The Cloud has made its presence known, now more than ever. In the translation industry, remote work has always been embraced, but now, it’s more relevant than ever, pushing the translation industry to accommodate changes in remote employee hiring and the use of automatic translation.
The translation industry is one of the fastest growing industries in the last ten years, doubling its worth in a span of a decade. The translation industry was valued at USD 39.37 Billion in 2020 and is projected to reach USD 46.22 Billion by 2028.
As the translation industry has embraced remote work, there are a few lessons we’ve learned along the way. I’m Ofer Tirosh, the CEO of Tomedes Translation Company, with about 20,000 remote employees in 4 locations: Israel, the UK, the US, and Asia. Today, I’ll talk about remote work in the translation sector, and my own personal experiences managing large teams of translators.
The Translation Industry and Remote Work
According to an article from English Forum, remote working was already on the rise for the majority of businesses, made more so by the pandemic, when everyone was forced to lockdown, stay home, and go online. In the same vein, as more and more people are going online, so too are technology tools becoming sharper in this day and age, allowing people to work from literally anywhere.
The same source says that the translation industry “has always been home to both remote workers and freelancers.” Indeed, the translation industry is home to remote full-time and part-time workers and freelancers, who also tend to be remote workers, but with their open schedule because they don’t work for a company.
The beauty of in-house translators is that they can be managed easily, from an HR perspective. But remote translators who work for a certain company can also be recruited much easier when remote, and they can be managed easily by a robust HR, as long as the remote work model allows for flexibility. Freelancers, who are traditionally not managed by anyone, can also be managed on a project-based basis by an expert HR team.
Case Study: Tomedes Translation Company’s Approach To Remote Work
The translation company that I lead, Tomedes Translation Company, is a remote-first company. Tomedes maintains a base in Tel Aviv, Israel, but recruited workers remotely when it expanded from Israel to the US, the UK and Asia in 2012.
Tomedes was founded on the belief that language services can join the movement towards globalization. And it means recruiting globally as well, while serving international business clients.
Our recruitment consists of:
- native-language speakers.
- diverse employees all over the world
- different shifts throughout the 24-hour period
- 24/7 customer support
When it comes to translation, I believe it’s easier to collaborate remotely, so that different languages are represented by workers in different countries.
We saw that the fines for clients decreased when we transitioned teams to remote work. It was a more cost-effective method than maintaining expensive office spaces across locations.
My Own Lessons About Management from the Translation Industry
Managing global talent is not easy. Here are various lessons I’ve learned from leading remote teams within the translation industry:
Go Global
Think about hiring multilingual employees--this is certainly a trend in the translation industry. For other industries, it could be useful to hire in your target markets or markets where you’ve expanded your company in. Going global will give you an advantage and a rise from your competitors.
Going global remotely is also necessary in this connected day and age. Managing multilingual employees is tricky, but it can be done with a global mindset. By employing the help of a translation company, you can create training programs and team-building activities based on the native language and culture of your multilingual remote workers.
Give Flexibility
Giving a flexible schedule is necessary because from a management perspective, it’s easier to manage different schedules. You have to make sure different time zones are accommodated, as well as different lifestyles. We at Tomedes use time management tools, centralized Google workspace, and Skype and Zoom for communications.
Flexibility goes beyond schedules to flexibility in quickly adjusting to new changes in the business. As management, it’s good to keep in mind that things are always changing, and being flexible in meeting that change, whether inbound or outbound. Each region has different work standards for employees. For example, Japan has seasonal holidays and bonuses (the bonuses depend on the company's productivity), or in the Philippines, they have Christmas bonuses or thirteen month pay.
Set Transparency
Honesty and trust are important in every company. You’ll need to tell your employees about your ideas, goals, and culture. You should be praising them for every accomplishment and giving constructive criticism for their mistakes. You should cultivate trust and transparency, especially with a diverse workforce. At our company, for example, we have our bi-monthly department meetings and constant communication with our heads of department, ensuring that we cover areas of improvement to discuss.
Transparency goes a long way when it comes to leading a diverse workforce, because if you set rules, there must be accountability for both the employee’s side and yours. Being transparent means setting rules that are hard bound to reflect your own company’s ideals.
