Your crew in their language, your records in yours
Half your gang do not read English comfortably, and the other half read it well enough to nod and get it wrong. So the safety briefing gets a thumbs up nobody understood, the timesheet query arrives in broken English at eleven at night, and the man who actually knew about the leak said nothing because saying it in English was too much effort after a ten hour day.
They write in their own language
A worker sends a message the way he would send one to his brother. In his own language, in his own words, with his own spelling. It is understood, and what it meant becomes a record in yours. He is not filling in a form in a second language and he is not choosing from a menu written for somebody else.
Five languages are supported at launch: English, Polish, Romanian, Portuguese and Hindi. They were not chosen by market size. They were chosen by who is actually standing on British sites, and the list will grow with the customers.
This matters most in the places where a language gap is expensive. A man who can say "I hurt my hand" in Romanian and be understood says it. A man who has to say it in English says nothing until Monday, and by Monday it is an accident book entry with a two day hole in it.
What goes back out, honestly
Messages going out to your crew are written in English today. Coming in, five languages are understood. Going back out, one is used. We would rather say that on a page than let you find it out in front of a Polish foreman in week two.
What is real already is the field that makes the rest of it possible: every worker’s record carries the language they read, kept from the way they actually write to us rather than from a form somebody filled in on their behalf. That is the field a translated round of messages keys on, and it is being filled in correctly now, on live records, rather than being invented on the day the translations land.
So the honest shape of it today is this. Everything the crew send you comes in in their language. Everything you send them goes out in yours. That is already the difference between a gang that reports and a gang that does not, and it is one field short of being the difference in both directions.
No app, which is the other half of the problem
A language barrier and a software barrier stack. An app in English that a man has to install, register for and log into is two walls, and the second one is the taller of the two for somebody who is nine months into a country.
There is nothing to install here and nothing to sign up to. It is the WhatsApp already on the phone, which he already uses in his own language, with his family, every day. The onboarding is that somebody gives him a number.
There is a page written for the crew themselves, explaining what happens to what they send and what they can ask for: what your crew see. The six sentences to say to a worker before his first message, in whatever language you say them in, are in using WhatsApp for work.
Your records stay in one language
The office does not read five languages and should not have to. Whatever comes in, the record that comes out is in English, in one shape, so a week is a week and a diary is a diary whoever sent the messages behind it.
That includes the hours. A correction asked for in Portuguese arrives at your desk as a correction to confirm, with the old figure and the new one, in English, and nothing moves until you agree to it. The mechanics are on WhatsApp timesheets.
None of this is a translation service and it is not sold as one. It is a way of letting a man tell you something without first having to work out how to say it in your language.
The things people ask
Which languages are understood?
English, Polish, Romanian, Portuguese and Hindi at launch. A worker writes in whichever of those he is comfortable in.
Do replies go out in the worker’s language?
Not today. Messages going out to the crew are written in English. Each worker’s record carries the language they read, which is what a translated round of copy would key on.
Does a worker have to tell us his language?
No. He can, and a foreman can set it, but it also follows from the way he writes rather than from a form he has to fill in.
What it costs
Everyone using it counts, managers and office staff too. Cancel whenever you like.