September 28, 2000 ALIGN="left">"When my professional and managerial employees asked for an English-only policy, I felt I couldn't ignore them," said the owner of a mid-sized health care supply company. "For the most part, English is their first language, and they're offended when other employees speak to each other in a different language. Because they can't understand what they're saying, the managers are afraid the staff is talking about them or laughing at them. On the other hand, our customers don't all speak English, and we hired many non-English-speaking workers for that specific reason. I'm not sure what to do."

Many HR pros face this businessperson's dilemma, with their workforces divided according to whether English is their first language. There's no clear right answer, but here are some observations and guidelines.

What do the laws say?

The most common legal pitfall of an English-only policy is that it may be considered discrimination against non-English speakers based on their national origin. That is, such a policy subjects some people, but not others, to disciplinary measures because of where they were born and raised.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) opposes such policies in most circumstances for most employers, and the number of complaints to the agency has tripled since it first began tracking such charges in 1996.

There are situations of "business necessity" that EEOC excepts, but they are rare. And unlike the situation faced by the businessperson quoted earlier, whose staff speaks half a dozen different languages, most policies target a single group of non-English-speaking employees. When that's the case, most often with workers who speak Spanish, an English-only policy looks especially like national-origin discrimination. In a recent settlement with EEOC, an employer who fired an assembly-line worker for greeting her colleague with "buenos dias" (good morning) agreed to pay nearly $200,000 to eight Latino former employees.

What are the exceptions?

If you decide to require your employees to speak English in your workplace, the first and most important caution is that you may apply the rule only during actual work times - not during meals or other breaks, before or after workers have clocked in or out, and so on.

Second, you'll want to take a look at the reasons for the policy to see whether they meet very strict EEOC standards: They must be both job related and necessary to the business. What qualifies? All airline pilots must be fluent in English, because air control towers around the world communicate instructions in English. That kind of safety requirement is an example of a legitimate business need, and it might logically be extended to crew members who could be required to communicate with control towers, pilots, and passengers in an emergency. Fluency could certainly be required among a staff of telemarketers or customer service representatives - if you can demonstrate that the majority of your target customers speak English. But that doesn't leave much wiggle room.

For instance, the business owner quoted earlier would probably not be able to justify an English-only rule. One Seattle bank refused to promote a Cambodian-born employee to a higher position because his halting English and heavy accent would make it difficult for him to explain to customers why their loan applications had been rejected. But a court ruled that such customer interactions actually represented only a small portion of the job in question, which consisted primarily of evaluating creditworthiness and other judgments and calculations.

While EEOC says such policies are usually discriminatory per se, some federal courts have interpreted less harshly. To prove they are unfair to people whose first language is not English, these courts have ruled, employees must demonstrate the specific hardship or bias effect. That could create more leeway if an employer truly wants to implement a rule - but it still requires caution.

Caution is even more crucial if most of your non-English-speaking employees share the same language. You'll need detailed job descriptions for every member of your workforce, each one including the problems that can arise if the employee lacks fluency in English. And once the rule is in place, applying it with scrupulous consistency will be necessary.

In defense of a single language

A common language throughout the workforce has some distinct advantages. Chief among them is that it's easier to communicate with all employees, supervise them effectively, and ensure they understand safety rules and other important procedures.

Another benefit is reduced ethnic tension and greater cohesion in the employee body: English speakers' suspicions that they're being discussed or ridiculed in another language may sound paranoid, but you can't mandate them out of existence.

Another argument of those who advocate English-only rules is, "It's our national language, and people who immigrate to this country should learn to speak it." Well, they have a point. Becoming proficient in English will help nearly anyone to manage the tasks of living and working in the United States more easily.

But banning all languages other than English may be more harmful than helpful. And, translating company memos and instructions into the variety of tongues spoken in a multilingual employee body can be expensive and time-consuming. A better strategy could be to provide, underwrite, or subsidize English-language training for people in your workforce who are not proficient. It's a good idea, observers say, to position it as an employee benefit that will help students in many ways rather than as a penalty for some real or perceived deficiency.

Whether you use in-house or third-party teachers, work with them to identify the types of terms and phrases that are most important in your business. If you're in the hospitality industry, for example, these might involve requests for towels, coffee, or shampoo; numbers and quantities might come first in financial services.

Employers that have welcomed a variety of languages into their workforces and offered English-proficiency training believe their policies are effective in a variety of ways, from easing communication with non-English-speaking customers to improving employee morale and loyalty to enriching the company through diversity.