The biggest lesson we’ve learned is the importance of remaining flexible. – Andrew Dafoe, Founder & CEO
Being open to change can reveal new needs and better solutions.
If it’s written down or spoken and needs translation—TNOLA Languages likely covers it. The company’s strategic collaboration with highly trained, experienced professionals with specializations in legal, medical, technical and educational fields gives clients across the Gulf Coast access to language assistance in more than 30 language pairs. TNOLA’s comprehensive services include translation with written documents such as contracts, medical records, and legal judgments as well as onsite or remote interpretation for meetings, hearings, depositions, medical appointments and much more. In addition to its legal, educational, and medical expertise, TNOLA is also a go-to resource for HR firms, insurance companies, and shipping and port services. Its on-demand, over-the-phone service and video conferencing has helped the company continue to provide services safely during the pandemic.
In what ways are you thriving and pushing forward as a business throughout the pandemic?
We are fortunate in the sense that demand for our services hasn’t gone away. There is always a need for communication, and even global pandemics don’t remove language barriers. In fact, in a time when it’s absolutely crucial that information be shared with all people, interpretation and translation services have never been more important. A large-scale health crisis like this has also brought to light where the gaps in those services are.
Our vision is to create communities without language barriers, and I think now more than ever we all need a reinforced sense of community. We’ve had to get creative with and change the delivery methods of our services in some instances, but it’s been invigorating to help people by providing critical access to information.
What has been your experience with the change to remote working?
We had a unique experience in that it didn’t require much change at all. We’ve always run a lean operation and were largely working remotely. Since much of what we do is either onsite at client locations or done remotely, our internal teams were well equipped for the shift. We definitely miss the human connection of being able to gather and interact for meetings, but we were already ahead of the curve in terms of remote collaboration.
I’ve believed for a long time that traditional office space is in many ways outdated—especially in an age where most “office work” can be done from anywhere with an internet connection. My hope is that this experience will help us collectively re-evaluate how we use resources and eliminate some of the waste that happens with large offices.
Are there any lessons you have learned over these last few months? Any new technologies or methodologies you’ve embraced?
The past few months have been a humbling experience in a lot of ways. I think the biggest lesson we’ve learned is the importance of remaining flexible. It doesn’t matter how much planning or forecasting you do. Something unexpected will inevitably happen and the ability to react in a flexible way is what will determine the outcome.
Historically for us, the majority of our services were done at client locations. When those locations shut down, that work disappeared overnight. But rather than react rigidly and say, “Oh no, all is lost!” we were open to change and shifted our efforts to written translations. Every day brought new information that needed to reach people of diverse backgrounds. Being open to that shift and recognizing the need allowed us to diversify, and now, as more of the onsite work comes back, we’re finding ourselves in a more stable position than we were before the pandemic started.
