Although global HRIS rollouts happen every day all over the world, most companies only do it once or twice as they grow and expand globally. This is one reason that many companies find it so challenging to develop and implement a global training program for a new HRIS solution. In addition, trainers who have never written curriculum for a global audience are not likely to know all of the potential pitfalls that can cause an international end-user to disengage or that would add additional time or costs to the project.

A lack of experience with developing a global HRIS curriculum can lead to costly, but avoidable, errors. Working with an experienced training or consulting team and localization experts can streamline the rollout process and reduce your team’s overall effort.

4 HRIS Training Translation Mistakes to Avoid
Even though most companies are new to global HRIS training, they can learn from the experience of others. Working with a qualified translation and localization provider from the beginning of the curriculum development process can help you avoid common mistakes and leverage best practices:

1. Inconsistent writing – Original content that includes inconsistent terminology can be confusing for both translators and end-users, and it can lengthen the overall translation time as more questions will arise. For example, using the words “sidebar”, “window”, and “frame” to describe the same element in the user interface will inevitably create additional translation costs for each term.

Decide which keywords and phrases will be used to describe processes and user interface elements to ensure the deepest level of understanding enabling connection to other content that references those same terms. Starting with consistent, concise writing optimized for translation will make it easier for translation software to utilize the repetitions to lower your translation costs and turnaround time moving forward.

Translation memory and terminology management are key elements for faster and more accurate translations. Because these tools find commonly used words and phrases, the more consistent the source text is, the more reliable the translation will be and the less it will cost to translate.

2. Using colloquialisms and cultural references – Slang is generally not universally understood especially from one country to the next or even between countries that speak the same language. Colloquial phrases should also be avoided when possible.

For example, using a phrase like that’s a home run will make sense to an American audience, but may not resonate with an end-user in India or the translator. The same confusion would most likely be experienced by a foreign national being trained in America. For this reason, it is best to stay away from colloquialisms altogether. The same is true of measurements, currencies, and symbols. When these elements must be used, they should be localized for every end-user location to ensure total comprehension of both the training materials and the HRIS solution.

3. Embedding text in images – Images and graphics are often used in training materials to illustrate an example, display a graph/chart or to visually present a process. While these are valuable elements of HRIS training, they can be confusing or less useful if the text describing the image is not in the end user’s native language. Lower your translation costs and make it easier to localize training materials by using customizable captions and by not embedding text in the images. This will streamline the translation process and help ensure that all the relevant content is easily extracted for the localization process without additional manual work.

Lower your translation costs and make it easier to localize training materials by using customizable captions and by not embedding text in the images. This will streamline the translation process and help ensure that all the relevant content is easily extracted for the localization process without additional manual work.

4. Insufficient testing – Multilingual issues can likely be a result if training for an HRIS solution is rolled out without proper in-context testing and review post translation. Translations not appropriate for their context, translations that do not fit their parent user interface elements, and inconsistently referenced training materials all contribute to diminished end-user buy-in.

For HR managers and consultants, convincing employees to use a new system at the same time as addressing poor translation planning post roll-out can cause a dramatic decrease in efficiency and effectiveness of the implementation.

The best way to ensure maximum adoption of a new HRIS solution is to provide concise but informative training materials. In a global context, this includes localizing the training materials for end-users in every location. Although this may feel like an intimidating task, approaching it with a localization and translation plan from the beginning will make it easier to develop a global curriculum that all end-users can embrace.

Whether the enterprise has an in-house training department or outsources to global implementation consultants, integrating a translation and localization expert into the team early on in the process is important for worldwide success. A qualified provider with experience in global HRIS training will ensure that preventable mistakes are avoided and an effective HR system implementation can be achieved globally within budget and on schedule.

Check out the original post here on Venga Global's website