Articles and tips about the translation industry

Business, like a good movie, inevitably involves some sort of conflict. It could be a disagreement between co-workers, board members and executives not seeing eye to eye, or even with a third party vendor. While conflict makes for excellent entertainment, it’s never fun in the workplace and innevitably leads to headaches for the human resources and legal departments.

In a few words, conflict of interest is a situation in which the concerns or aims of two different parties are incompatible.

We translate policies regarding conflict of interest for companies with employees within the USA and abroad. In the USA the translations are generally in Spanish for workers in the restaurant, food and agricultural industries. They might be cooks, dishwashers, servers, hosts, managers, field workers, equipment operators and anyone who might not yet have a good command of English. These workers often come from different Spanish speaking countries like Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Dominican Republic, Cuba, etc. In fact, there are 20 countries in the world where Spanish is the official language. In order to accommodate this broad range of dialects, we offer a generic Spanish translation that everyone will understand. In most cases it would be financially prohibitive for a company to provide 20 different translations for their employees.

Another language we have translated for USA based employees is Haitian Creole, which is common in Florida and a few of the other southern states.

Conflict of interest becomes much more complicated for companies who have offices and businesses abroad. Behaviors that appear quite normal in foreign countries may conflict with company policy. We recently translated legal documents for an employee who was involved in a conflict of interest in the Asia. This case involved an executive working for an American company who hired a family member as manager of a prominent division. In his country of origin, this was common practice. A worker, who felt that he was next in line for the position, filed a formal complaint with the USA based company, whereby according to their official policy, the hiring was illegal.

Conflicts of interest vary from country to country and companies need to become aware of this when they are drafting their own policies. We offer guidance by giving examples of past situations when companies come to us asking for advice. Translations of these human resources issues helps get all parties on the same playing field in an effort to expedite the resolution process so that all parties can move on and refocus on working. If you are in need of conflict of interest document translation, do not hesitate to reach out for a consultation and a quote.

Although we’ve been known for over a quarter century as a translation agency that specializes in technology, we also have a substantial amount of clients who require Human Resources translations. When people think of HR, they assume it’s the hiring and firing department, but in reality, human resources goes way beyond that. 

One unique area of human resources is anti-corruption in global business, which deals specifically with anti-bribery. Over the years we have translated documents of this nature for a variety of international corporations who are typically companies registered in the United States with employees in offices abroad. In most cases, the documents deal specifically with the anti-bribery laws enacted in the United States, but they also reflect similar issues and concerns of the host country.

As the business world grows internationally and employees find themselves in situations where they interact with a wide range of personnel, it is important for them to be aware of their personal conduct in order to avoid finding themselves in situations that border on corruption. This involves issues as blatant as bribery or even matters as seemingly innocuous as accepting gifts whereby the giver expects something in exchange for the favor. 

From a cultural standpoint, there’s many different ways to express gratitude and appreciation to clients, or to give gifts but due to anti-bribery regulations, it’s essential that there’s no confusion amongst all parties as a bribery or corruption charge can land your company in hot water. By ensuring these regulations are properly translated, it helps eliminate any confusion and gets all parties on the same page so that they can focus on the business at hand as opposed to worrying about regulatory snafus.

Having a talented human resources department is a great first step, but making sure their documents are translated properly really puts the icing on the cake. To take a deeper dive into the human resources translation services we offer, visit our human resources page.