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For newcomers, integrating into society can be complex, especially if their native language is not the local one. In Germany and Austria, this issue is just a distant memory, thanks to the company SAVD founded by our guest today, Gregory Heckl.
As part of the summer break, the teams at impact.info invite you to (re)listen to one of our episodes published this year. This episode highlights the SAVD founded by Gregory Heckl .
Enjoy listening!
Juliette Boulegon
impact.info journalist
Published on 7 August 2024
Transcript Audio in Français — text automatically translated· AI-generated transcript
0:00 Hello, this is Juliette and welcome to the podcast for those who want to make 0:09 a difference in their company. 0:11 Being able to find a job or access healthcare when you are 0:16 a newcomer in a country that doesn't speak your language can be extremely 0:20 challenging. 0:21 And that's the observation made by our guest today, Grégory Eichel. 0:26 And Grégory co-founded SAVD, a company that provides interpreters for 0:31 foreigners who want to settle in Germany or Austria. 0:35 My name is Grégory Eichel, I'm 37 years old, I was born in Vienna, Austria, where I 0:43 grew up, I completed my schooling in a French school. 0:46 In 2021, I returned to Austria to become CEO of SAVD and since last year, 0:54 I have been a shareholder. 0:58 Grégory Eichel, can you tell me about your activities and what SAVD is? 1:03 The service of SAVD consists of connecting interpreters in the appropriate language via 1:09 video simply by pressing a button on our system. 1:13 We mainly work for the public sector, where there is a lot of traffic of 1:20 parties and where we find many migrants, for example, employment agencies, hospitals, 1:25 youth services, or shelters for the homeless, for instance. 1:31 We have a large group of interpreters for our clients, for example, if someone 1:36 goes to an employment agency office in Munich and does not speak French, 1:41 the employee presses the French button and within seconds we establish 1:46 a video connection with a French interpreter who can interpret the conversation 1:50 between the agency employee and their client who only speaks French. 1:54 Okay, and what is the German context of the labor market and what challenges does 2:00 the integration of refugees pose? 2:02 In general, in Germany, like in many EU countries, 2:07 the unemployment rate has been relatively low for years, 2:11 which makes the country's growth even more dependent on immigration. 2:16 And due to events such as the refugee crisis in 2015 or the outbreak of the 2:23 war in Ukraine last year, countries like Germany are facing 2:27 a massive influx of refugees and the language, of course, is generally a process that 2:35 takes time to learn, the local language, but in the meantime, of course, as 2:41 immigrants, you always want to contribute and earn your 2:46 living and there are enough jobs that can be done without knowing the local language. In order to facilitate this professional integration, we have been working for 2:52 several years now with the German employment agency so that at every site, 2:56 throughout Germany, of the employment agency, every migrant looking for a job has 3:02 the opportunity to be understood in their own native language. 3:08 And is there an alternative to your solution? 3:11 What we see in Germany, especially for clients who are not yet clients, 3:15 3:20 There is a solution, but obviously it's much less practical because it 3:27 mainly involves using interpreters on site. And there, obviously, there is much 3:35 less flexibility because there is no way to have hundreds of interpreters on site 3:41 all day waiting for a client to come in the appropriate language. 3:47 And then, you mentioned several spoken languages, how many interpreters are there in total? 3:53 We have a few hundred that we work with. The service we call 3:58 the Ad Hoc service, so we are really practically available in real time. 4:03 We have this service for 17 languages and with these 17 languages, we cover about 90% of our needs. 4:12 For the other 50 languages that we cover, an appointment is necessary 4:18 in advance. But even then, we generally try to arrange an appointment within a 4:23 relatively short time frame. So it depends. Obviously, it depends on the language. Sometimes, it's a few 4:27 hours. Sometimes, it's a day in advance, but not much more than that. 4:32 Okay. And do you have examples to give us of the impact your company has on the country and 4:40 on the integration rate of migrants? Obviously, we don't have figures that 4:48 give a clear example of the change we create. But what we know from the feedback we receive from 4:55 our clients is that, first of all, there are practically no clients who leave us 5:01 after they start working with us. And that's a bit of a challenge for us, 5:07 since we are a young market and a young company. Our big challenge is to make 5:14 potential clients who have never worked with us understand what great 5:19 services we can offer to these companies or public authorities. In a hospital, for example, 5:26 if we are not available, it's not really feasible to have interpreters 5:31 available in all languages, as I said. In that case, you have to manage 5:35 otherwise. For example, what often happens, unfortunately, is that family members of patients in a hospital, for example, have to provide their help and this can have 5:40 terrible consequences since they are not professional interpreters. Yes, because if I'm 5:46 not mistaken, in other countries, systems like yours don't exist. It depends a bit 5:52 on the markets. In English-speaking markets, there are services that are quite similar. In other 5:58 European markets, it doesn't exist. At least, it doesn't exist on a scale as large as in 6:07 Germany or Austria. Can you give me an example of what you achieve 6:15 with your clients, precisely? What is quite typical, for example, in the employment agency, 6:20 is that, especially now, for example, in the context of the refugees from Ukraine who are coming, 6:25 who are already registered, but who obviously do not speak the language and are looking for a 6:32 job, they are sent like everyone else, they are sent to an employment agency. They have 6:39 a conversation with an agency employee to see what work is available and what fits 6:45 the needs of the market and the needs of the person in question. This conversation, obviously, 6:52 cannot take place without an interpreter. And that's exactly where the agency employee, 7:00 they press the button, they press the Ukrainian language button and if all goes well, 7:06 this person can find a job. Okay. And how many requests do you have approximately per 7:11 day? Can you quantify it? Yes, on a normal day, we do more than 1000 7:17 interpretations. And what are the requests you have the most per day? It's for 7:24 7:28 Work or specifically for medical care? Since the war in Ukraine started, 7:35 I would say that labor agencies are still the largest sector. But hospitals are quite close to labor agencies. And up until now, until the last moment, it was hospitals, especially, the largest and most important sector. And beyond that, we also do a lot of work with other public authorities, with youth agencies, everything that is public sector and where there is a lot of party traffic actually. 7:43 Do the people who reach out to you have to pay you or not at all? Maybe, 7:48 I'll start like this. We differentiate between our clients and our clients are the public authorities. The clients of the public authority, those are the people who help. And the people who need help, who need the words that we provide, they never pay. 7:54 Is one of your goals to expand your services in Europe? Yes, absolutely. 7:59 So for now, we are focusing on Germany and Austria because our service is available from German into all other languages. Obviously, 8:05 we are always looking at other markets and seeing what is happening. And in the rather near future, I would say, we intend to see what is happening in other markets. 8:11 Very well. Listen, thank you for your time and for your answers. You're welcome, thank you very much. 8:18 When I was 16, I really wanted to be a football player. Unfortunately, my talent wasn't enough. It was just enough for some good pocket money during my business studies. But what I took away from sports is that you have to be disciplined and stick to your goals. 8:23 To achieve them, even if it doesn't always work out. And more importantly, 8:30 you need a good team to succeed. And that applies more than ever to SAVD. 8:39 Thanks to Gregory, who is, I remind you, the head of SAVD, for this meeting that 8:46 you can find in our section on Integration, which brings together all the episodes 8:52 on the employability of the most vulnerable. This was impact.info, doing business differently. 9:01 Subtitles created for the Amara.org community. 9:07 9:13 9:23 9:32 9:36 9:42 9:48 9:54 9:58 10:06 Embed this interview on your site
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