Language courses pay dividends for vineyard workers, businesses
Viticulturist Brian Calcagno relied, for the most part, on gestures and a handful of Spanish words he learned over the years to interact with workers at Sonoma-Cutrer Vineyards.
'I could say a couple of words, point and show the task,' he said.
While that approach got the job done, he said it wasn't ideal. Now, his employer is trying to make it easier for him and other employees to communicate.
Sonoma-Cutrer hired Leonela Santiago, founder of the Santa Rosa-based Lingua Franca Academy, to teach Spanish before the start of the wine grape harvest. Calcagno was among the dozen or so employees, including accountants, operations managers and winemakers, to take the classes offered on-site at the vineyard near Windsor.
'I work mostly with Spanish-speaking people. (It's) out of necessity,' he said about participating.
Agricultural businesses and wine producers like Sonoma-Cutrer are trying to close the language gap in vineyards, warehouses and farms throughout the county. They're providing employees with on-site English and Spanish language courses, many of them free and held during work hours to encourage employees to attend.
The courses pay dividends outside the workplace, as well, with many employees reporting greater involvement in their children's education and in their communities.
Santiago, who launched her language business more than three years ago, also taught English to 15 other workers, most of them natives of Mexico, this summer at Sonoma-Cutrer. She said she'll resume both the English and Spanish classes when harvest season begins to wind down at the end of October. Employees are paid to attend the hourlong, once-a-week classes.
'It's really forward-thinking on their part,' Santiago said about the wine producer.
She said she first started teaching Spanish at the wine estate, focusing on industry-related vocabulary used in the vineyards and cellars. The program later expanded to include employees who needed to learn English, such as mechanic and truck driver Israel Villagomez.
The Santa Rosa resident said he often needs to pick up equipment parts for the vineyard. But he'd struggled to communicate with shop employees and resorted to pointing and hand signals. Since he started taking the classes two months ago, he said he no longer leans on gestures or others to translate. Instead, he uses the English that he's learned.
'I now jump right in,' he said, adding that he even asks his kids to speak to him in English.
The company wanted to give its employees an opportunity to share ideas and information without language barriers 'getting in the way,' according to Osmar Rivera, human-resources generalist at Sonoma-Cutrer. He said they have about 100 employees and most of the workers don't speak fluent English.
The classes go beyond providing wine-industry vocabulary in English and Spanish. They also focus on cultural awareness and sensitivity, he added.
'We wanted to really invest in their education and make sure they'll be able to communicate in the workplace,' Rivera said.
Productivity and worker morale surge when employees learn English and are able to talk to co-workers and others in the community, said Kelly Bass Seibel, workforce development director at the Santa Rosa Chamber of Commerce.
'It's definitely tied to morale,' she said, adding, 'Can you imagine going to work and not be able to communicate with workers?'
Six years ago, the chamber rolled out the Worksite Held Employee English Learning program, also known as WHEEL. A talk by Carl Wong, then-superintendent of Sonoma County schools, about the achievement gap that ESL students face sparked the idea for the program. School officials found parents of English-language learners weren't getting as involved at school as those of native speakers, Bass Seibel explained.
The chamber planned to work with businesses and their employees in hopes of changing that, she added.
'The kids in the schools today are our future,' she said.
The chamber first started out with a class at a manufacturing plant. The company quickly saw changes in its employees.
'They realized when they were offering these English classes that the productivity of the employees that were enrolled went up. The morale went up,' Bass Seibel said. 'Their communication went up. Their absenteeism went down. Their turnover went down.'
She said the chamber has since offered on-site language classes at roughly 60 businesses, including wineries, farms and manufacturing plants throughout the county. Most of the students are native Spanish-speakers — primarily from Mexico. However, she added, some also came from Central and South America, the African country of Eritrea, Laos and Cambodia.
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