One simple misunderstanding. That’s all it takes to create costly delays or even life-threatening injuries on the frontlines. In industries like manufacturing, construction, and hospitality, worker safety and productivity depend on clear communication. But far too often, language barriers can slow down everyone’s workflow and introduce dangerous safety risks.
There’s a better way. Real-time translation devices built for frontline employees eliminate the need for phrasebooks, gestures, and costly in-person translators. These devices make sure workers can communicate smoothly without interrupting what they’re doing.
Let’s explore seven ways these devices can simplify communication across languages, strengthen team safety, and foster a more connected, inclusive workforce.
Key takeaways:
- A device that translates languages in real time strengthens your frontline workforce by eliminating misunderstandings and enhancing collaboration among managers and teams, while also enabling communication in their preferred languages.
- Real-time translation devices can improve worker safety. These smart radios ensure everyone understands critical instructions every time, so workers can avoid miscommunication and accidents.
- Instant translation devices increase productivity, and they can eliminate delays due to language barriers. With these smart radios, workers can easily get the help they need to complete tasks quickly.
- The Walt Smart Radio System by weavix® transforms frontline communication with real-time translation technology. Walt ensures your workers receive clear communication in their preferred language, the first step towards a safer, more efficient team.
1. Instant Translation Devices Simplify Communication Across Many Common Languages
What if you could erase language barriers for good? Now anyone on your team can communicate over a smart radio in their preferred language, and every other worker can understand them. When workers can depend on a device that translates languages, this eliminates the need for interpreters. And that means employees from many different backgrounds can collaborate much more easily, which leads to faster decision-making and better coordination.
The Walt Smart Radio makes real-time translation a reality whether your team speaks English, French, Spanish, or any of 20+ other common languages. Walt’s AI-powered language translation instantly transcribes every conversation like a text thread, so that everyone stays on the same page.
Keep reading: Discover how AI translation transforms manufacturing and construction
2. A Real-Time Language Translation Device Enhances Safety on the Frontlines
Language differences can easily cause misunderstandings that could lead to severe consequences, such as improper handling of machinery, miscommunication of hazards, or confusion during emergencies. Clear communication plays a critical role in maintaining safety, which makes devices like this an essential addition to your digital toolkit.
Clear communication is essential, but it’s only possible if you enable your workers with a device to translate languages in real time. Smart radios like Walt allow your frontline workers to communicate clearly in their preferred languages. And since Walt integrates safety solutions and generates AI transcriptions of every message, your workers can easily communicate with each other even in harsh, noisy, or dangerous environments.
Keep reading: Explore the benefits of workforce danger alert systems
3. Real-Time Language Translation Apps and Devices Unite Diverse Teams
A diverse workforce can be one of your greatest strengths. Unfortunately, language differences can sometimes weaken teamwork, morale, and productivity. Workers who don’t speak the dominant language may feel isolated or undervalued, which can lead to disengagement and higher employee turnover.
A healthy company culture depends on clear, frequent communication. And according to the Manufacturing Institute, 60.3% of employees said their company’s culture was important to their decision to stay instead of looking for work somewhere else. Real-time translation apps and devices can erase language barriers, encourage camaraderie, and improve collaboration.
See how workers at our customer Stella & Chewy’s use the Walt Smart Radio System to translate 13 different languages in real-time:
“The Walt Radio System by Weavix has been a game-changer for our business. It’s wild to see how the adoption and utilization continue to exceed our expectations over time, even a year after we deployed. Our people-first initiatives, including enabling Walt across our facilities, have improved food and worker safety, employee satisfaction, and team camaraderie.”
– Michael Carter, Senior Vice President of Operations at Stella & Chewy’s
4. Instant Translation Tools Boost Productivity
Every moment counts in frontline work. Delays caused by miscommunication can result in lost time, productivity slowdowns, or worse, lost business. Traditional methods of translating conversations, such as relying on bilingual staff or using phone-based translation services, are cumbersome and slow.
For instance, one of our customers operates a steel mill that employs a large number of Vietnamese workers. And every time supervisors needed to share important updates, they had to find the one bilingual employee who spoke both Vietnamese and English. This was a huge drain on their efficiency, and there was no way to overcome it without real-time translation technology.
This is just one example of a very common scenario we run into every day. Plant managers, safety officers, and other leaders from many different industries had to navigate bottlenecks like these for far too long. What if one simple device could remove these obstacles, permanently?
Walt translates a language in real time, which means it can streamline communication without any additional human intervention. Workers can focus on their tasks, and let their communication tool handle translations.
5. Instant Translation Redefines Frontline Leadership
In frontline operations, leaders are expected to give clear directions, make quick decisions, and ensure that all workers are aligned. Yet this can be daunting for leaders who manage a multilingual workforce. Miscommunication can slow down decision-making and increase the risk of errors.
Another one of our customers manufactures building materials, and a large majority of their workers speak Spanish. Quite often, their leadership teams identified miscommunication as the cause of errors which led to costly downtime and rework. But with Walt, they’re able to communicate clearly with everyone on their team in real-time for the first time ever.
Translation devices like Walt let leaders easily communicate with their entire team regardless of their preferred language. And team members can immediately understand any instructions they receive from frontline supervisors, thanks to this real-time language translation app.
6. Real-Time Language Translation Is A Technological Leap for the Frontline
Nearly 5 billion people carry their personal smartphones with them at all times. But when companies launch Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) programs to capitalize on this, they see massive pushback from employees who want to keep their personal lives separate from their work. Worse, these companies overlook a more pressing issue: consumer phones don’t work for the frontline.
- Consumer smartphones aren’t designed for Class 1 Div 2 environments, and they’re definitely not a waterproof, rugged radio to IP68 standards.
- It’s difficult to use a smartphone while wearing gloves. And if you take off your gloves to make it easier, that’s a safety hazard.
- Ironically, while it’s extremely easy to contact just about anyone with a smartphone, this can be a huge liability for a business. What if a worker shares confidential information with someone outside the company through their personal smartphone? You’d never know until it was too late.
And perhaps most importantly, smartphones do a poor job of overcoming communication barriers in the workplace. That’s why rugged smart radios with real-time language translation technology represent a major leap for frontline workers and their companies.
These devices deliver cutting-edge AI innovations to the teams who need them most. Plus, this system only allows communication among team members who have been added to your plan, removing a major liability associated with BYOD initiatives.
The Walt platform by weavix is at the forefront of this transformation. An AI language translation tool like Walt can simplify workers’ daily tasks, scale up their productivity, and connect your entire workforce.
Keep reading: Discover the benefits of a connected worker app for the frontline
7. Apps that Translate Languages in Real Time Make Your Workflow More Efficient
If you need an app to translate languages in real time, how will it make your team safer and more efficient? Here are some key factors:
- Real-time language translation: Smart radios shouldn’t force your workers to wait for accurate translations of vital, time-sensitive updates. Conversations should flow naturally, with minimal pauses or delays.
- Text translation: Devices that offer text translation, dictation, and text-to-speech can be incredibly helpful in noisy conditions, or when workers can’t look at the screen of the device.
- Portability: Look for a compact, lightweight AI language translation device that can be easily clipped onto a worker’s uniform when not in use.
- Durability: A waterproof, rugged radio must be able to withstand the harsh conditions often found on the frontline — including dust, drops, liquids, and everything in between. Instant translation devices rated for Class 1, Div 2 are especially valuable for oil and gas teams, and any workers who must endure these hazardous environments.
- User-friendly interface: If a smart industrial radio checks all these boxes, ask yourself these two questions: Is it intuitive? Can I use it while wearing PPE like work gloves? Make sure the answer to both of these is ‘yes,’ otherwise none of the other details matter.
The right platform should do more than just translate messages back and forth. It should help your workers become more productive every time they use it. And it should be an integral part of your digital toolkit.
Communication barriers block camaraderie and safety efforts every day, which is why the right device to translate languages in real time can make all the difference.
Change the Frontline Forever with Walt’s Real-Time Translation
The Walt Smart Radio System does what other real-time translation devices can’t. Walt is a complete digital communication platform that lets you see how your workers prefer to communicate, what types of information they share, and how often. When you and your workers get instant, accurate translations with Walt, you can break down communication silos, increase productivity, and improve safety.
Think of what this would mean for your organization. With Walt, you can build a network of accountability to strengthen collaboration and stay competitive no matter what the future holds. See how weavix can transform your frontline communication, and book a demo today.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is real-time translation?
Real-time translation is a new technology that allows one language to be translated into another language or dialect on the fly. The tech is getting more and more advanced every day, enabling conversations that are:
- Accurate across multiple languages spoken on the frontlines
- Clear and crisp even in noisy conditions, with no range limitations
- Easy and natural for everyone involved
Real-time translation technology can enhance safety and productivity by streamlining your daily operations. And when workers can take advantage of this enterprise-wide collaboration solution, they feel more connected to everyone on their team.
How does real-time language translation work?
Real-time language translation works in a number of ways, and it’s always evolving. For weavix, your messaging is processed in real-time through a secure cloud service that offers AI translation through a variety of modalities (ie. speech, text, etc.). The core technology is called “Neural Machine Translation”, or NMT. Our system uses Microsoft Azure’s real-time language translation software to ease communication across more than 20 languages. Microsoft launched this technology in 2016, and they have steadily improved it ever since.
What technology does Walt use for real-time translation?
NMT uses what is called “deep learning” and “neural networks” in the translation process. Prior methods used statistical models, but this new method is far superior because it improves translation fluency, accuracy, and overall context understanding. Walt includes speech recognition and processes speech to speech, speech to text, as well as text to speech.
For instance, if you say, “Come over to Zone 1 and I’ll show you exactly where the machine is leaking,” then your Walt will upload that data into the cloud, process it securely, and the recipient’s Walt will tell the service to translate it into their preferred language. They can then read the message as a transcription or play it back as an audio recording at their convenience.
Walt is smart enough to preserve grammar, syntax, and meaning for its translations. Occasionally, it may produce an error if the environment is too loud or if there is poor connectivity, but overall it is a huge improvement over having to scramble to find a human interpreter.
And as more members of your team use Walt’s neural network technology to communicate, the more accurate its speech translations will become. We have customers who have used Walt to send millions of messages back and forth, which has made these teams more productive than they ever thought possible.
Is there a device that can translate languages in real time?
Yes, several devices can translate a language in real time currently. The real question: which of these solutions is the best fit for your team? Translation is vital, though you’ll also need to consider the durability of the device, ease-of-use, and total cost of ownership (TCO). Real-time language translation software should be automatic and indispensable. Workers should be able to set their preferred language in the system once, and then not have to think about it ever again. If your workers enjoy using the technology, you might wonder how you ever managed without it.
