Nebraska Furniture Mart, Community College Collaboration Wins Award

June 22, 2008  by in UnCategorized   

By Home Furnishings Business in Furniture Retailing on June 2008 A collaboration between Nebraska Furniture Market and Kansas City Kansas Community College (KCCC) has won an award from the local chapter of the American Society for Training and Development, according to a report from the Kansas City Kansan.

KCKCC has offered a series of four programs for the past three years to improve relationships and communications with the furniture retailer’s non-speaking English employees. Those programs include “Cross-Cultural Training”, “Command Spanish for Warehousing”, “Command Spanish for Retail” and “English in the Workplace”.

“We could not have done it without the college; it’s been an outstanding series,” Denise Simmons, human resources training specialist for NMF, told the paper.

Simmons said the retailer implemented the training to keep up with a changing workforce and new demographics of the community.

“Employees are taught NFM lingo so they can talk the same language, which increases productivity and communication,” she said.

In addition to the four programs, KCKCC Language Consultant Stephanie Marquez translated human resource documents into Spanish.

Omaha, Neb.-based Nebraska Furniture Mart is a one of the furniture retail chains owned by Berkshire Hathaway.