On Friday 10 June, we hosted our first Linguists Open Day, giving a few members of our wonderful team of linguists a chance to meet the project managers they regularly work with face to face!
Given that our network of linguists exceeds 11,000, for this first event, we selected a small number of linguists based on those that we collaborate with the most. This included translators from the UK and beyond, such as Spain, Portugal and the Czech Republic.
Our linguists spent most of the day with key members of our Linguistic Resources and Training teams, Aina, Serena and Valentina. Our activity-packed day began with an interactive presentation led by our Assistant Training Manager, Serena, which gave a closer insight into the beginnings of our company, our everyday award-winning processes and our unique culture of strengths that separates us from other language service providers. This was followed by a meet-and-greet with one of our directors, Robert Timms.
A tasty complimentary lunch was very much enjoyed, as was an office tour with the chance to meet the teams that make our clients so happy: Linguistic Resources and Quality Assurance, and all of the project management teams within Operations. We explained our thorough QA procedures, the important steps we take to manage client feedback, terminology management and an overview of the project management process from the initial enquiry to delivery.
It was a great day of building even closer relationships with our valued linguists – so much so that as a result of this event, and following some greatly received suggestions, we’ll be putting in place new media to keep all of our linguists up to date with important company developments!
The day was not all work and no play though – there were plenty of breaks throughout for casual chats, not only with translate plus employees but with the other freelance linguists too. Given that most of our attendees were not from London, we even decided to take them for a sunny stroll around the surrounding canal area!
As it was the start of the UEFA EURO 2016, the day at the office ended with our linguists Rita and Ilaria showing off their table football skills against two of our directors, Robert and Adrian! Some of our linguists then joined us at our legendary local after-work pub, The Narrow Boat.
We’re always interested in improving our services for all of our stakeholders, especially for our linguists. We therefore decided to ask our linguists to fill in a survey to give us feedback on the event. Through this, we discovered that for most of them, this was the first Linguists Open Day they’ve ever attended! They were extremely happy to have met the translate plus team in person, especially the project managers they work with on a daily basis.
More feedback from our linguists:
“Thank you so much for sharing the picture, such a nice memory of a lovely day. It was both really interesting to get to know more closely the cogs and mechanisms of translate plus and also to let our hair down later at the pub and just chat with the lovely people we’re in touch with every day” – Antonella Lettieri
“A big thank you to all of you for giving me the opportunity to meet the whole TP team and my colleagues in person and to share our views. It’s been a refreshing experience, a really useful and pleasant day. I have learned a lot and I am confident that our collaboration will further improve thanks to the insight into your company you have kindly provided. The pic looks lovely, thank you! …And hopefully I will come to terms with my defeat at table football soon.” – Ilaria Roncaglia
“Thanks for organising it! It was a really good day as well as a nice and original touch.” – Graciela Carlyle
“Thank you so much for the opportunity. It was great to meet you all and to have some insight of how you work. What a great team you have!” – Rita Lança
Following on from the success of this event, we are already looking into organising our second Linguists Open Day to give other translators an opportunity to meet the team!
If you are a linguist and would like to collaborate with translate plus, please send your CV to LinguisticResources@translateplus.com.