According to BusinessTech (2019), isiZulu, is the most widely spoken language outside the household sitting at 25.1% of South Africa’s population; English closely follows this at 16.6 and Afrikaans at 9.7%.
In response to the growing need for multilingual service platforms, human capital management platform Yooma HR recently launched the addition of Zulu and Afrikaans translations, to offer HR managers and CEO’s the opportunity to create an employee experience that caters to their preferred language. This announcement comes just in time for the peak business season when many companies look to hire new staff.
“Certain industries like mining or the automotive tend to employ staff who have a low ability to speak English, which is, usually, the primary language for most HR management software,” says Johann Struwig, Managing Director of Yooma HR, from his offices in Johannesburg.
Managing employee files and records can be daunting for companies with employees from different linguistic backgrounds; this is especially true if those companies only have access to limited resources when it comes to translation services.
The multilingual platform eliminates that challenge by providing translations in three of the most commonly spoken languages in South Africa.
“We want to make it as easy as possible for businesses to manage their employees, regardless of language barriers,” said Yooma’s Founding Developer, Hans Lombard.
Lombard added that the company plans to add more African languages to the platform soon due to the overwhelmingly positive response from customers.
“In light of the positive responses we received, we are going to introduce more South African languages as well as broader African and European languages onto the platform in the future,” confirms Johann Struwig, Managing Director of Yooma HR. “It is imperative for local tech companies to support native language availability for their platforms.”
