Guides
Training a new translation agency employee: the checklist
A five-week training checklist for translation project coordinators, ordered by how the work happens, with an observable check at the end of each week.
What to take away
- Train a new coordinator in the order the work happens, not in the order the software menus are arranged.
- Four competencies carry the rolereading an analysis, spotting a source problem, writing a brief, and escalating early.
- Each item below has an observable check. Sign it off when you have watched the person do it, not when you have explained it.
- Tool training is the last week, not the first. Someone who understands the work learns the tool quickly; the reverse is not true.
- Keep the signed checklist. It is also your honest answer when a client asks how your people are prepared.
Week 1: the work, before the tools
- Can describe what the agency sells, line by line, and what each line does not include
- Can explain why word count is a billing unit and not a measure of work
- Can read an analysis and say, in one sentence, what kind of job the file is
- Knows the difference between a language and a target market, and can say why it matters
- Can name the six facts every project needs settled before work starts
- Has read three past project files end to end, including the ones that went badly
Observable check: hand them an analysis from a completed project and ask what they would have warned the client about. Compare with what actually happened.
Week 1: work before tools
- Describe what the agency sells, line by line
- Explain why word count is a billing unit
- Read an analysis, name the job type
- Distinguish language from target market
- Name six facts every project needs
- Read three past project files end to end
Week 2: source problems and briefs
- Can identify text trapped in images, tables, or graphics before a linguist sees the file
- Can spot an ambiguous source sentence and describe why it will produce inconsistency across locales
- Can write a brief containing purpose, audience, market, references, and the query rule
- Knows what reference material to ask a client for, and how to ask without sounding demanding
- Can batch queries into one document with a proposed reading for each
Observable check: give them a genuinely messy real file and a blank brief template. Read what they write before it goes anywhere near a linguist.
Week 3: schedule, risk, and escalation
- Can build a schedule that includes the client's own review window as a client obligation
- Knows the freeze point rule and can explain it to a client in one sentence
- Can identify the point at which a project is at risk, and knows who to tell
- Knows what to do when a linguist goes quiet, and by when
- Can apply the change-order trigger without asking permission
- Knows the default rule for an unanswered query and applies it
Observable check: run a table-top exercise. A linguist stops responding on day three of a five-day job. Watch what they do in the first ten minutes.
Week 3: schedule, risk, escalation
- Build schedule including client review window
- Explain the freeze point rule in one sentence
- Identify when a project is at risk
- Know what to do when a linguist goes quiet
- Apply change-order trigger without permission
- Apply default rule for unanswered queries
Week 4: delivery, acceptance, and the record
- Can check terminology against a glossary and describe what a mismatch means
- Can check numbers, dates, units, and separators against the target market's conventions
- Can identify where target text length will break a layout and report it usefully
- Can package a delivery with a note covering changes, open queries, and next actions
- Knows the acceptance definition, the window, and the rule for silence
- Posts internal hours and subcontractor costs to the project file
Observable check: have them handle one small live project end to end with someone watching but not intervening unless a client would be harmed.
Week 4: delivery and acceptance
- Check terminology against a glossary
- Check numbers, dates, units, separators
- Identify where target text breaks layout
- Package delivery with changes and open queries
- Know acceptance definition, window, silence rule
- Post internal hours and subcontractor costs
Week 5: tools, and only now
- Can prepare a file, run an analysis, and produce a package for a linguist
- Can update memory and termbase, and knows what should not go into either
- Can export both, and has done it once
- Knows the access ruleswho can reach what, and what happens when an engagement ends
Conduct, confidentiality, and the parts that are not optional
- Has read and signed the confidentiality terms, and can explain what they cover
- Knows which client content is sensitive and how it is stored and shared
- Knows never to describe a credential, certification, or standard to a client without confirming it with the issuing body
- Knows never to state what a court, immigration office, or other authority will accept, and to direct the question to that authority instead
- Has been briefed on the workplace conduct rules that apply
That last item is not a formality. Employer duties around discrimination, harassment, and equal treatment are set by law, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission small business resource center is a starting point for the subject in a United States context.
Wage, hour, and recordkeeping obligations for employees are a separate topic, introduced in the Department of Labor compliance assistance material for small businesses. Neither tells you what applies to your business, and both are worth reading before you write a handbook. Take the actual questions to an employment attorney where you operate.
Include one piece of professional background early. The occupational profile of interpreters and translators gives a new coordinator an accurate picture of what linguists actually do, including research, terminology work, and subject specialization, and of why spoken interpreting is a separate profession with separate scheduling. Coordinators who understand that write better briefs and make fewer impossible requests.
Where this connects
The bench structure and briefing standard behind these competencies are set out in the hiring and training guide, and how you selected the person is covered in hiring for reliability.
Weeks 2 to 4 follow the process described in onboarding and delivery. The cost of the role and how it reaches a client price is in the labor cost stack, and a coordinator who can explain the work clearly is an asset behind the marketing and growth guide.
Common questions
Five weeks seems long for a small agency.
It is five weeks of ordinary work with checks attached, not five weeks of classroom time. The alternative is learning the same things on a client's project.
What if the new person already has industry experience?
Run the checks anyway and skip what they clear. Experienced coordinators usually clear weeks 1 and 5 quickly and benefit most from week 3.
Who signs the checklist?
Whoever watched the check. Signing something you did not observe makes the record worthless and makes the client-facing answer untrue.
Should linguists go through this?
No. Linguists need account-specific briefing and terminology history, which is a different and shorter list. This one is for the people who run projects.
