United Through Opportunity: Riverview International Center

Our Region is fortunate to count nearly 200,000 foreign born residents in central Ohio. Coming from all parts of the world, they bring ideas and skills that contribute to our economic growth and cultural vibrancy. Recently, we had an opportunity to learn from a panel of local experts, who support our refugee and immigrant friends, neighbors, and co-workers.

We posed the following questions to Diane Linton, Director of Philanthropic Engagement and Workforce Development at Riverview International Center (RIC):

Let’s talk about the refugee & immigration population in the Columbus MSA. Where are people coming from and what has brought them here?

“The majority of immigrants the RIC serves have come through the diversity visa lottery program where the U.S. makes 50,000 immigrant visas available through a random selection process. Applicants must be from countries that have low rates of immigration to the U.S. and must meet certain education or work experience requirements. The immigrants most often come from Algeria and other Middle East North African Countries. The RIC also meets refugees from Afghanistan.”

What are some of the challenges, as individuals are settling into a new home?

• Transportation
• English
• Computer literacy – to apply for jobs and follow through on hiring paperwork if online – especially quizzes
• Misunderstanding of work cultural norms or even job applications. For example, it is important to look people in the eyes when talking but in some countries, you never look someone who is your superior in the eye.

When it comes to employment, what should business leaders understand about the refugee workforce?

“Everyone wants to learn English and often self-conscious about not being good enough, even if they are pretty good at English. Even if English is new, cell phones can translate almost everything without a need for typing in words – just record audio and it plays back in a different language.

There are many who have lots of skills and could move into higher level positions. They often need to get acclimated to an entry level job but can soon move up into the company. Much-needed warehouse or production jobs involve fixing the machines. We meet a good number of immigrants with engineering degrees. Do not let “immigrant” keep you away from asking what can be really done.

Is there a clear path to promotion for immigrants? Everyone wants good paying jobs. Often immigrants are highly educated and experienced. If you can clearly define the steps to earn promotions at the outset, you will get more workers who want to stay.”

Tell us more about Riverview International Center.

“The mission of Riverview International Center is to empower our New American neighbors by supporting individuals, strengthening families, and nurturing community.

We regard the people we help as New Americans and refer to them as our neighbors. Approximately 90% of our neighbors are Diversity Visa Lottery recipients, which means they do not qualify for most government assistance and are ineligible for non-profit services designated for refugees only. This puts them in the urgent position of needing employment to support themselves and gain housing stability. Riverview International Center is uniquely positioned to serve this demographic in the Riverview Drive neighborhood, because we are not limited to serving only those with refugee status.

Services provided include Job help, Advanced degree assistance, English language instruction, legal clinic, citizenship assistance, school and college enrollments, access to health care, homework help and summer programming for children, and community-building field trips.”

What can a business leader do today to make their workplace more welcoming to refugees and immigrants?

• Figure out a way to hire people even though they can’t read the complicated OSHA forms: teach by demonstrating.
• Consider hiring a staff person to coach all immigrants of any language, not just one. This person would – give extra assistance showing how to clock in, find a paystub, and where to eat lunch. They DO NOT need to know the language. If you do this well with just a few, then they can help others – any language! Just need more hands-on demonstration and time to use the phone translator.
• Include food from other countries in your staff celebrations- ask them to cook it or for suggestions.

Do you have examples of companies that are doing it well? Those who may have changed policies, procedures or working conditions to better engage with refugees in Columbus.

The Marriott Hotel and Hampton Inn on Olentangy Riverview Road by…

• Simplifying the job application to get more quality applicants instead of weeding out good people. Using resume algorithms or answers to quizzes will regularly disqualify immigrants, who can be loyal hard workers.
• Communicating with RIC career specialists to tell exactly what kind of employee they are looking for and then TRUST us to only recommend people who have been coached and can meet their wishes. They continue to reach out to career specialists when they see problems with a certain immigrant staff, usually due to cultural misunderstandings. These interventions often result in saving jobs.
• Allowing people to adjust the uniform – women will want to cover their backside and arms. One hotel allowed the women staff to add on sleeves and longer clothes to their company golf shirt uniform.

To learn more about connecting to our refugee and immigrant communities, reach out to Diane Linton at diane@riverviewinternationalcenter.org.