As the COVID-19 virus spreads, many states in the U.S. and countries across the world are issuing orders to stay at home for all nonessential personnel. This means that most language professionals must figure out ways to successfully complete their work remotely.

Interestingly, this specific order might not affect translators all that much. Most translators already complete most of their work remotely. Translation does not need to be done in person, so many translators live in their home country, or in a country whose language they translate into.

Interpreters are significantly and directly impacted by the COVID-19 virus and stay-at-home orders. While there are remote interpretation services (such as phone and video interpretation), a majority of interpreters still complete most of their work in person. This is no longer possible for most interpretation jobs. In order to support interpreters, LSPs and the interpreters themselves should work with clients to set up remote services, including video and phone interpretation. There are many online platforms available, which our interpreters are familiar with. They are ready to offer services using these platforms, so that they can still provide necessary interpretations in a safe way.

Of course, this stay-at-home order doesn’t just affect linguists. It affects everyone who works in the companies that provide language services: project managers, vendor managers, localization engineers, sales teams, etc. At Monterey Language Services, we have many years of experience in working from home. While some of our operations do take place in our physical Monterey office, we also have several employees who already work remotely full time.

Working from home presents a major lifestyle change for many people. It does require people to learn how to balance life and work and how to maintain their energy and strive to reach their goals at work. In our experience, when employees are working remotely, it is not important to track employees’ actions and tasks every minute of the day; micromanaging is not an effective strategy. Rather, it is about everyone having a common goal and working toward that common goal comfortably yet effectively. It’s about managing tasks rather than managing people.

Working effectively from home requires various technological resources. We optimize our technology to help us successfully work from home; we use our virtual private network (VPN) to share and access files, we keep open channels of communication via apps on our work phones, and more. We are working hard to remain available to our clients who need our services, and to provide as much support as we can to the translators and interpreters that we work with.

During times like these, staying connected is more important than ever. We need to support language professionals and continue providing translation and interpretation services, so that people can stay informed and connected throughout the world, even if this connection is remote!