Language Testing for Incentive Pay
Individuals who are fluent in more than one language possess valuable skills, making them indispensable assets to your team. It is imperative to assess the proficiency of employees who utilize languages in their roles, regardless of how they acquired their language skills. Implementing a valid and reliable language testing process will support a bilingual incentive pay policy and ensure a fair, equitable, and consistent evaluation process is used across all test takers.
Why Link Language Proficiency and Incentive Pay?
The demand for bilingual and polyglot candidates to fill open jobs continues to increase. A survey conducted by ACTFL® revealed that one in three employers in the United States reported language skills gaps, and one in four employers lost business due to a lack of team members with secondary language skills. Including incentive pay for current and prospective bilingual or multilingual employees makes positions more competitive.
Polyglots and bilingual professionals often seek job opportunities that recognize and reward their language skills. When you have a secondary language incentive program, language-skilled employees are more likely to choose and stay with your organization. While an incentive program may not be the sole reason a bilingual or multilingual person decides to work at your company, it can play a significant role in the process.
Employee Benefits and Compensation
Incentive programs often increase an employee's benefits and compensation based on the additional value they bring to their organizations. Your team's language skills help build and maintain relationships with more stakeholders and potentially increase revenue, so proper compensation is crucial. Understanding your employees' language proficiency is significant in determining how to structure the incentive program and what offerings should be included or improved.
The program and incentive pay could be structured around roles requiring communication in multiple languages, how often an individual uses their skill, and whether that use is primarily for interpreting, transcribing, or both. Incentive pay also depends on your company's needs for specific languages and whether employees' skills are proficient enough to support the organization's needs.
Conducting certified ACTFL language proficiency assessments delivered by Language Testing International® (LTI®) can help you discover your employees' depth of language skills and better develop an incentive plan that meets their needs. ACTFL is the leader in proficiency-based language testing, and LTI is the exclusive licensee and sole source for ACTFL language proficiency assessments for over 30 years.
Other Benefits of Language Incentive Programs
Secondary language incentive programs can include other benefits and components besides monetary compensation and rewards. For instance, the incentive program could encourage language studies and participation in employee cultural competency training. Current employees learning a language outside of work may feel more inclined to complete their lessons and test for proficiency to participate in the incentive program.
A case study for language incentive pay LTI conducted in Roanoke, Virginia, showcases the benefits of including a bilingual pay incentive program. The City of Roanoke's employee retention and satisfaction increased because bilingual staff members felt seen and recognized by the city for their valuable contributions to the community when using their language skills to assist non-English speaking residents. Increasing the confidence and respect bilingual and multilingual staff feel by acknowledging their work and providing rewards through the incentive program may help increase loyalty to the company.
Official certification of language skills and proficiency also makes employees more competitive. Employees with the certification have proof that they use their secondary language to perform necessary job tasks and that their skills benefit the organization.
How Language Testing and Evaluation Works With LTI
Language testing from LTI ensures your organization has valid and reliable language proficiency assessments from ACTFL. These tests focus on four skills separately and depending upon the skills needed for the communicative tasks of the job — speaking, listening, writing, and reading. Each test is offered in various languages to ensure you can test and certify employees with diverse language capabilities. ACTFL-certified (human) Testers and Raters evaluate the language assessments. The results contribute to establishing the test taker's language proficiency level in accordance with the ACTFL Proficiency Scale — Novice, Intermediate, Advanced, or Superior.
When you want employees to complete the language assessments, LTI will distribute them. LTI works with you to determine which ACTFL language proficiency tests are most effective for your goals and needs in assessing employee capabilities for creating an incentive program. ACTFL assessments delivered by LTI offer flexibility, helping you test employees according to availability or during the hiring process for a prospective candidate.
Partnering with a reliable language testing agency like LTI is the first step to certifying employee language proficiency and developing an incentive program that reflects their capabilities and needs. Using ACTFL’s language proficiency assessments, you can determine how the incentive pay program will be structured, how it will benefit employees, and make improvements over time tothe policy and the payment structure.
Why Choose Language Testing International?
As the exclusive ACTFL assessment distributor, LTI delivers ACTFL assessments in over 120 languages, so you can trust that you'll receive reliable tests and results to aid in your incentive program development. LTI has over 30 years of experience helping companies test their employees' language proficiencies.
ACTFL tests are internationally recognized certifications that organizations can use to ensure that employees have language skills that can help improve customer relations and teamwork. The need for people with bilingual or multilingual capabilities continues to increase as countries become more diverse. Certify employee language proficiencies with ACTFL assessments presented by LTI.
Prove Language Proficiency with Language Testing from LTI for Incentive Pay Program Development
Creating a bilingual incentive pay program boosts confidence and a sense of accomplishment in employees with multiple language skills. Ensure your current or prospective employees can complete language proficiency assessments from a leading language proficiency testing company like ACTFL. LTI delivers ACTFL assessments to you whenever it is time to onboard a bilingual employee or another employee who wants to test their language proficiency to see if they qualify for the incentive program.
Learn more about how ACTFL language testing provided by LTI can benefit your organization's bilingual incentive pay program. Speak with a representative by completing our contact form to get started today.