Karen, Afghan, Filipino, Indian and Bangladeshi employees are taking weekly English classes run by the Loddon Mallee Multicultural Service to better equip themselves for the workplace. 

Hazeldene's people and performance manager Anne Conway said the company welcomed the English classes to help workers transition to a new culture and learn vocabulary necessary to communicate clearly with supervisors.

"It's about people feeling good about their workplace and being able to come here and feel that they're in a safe, protected environment where their skills and abilities are valued," Ms Conway said.

"It's trying to treat the person as a whole and trying to establish a workplace that is going to provide them with worthwhile employment."

English teacher Debra Black said many of her students were on a steep learning curve, having to adjust to a new work place with a lot of new vocabulary.

Ms Black is teaching employees a variety of skills including how to ask for sick leave and the names of different pieces of safety equipment.

When the Bendigo Advertiser visited an English class underway, the students said the toughest aspects of the English language were grammar and pronunciation. 

Karen employee Kyaw Soe Lay Pah Thei, 21, said English was challenging because the same words were often used to mean different things. 

Mr Pah Thei said he needed to improve his English, not only for work, but to eventually study at university and be able to help his parents with everyday activities such as visiting the doctor. 

For Afghani employee Sayed Azizullah Balkhi, 39, English is his fifth language.

He speaks Afghan languages Farsi and Dari, the ethnic minority Hazara language and Urdu, native to Pakistan. 

Mr Balkhi said his Australian colleagues spoke too fast for him to understand, and he felt sometimes people were frustrated with him for it. 

Mr Balkhi's said he was grateful for his job which was supporting his wife and four children who still live as refugees in Pakistan. 

He hopes they can join him in Bendigo next year.

Loddon Mallee Multicultural Service chief executive Noemi Cummings said her organisation was keen to work with other businesses wanting to support employees from non-English speaking backgrounds.