Environmental awareness
Protecting the environment protects humanity. As a global business, we take responsibility for the social and environmental impacts of our business. Fortunately, we have an opportunity to participate in reinventing the relationship between business and society.
LanguageLine has always championed a telecommuting workforce. Today, around 85% of our workforce field calls from their own home offices.
Meanwhile, our offices generate less heating and cooling, consume less electricity, and engage in far less construction than businesses with large regional call centres.
Our eBill service has also been successful as a conservation effort by saving 1 tonne of paper, over 75,000 litres of water, and eliminating more than 25,000 kilograms of greenhouse gasses for every 38,500 eBills produced.
Reducing impact
LanguageLine Solutions promotes two key initiatives with the objective of mitigating the environmental impact of providing face-to-face and British Sign Language interpreting services.
The first is concerned with minimising the environmental impact in situations where a face-to-face interpreting assignment has been booked. In cases like this, LanguageLine encourages all interpreters to use public transport, and not private vehicles, where it is practical. LanguageLine also uses a bespoke face-to-face booking system that sources the most appropriate interpreter for the assignment based upon their home location. Over the course of a year, this significantly reduces the amount of unnecessary travel and related emissions that can result from less sophisticated interpreter selection processes.
The second initiative involves converting face-to-face and in-person British Sign Language interpreting assignments to video and telephone engagements. Conversion is implemented, where appropriate, through a process of consultation, education, training and guidance delivered to clients who make significant use of face-to-face and British Sign Language interpreting.
Sustainable workforce
LanguageLine provides flexible employment opportunities across various regions. Throughout the UK there are a number of groups who can experience difficulties in finding employment that meets the need for flexibility whilst providing a fair living wage. Working with LanguageLine can help these individuals to find sustainable work that uses their established skills and provides opportunities for career development.
As such, LanguageLine collaborates closely with groups such as working parents to provide them with the opportunity to work flexibly from home when their children are at school or nursery to earn money in the time they have available.
LanguageLine’s work at home model also adds to our resilience; our ability to maintain employment for our workforce and support for our clients even during times where physical human movement is restricted by incidents such as extreme climate conditions and global health pandemics.
Chosen charities
We firmly believe in supporting our local community and national charities wherever possible. We currently have four nominated charities that we raise money for through a range of initiatives throughout the year.
Apprenticeships
We take on a number of apprentices each year from the local area in fields including Business Administration, Customer Service, Finance, HR, and IT. Our apprentices get hands-on, practical work experience, whilst studying for a nationally recognised qualification.
Depending on the qualification they choose, it takes between one and three years to complete. During this time they are treated the same as all other employees, with a contract of employment, annual salary, holiday entitlement and other benefits.