New Study Reveals On-the-Job Language Translation for Frontline Workers Costs the Average Manufacturer Upwards of Half a Million Dollars Per Year | PR Newswire [Video]

The frontline communications innovator Relay found that prevailing approaches see bilingual employees serve as ad-hoc interpreters, compromising their own productivity and leading to widespread labor underutilization

, /PRNewswire/ — Relay, the cloud-based communications platform designed to improve productivity and safety for frontline teams, today announced the findings of a new research study detailing the hidden costs of language barriers in the industrial sector. 

Rather than look at the significant but readily quantified costs associated with managing multilingual teams — such as language courses, third-party translation services, and the like — this study aims to uncover the hidden, largely overlooked costs that emerge when frontline teams attempt to navigate language barriers without adequate tools, resources, or planning.

To access these insights, Relay surveyed 200 frontline professionals working on multilingual teams from across the industrial sector. Chief among the study’s findings is the revelation that, on average, businesses in the industrial sector lose $486,078per year in largely …