Commentary: Is it okay to speak a non-English language at work?

SINGAPORE: The online retailer, Shopee came under fire recently when allegations about discrimination and toxic work culture surfaced on social media. One of the complaints was that Chinese was spoken during meetings or used in internal documents, according to a Glassdoor review.

Since 1966, Singapore’s bilingual policy requires all students in the national schools to learn English as the first language in addition to an official mother tongue as the second language.  

The bilingual policy has successfully transformed Singapore into an economic powerhouse and that has shaped how dominant the language has become, even at home. Census information shows English was the most spoken language at home for nearly half of Singapore residents.

Another study, published in 2020 by the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) on race, religion and language showed up to 71 per cent of respondents across ethnic groups in 2018 indicated inter-ethnic interactions in the public space should be in English.

It’s a “no-brainer” for English to be the preferred language at the workplace and yet every now and then complaints surface.

WHEN IS IT A PROBLEM?

To illustrate when the use of non-English in the workplace can be problematic, we can use two common scenarios.

The first goes something like this: There is a team of four engineers with three foreigners from the same nationality. They brainstorm or chat in the office in their own language and only speak English when giving out necessary information to their local teammate.

The second scenario is when a department meeting is yet to start, and a group of managers speak animatedly in a non-English language. And because the majority are from one ethnic group, sometimes participants use a word here or there during the meeting without translation.