Identify City employees proficient in Spanish or American Sign Language

The City is continually focused on cultivating an impact-driven workforce in order to be the national leader in the delivery of public services. Consistent with this mission, the City has identified staff who are proficient in other languages and willing to assist if ever needed. This will be particularly useful during natural disasters, emergency situations or when serving a member of the public whose primary language is not English. This effort is a step towards ensuring the City can leverage internal talents, when needed, to best serve our diverse community. 

To compile a list of second language familiarity among the workforce, staff utilized the City’s existing human resources platform to ask all existing employees for other languages known and their level of proficiency. Currently, there are four staff members who can communicate in American Sign Language and over 30 who can communicate in Spanish. Other languages spoken by staff include Arabic, Dutch, French, German, Haitian Creole, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, Swahili, and Vietnamese. Human Resources staff also began capturing this data point during new employee onboarding and made this module available for employees to self-report any new languages. The City hosts an internal interactive dashboard which displays a list of all employees who indicated their ability to speak a second language, which all City staff can access if the need for a translator arises.

In addition to developing an easily accessible dashboard of employees with second language proficiencies, the City’s website (talgov.com) is currently available in over 50 other languages by selecting the “Select Language” button on the bottom corner of the page. This feature ensures access to nearly all members of the public regardless of the language spoken.

Human Resources & Workforce Development, and Diversity & Inclusion. Last Updated: October 2022.