Cemen Tech's first-hired refugee had electrical training. He understood electrical concepts and was capable of reading the blueprints. As additional refugees are hired, refugees on staff help with the language barriers. Emco Enterprises Inc. has found that to be true, as well. It has eight different languages spoken in its plant.
Employees help one another with translations, and in addition, some supervisors are now bilingual.
And in an effort to help recruit employees, one Bosnian staff member went as far as creating fliers to post on store bulletin boards in neighborhoods with heavy Bosnian populations. The hotel celebrates its diverse workforce by promoting the languages through fun events that include all English and non-English speaking people. Iowa Packing Company also has a wide array of immigrants and refugees on staff. Many of these workers have backgrounds in farming and other types of manual labor, allowing them to make the transition to the factory setting very quickly. Lepper agrees that the expertise and desire to learn brought to Cemen Tech by refugees and immigrants have been impressive.