Building engineer Luz Sorto is another Marriott success story.
Limited to a few English phrases such as "Good morning" and "Good night" when she was hired as a housekeeper at the Key Bridge Marriott in 1992, she also took the classes Marriott sponsored.
"I am very loyal to the company," she said. "They paid me to learn English. I wouldn't want to work anywhere else."
Training Trainers
But some employers maintain that teaching workers English doesn't make sense -- in part because demographics are shifting. They think the training should go in the opposite direction.
With the Spanish-speaking population growing at nearly four times the rate of the general population, Target Corp., headquartered in Minneapolis, began offering free Spanish language classes to managers in Maryland and Virginia two years ago. The geographically limited pilot was so popular that beginning this month managers in all 1,200 stores in 47 states can study the language of Cervantes while at work via classes beamed over Target's intranet. Managers won't be required to learn Spanish, but doing so "is encouraged," said company spokeswoman Carolyn Brookter.
"It really has to do with serving our guests," she said. "It's a way to get them to feel comfortable at our store."
In addition, Brookter said, managers will need Spanish-language skills to keep the company competitive as an employer.
"You have to be able to communicate with your workers," she said, noting that the company has no plans to teach English to workers who speak only Spanish or to teach languages other than Spanish to managers.
J. David Edwards, executive director of the Joint National Committee for Languages, a D.C. language-skills policy group, maintains that second-language training for managers isn't common enough to be described as a trend. But it's something he's keeping an eye on.
"You can sell more widgets to someone in their language than you can in yours," he said.
In addition, it's increasingly common for companies to have a Spanish-speaking manager on board to help keep watch over worker safety, particularly on construction sites that have a high concentration of workers who speak only Spanish.
"To be able to say 'Cuidado' ['Be careful' in Spanish] may be very important to keep someone from getting a brick on the head," Edwards said.
Jack Duley, a health and risk manager for Clark Construction Group in Bethesda, said the company has trained several native English-speaking managers to speak Spanish. But it is more common for the company to hire bilingual Hispanic workers for its health and safety jobs.
There are tools other than classes and huddles.
