Multilingualism is an advantage in trade union work at Nokia

At Nokia, the growing number of colleagues speaking another language resulted in multilingualism among employee representatives. “Not only are our activities more diverse, but representatives speaking another language are also an important point of contact for a growing group of colleagues”, explains executive representative Tom Bervoets.

How do you deal with multilingualism at Nokia?

Tom: “We have strongly focused on diversity in our executive operations in recent years.  It helps us look at issues we are facing with a more creative and open mind. In addition, a diverse team reflects the reality in our workplace better. And I’m not only talking about language and nationality, but also about age and gender. We had already had a French-speaking colleague in our trade union team for quite some time, but otherwise our group consisted mainly of Dutch-speaking Belgians, even though Nokia has a growing community of people speaking other languages. We gradually made our communication to members and non-members available in English, in addition to Dutch. This resulted in a growing number of members speaking another language, and in 2020 the first employee representative speaking another language was elected.”

And afterwards?

Tom: “It’s becoming easier to connect with colleagues speaking another language. So we will continue down this path. Following the legal changes of foreign executives’ statuses, we engaged in even more dialogues with employees speaking another language to better understand their expectations of employee representatives. This revealed that they especially have many questions about the maze that Belgian legislation can be. Speaking a different language really presents a barrier to finding answers. They can really use our support. But we have also noticed that our approach helps them find answers among themselves. It is increasingly becoming a community within our member group.”

“A diverse team reflects the reality in our workplace”

Are there any other things in the pipeline?

Tom: “The working language in the social dialogue is Dutch. This is understandable, of course, but also poses challenges for us. It means that our work isn’t always easy to translate. We will continue working on this. Moreover, we want to ensure that employees speaking another language are not only able to rely on the trade union operations at Nokia, but can also reach out to ACV to ask their questions. This still needs some work. But it is important that they receive personalised advice from ACV. It’s the only way we can effectively support them. So, we will continue improving our service in this regard.”