Question:
An employee failed the ServSafe test in English—should I pay for him to retake the test in Spanish?
–
Answer:
ServSafe from the National Restaurant Association is just one of many safe food handler certifications, but it is probably the most well known and widely accepted. According to ServSafe, the materials for the manager certification are available in English, Spanish, Chinese and Korean, with printed exams available in all of those languages, plus Japanese and Canadian French. Even for native speakers, the exam is pretty challenging and employees definitely need to study.
The trainer should have let the students know they have the option to take the exam in any language they prefer from that list of six available. The exam may have changed, but the tests—last I saw them—were printed with the English and translation side by side. For English language learners, I always recommend they ask for the exam in their native language so they would have the advantage of a bilingual exam, with two ways to look at the question if they got stuck on one. All of that said, it’s not a huge secret what languages the exam is available in—it’s right on the ServSafe website, and it isn’t hard to find the book in multiple languages from online sellers. I’m guessing your trainer saw that your bilingual employee was doing just fine in English, but that shouldn’t be their assumption to make.
As often happens in the questions I get for this column, the main problem is lack of communication.
—Jonathan Deutsch
Professor of Culinary Arts and Food Science
Drexel University