chipotle's lessons, this program also focuses on linguistic needs for specific business scenarios and interactions. The company has a workforce numbering about 20,000, and nearly 60 percent of those employees identify themselves either as women or as "representing a multicultural heritage."

"Since Medtronic does business in more than 120 countries and has operations around the world, the creation of a respectful and diverse employee base is a global priority at the company," according to company officials.

The Fridley-based medical-equipment maker has gone a step beyond language classes. Three years ago, Medtronic introduced the program, "You Can Make a Difference." The program offers lessons on the importance of respecting diversity, including the performance of "Lazarus," a play touching on themes of diversity and inclusion. Medtronic hires actors from Mixed Blood Theater of Minneapolis to perform the play at its locations across the country.

Neil Orman is based in Minneapolis.