Latinos and negative perceptions

I wouldnt dare ask unless I really needed guidance. What do I do in the case of those who feel its "acting white" to be professional?
I came from a Migrant background. Mi familia came from Texas to come here to work for a better life. They came here to work hard, harvesting corn and beans to strawberries and pickles. My mom decided to live here to have a better life and education for myself and my sister. We didnt take education seriously and I was lucky to pass. I tried hard to make the best of myself and make $ to support my familia. Now I hire bilingues to do "customer service" work. I run into those who are not very educated, who do not feel it is comfortable to be nice to someone when they are screaming at you, which is part of the job. I educate them in the interview and job shadow what the job is all about. They say they can do it, but when put to the real test, they have too much pride.
Do not hire the unqualified candidate. I would have no bilingual candidates then. How do I help those to understand pride from job? How do I help them see that "customer service" is not acting white...Its doing what you have to do to maintain life, its being open and diverse, professional and having a career?

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Goethy Guareno on September 25, 2008 at 7:11pm: What do you mean by acting White? Frankly, I tend to stay away from generalizations and stereotypes. Aside from cultural customs, people are just people---I mean that you find rude and kind people in any ethnic group. My next question is: what do you mean by customer service? A customer does not have the right to disrespect you. There is extensive training on the subject. You can be assertive and still provide excellent customer service. People—independently of their race, ethnicity, color or national origin—have a need to be treated with dignity and respect. I, personally, have been trained to deal with irate customers. This is what I suggest. When a person becomes belligerent, you give him a warning. “Sir, you are raising your voice. I understand your concerns, but there is no need to curse or to yell. If you continue to behave in this way, I will have to end this call.” If the person continues, then you say: “Sir, I must end this call. Please call me back once you have calmed down.” If this is in person, the same concept applies (warning, then action). There is no need to curse or yell back, but you do not have to put up with the abuse. After all, you do not need customers like these because they will make you lose other customers. Who wants to be around people like that anyway?; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Azaelia on September 26, 2008 at 7:44am: I honestly do not know what they mean when they say that. I assume (based on most) it is just them not being exposed to something that is different and from what I am hearing I need to put customer service trainings in place on how to handle difficult customers. The customer service positions I recruit for are call center positions. Employees approve and deny claims and when claims are denied, people can be very harsh. We do give trainings on diffusing customer situations but the call center jobs can be hard if you take what the customer says personally. Those who come from an agricultural background are not used to this type of work customer service or a professional work atmosphere. I would think extensive training and ettiquette courses may help me out. Thank you!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Angie Reyes on September 27, 2008 at 12:07am: Azaelia,

Although this conversation started on September 24th I have to agree with
Goethy Guareno. She hit the nail right on the head! You can't control people
but you can control how others treat you. To keep this debate simple maybe
your employer should invest in an extensive 6 week training and roll-playing before anyone is given a call center position. Sounds like the training currently offered at
this line of business isn't as thorough as it could be. I have 7 years experience as
an customer service represenative for a large health care organization and we all
trained very hard before picking up our first call. There are ways to terminate a call
without being harsh you control the call and not the person on the other line.
I would suggest additional training and maybe look into bringing in an expert to teach
your operators on how to better handle callers and what to do when verbal abuse is
involved. "treat others as you would want to be treated".

Good luck Azaelia we'll be cheering for you!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Azaelia on October 1, 2008 at 3:39pm: Thank you, Angie.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Leslie on September 27, 2008 at 8:48am: I have dealt with the issue of “acting white" on many occasions. I work with multi-cultural populations and educators. The majority of the educators tend to be Caucasian, so it is perceived when someone behaves a certain way it is seen as acting as "white.” Many cultures are taught to stand up for themselves and not allow anyone to speak to them disrespectfully. I have had many discussions on the difference between professionalism and behavior outside the work place. I have done several staff development trainings on how to work with multi-cultural populations, and workshops on behavioral etiquette on the job. I am a consultant for connecting multi-cultural populations and communities. If you are interested in speaking further, please let me know. Good Luck!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Azaelia on October 1, 2008 at 3:39pm: Leslie,

You are definitely someone I would like to talk with!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Ernest Rojas on October 1, 2008 at 6:15pm: The American concept that the customer is always right never made it that far south. I think most of us encountered the same "te crees bueno" attitude at some point in our career path. Like it or not, there are certain requirements for sucess in this country and those that refuse to learn them will continue to struggle. These are the rules and the sooner we accept them and master them the sooner we can move forward. You have to hold the line. If you have the right formula, don't change it. You may need some prescreening questions that may help you select those individuals that are willing to be trained. There are worse thing people do to get money than "backing down politely on a call". Remember the home life, maybe some of your new hires were yelled at all their lifes at home and won't have any more of it. Good luck.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Rina Rennella on October 1, 2008 at 6:56pm: I'm a bit confused here. I really do not get the "acting white" part of this "problem". It seems to me that you too need some type of training on managing and addressing possible problems. Why, if you know for a fact that the people you are hiring do not have the skills needed or understand the training provided, do you keep hiring the same kind of people? I mean, as a recruiter don't you have to check and test your potential employees? What are the standard procedures your company follows if any?; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Azaelia on October 2, 2008 at 7:39am: I think if you read Ernest's reply you may understand. Its definitely not the right term to use ("acting white") as its very negative and I apologize as I should not have used it. I used it as a quote directly and I knew it would draw attention to the blog and hoped more would respond to help me out. I think Ernest has it right when he put "te crees bueno".
The call center I hire has a huge necessity for bilingual talent in Spanish. Like I stated in the blog, I can find the bilingual talent but would need to train for the skill because of the fact there are a small majority of Latinos in our area and mostly with a migrant worker background who come up to Wisconsin from the south.
In order to train the skill, we put together a 6 week training period. 1 week of intensive computer training such as typing, email, and the computer system we work with. The 5 weeks after that is strictly policy, procedure and customer service training.
I agree with Ernest that I should use more prescreening questions that can help me select those who "want" to be trained and "want" to try new type of work. Meeting those in person though, they are soo excited to try something new and most are genuinely ready and willing for a change from working in the fields. We hire for attitude, motivation and dedication to succed and are more than willing to train for skill.
What I end up with sometimes are employees, after a certain period of time, who are not used to the professional business work environment and start to give attitude not only to thier co-workers and managers but the customer's on the phone. I can address the issues but its my managers who have to deal with the attitudes in the front line. I have brought in a speaker to help educate managers on the culture and have provided books to the management team as well. Since noticing these issues we also started giving business ettiquete trainings to all employees. Our company invests a great deal of money training these employees and end up terminating due to performance. I spend a lot of time not only educating managers and employes, but training and addressing issues. I do not enjoy to see employees fail.
I feel taking Ernest's advice and talking to Leslie will definitely help me out.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Anilda on October 2, 2008 at 1:55pm: That is a very hard task but I think with patience and determination, they will recognize that being "nice", "tolerant" and "understanding" is part of everyone's responsibility to be nice to others.

Certainly stay away from the stereotypical comments that are made about other cultures. Its your job as their boss to give them the proper tools for them to realize that being professional has nothing to do with any culture but who/what them make themselves.

As a Director in a service center I understand the need to have your employees understand customer service 100%. Even with non-hispanic employees its difficult to get them to understand what Customer Service is. I dont think it has to do with non-english speaking employees, although it seems that its a requirement for your staffing needs. Its up to you to convince them that this is the proper way of dealing with people. WE may not realize it but customer service expands to every person we speak to on a daily basis not just our customers at work. Perhaps that is what they need to understand. No doubt its a challenge but one that you can overcome with determineation. We experienced that in our office and it took a while, we provided continous customer service classes which helped but it was the fact that they realized that their supervisors and Mangement were behind them 100%. Hope this helps.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Bigger Than Your Block on October 14, 2008 at 8:41am: changing culture is a hard thing.

when you train people, maybe having them role play scenarios might let them know what they might be in for and how to handle it. remember to give positive (and negative) reinformcement for behavior. give an award of two movie tickets to the employee who was best able to handle a difficult call. bring in luch for the department or shift that is able to go a week without acting inappropriately on a call. speak honestly to employees about their feelings when a caller is upset and suggest other ways to handle it. if it continues, reprimand is necessary.

hope this helps!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Azaelia on October 14, 2008 at 9:20am: Thank you. This is great advice. I truly appreciate it.; ▶ Reply to This

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