We have a potential subcontract company where most of the employees' first language is Russian. As we do refurbishment works I have told the contractor that all of his personnel will have to undertake Asbestos Awareness training before he will be given approval to work for us. 

The problem is he says he cannot find a trainer / e-learning course that can provide the course in Russian. I have also spent an hour on google and have drawn a blank.

So how does everyone else deal with this? Is there a trainer out there that supplies multilingual courses or does everyone get a translator in for all their training sessions to ensure personnel understand the content.

All help in pointing me in the right direction would be very much appreciated.

Hi there

I have worked on a number of different projects where English is not a first language for particular trades or groups. I worked of the basis that there could be a combination of face to face communication supported by written information and instructions, all in the relevant language. I used a translator but please note they may not be a very good trainer, hence the combination referred to above. We got the same translator to translate site rules, tool box talks, our key risk assessments and controls etc.

Worked well but the communication (training) piece had to be fairly straightforward to key messages and concepts did not get lost in translation.

Hope that helps a little, good luck!

:) Happy to help