At Hot Bread Kitchen, a Breadwinner’s first placement after they graduate is more than just a job: it’s the first step in their culinary career. That’s why our Employer Partner team focuses on cultivating relationships with employers who can provide our members a pathway for growth.
Hot Bread Kitchen recently expanded our programming to now offer our first bilingual training program specifically designed for recent asylum-seekers: Culinary Career Pathways for New New Yorkers. We’ve learned so much about how to support these New New Yorkers, and have been delighted to see employer partners make similar adjustments to help their new team members. Model employer partner Colson Patisserie recently hired two New New Yorker graduates. Executive Chef Natalie Abrams shared best employer practices for setting New New Yorkers up for success at work.
How to create an inclusive multilingual workplace:
Make it Multilingual:
- Translate important documents, such as onboarding handbooks or paperwork and daily prep lists, into the languages of your team members
- Hire bilingual managers and make a concerted effort to hire staff who are multilingual
- Provide tools to help train up the next round of multilingual managers (online courses are most easily available). Why? Feedback that actually helps an employee grow is much more nuanced and valuable when it comes from someone speaking fluently or near fluently about an employee’s performance and potential
- Offer free English classes for team members before work or on days off (if your budget allows)
Schedule for success:
- Set weekly schedules in advance
- Have a thorough understanding of how much backup staff you should have on at all times
- Cross train team members to allow for flexibility in staffing, while exposing them to new opportunities
- Establish a culture of support, where other co-workers help new team members navigate new tools and systems
Set goals with clear rewards:
- Set production targets that are ambitious but achievable, with input from current senior team members
- Show team members how you’d like tasks to be executed in addition to explaining it to them
- Create transparency about how to be in line for promotions and how your pay scale works
- Reward team members with appropriate and transparent pay increases
