This is particularly acute in the larger Polish cities; an indicator of a strong economy and a compliment to the quality of Poland’s workforce. Poland is perceived as a good place to invest due to its central location in Europe, its highly educated workforce and a continually strengthening economy.

Since 2014, Poland has been affected by a increased inflow of Ukrainian migrations, easing the strains on the labour market. Although the number of Ukrainian workers legally employed in Poland has already topped 1.3 million, Polish employers have been challenged with rotation of employment due to limited-stay work permits as well as language barriers. As employers continue to compete for the best, employee safety is tantamount to maintaining an advantage in attracting the best.

Creating an environment specifically focused on the health and safety of employees is a key performance indicator for most companies in today’s environment. However, the challenges related to language barriers of foreign workers are often overlooked. In particular behaviour-based safety training, based on strong communication of expectations and changing behaviours to reflect a safer work environment for all. Are you able to ensure that, when in some cases up to 20%-30% of your workforce may not speak Polish well? Given the short duration of Ukrainian employees' work permits, it's crucial to train them quickly – and effectively.

ERM Polska as a consulting company has been helping clients to increase H&S awareness among their Polish, Ukrainian, Russian and Czech-speaking staff on all levels, including top management, team leaders, maintenance team and machine operators. ERM provides behavioural-based safety trainings, hazard recognition trainings as well as Lock-out/Tag-out (LOTO) training for manufacturing clients throughout the region. We have recognised, with our clients, that offering such training in the native tongue has a much larger impact on the individuals and lets them know that the company does indeed have a culture of caring about the safety of all their employees.

If you’d like to hear more about our multi-lingual programmes, please contact ERM Polska: erm.polska@erm.com or call 0048 22 518 4970