Salut YouTube! So today I have a special guest with me my friend Isabel where are
you coming from? Austria. Austria! So we're here today because we've got some
stories to share about our culture shocks when it comes to working in
France so between us we've been working in France for how many years? Um so
three years for me and four years for me some things have become sort of normal
now and others less so we want to talk to you about big
culture shocks that we had in the French workplace and of course we're talking
about the kind of corporate business world because that's all that we know
the kind of things that happen in meetings the kind of things that happen
when your boss is giving you performance feedback and these kinds of stories so
without further ado let's jump into it! As Rosie mentioned meetings is like a
big topic and when you come working in France it's definitely a big part of the
French culture and how to work in corporations here it's completely
different to what I've experienced in in Austria and in other countries and let's
see more the anglo-saxon way meetings are very different so it's a big
exchange let's say of ideas it's not like an agenda you stick to where
you say okay I'm gonna do this this and this, this is the outcome like super kind of
tangible thing but it's much more about okay so let's exchange this idea let's
talk about it like so that French love of discussion and debate and challenging
each other intellectually and when you first arrive you're kind of there like
what is happening? Like are we ever going to talk about what we're meant to be here for?
Firstly I find that you have a lot of meetings secondly they often run late
or start late and run late so there's also another point the France
is a time of flexible culture which means then they aren't as uptight about
timing as some other cultures I'm not sure how it is in
Austria if it's more the German way? It's definitely the German way
the German way want to be on time it's not like that here so don't feel
disrespected if you know you turn up to a meeting on time and no
one's there and or if you've called a meeting and if everyone walks in ten minutes
late it's nothing against you and then yeah when you're actually in the meeting
itself you're gonna be trying to sort of converge the crowd and get them to talk
about specific points and try and get them to stay on track and it's just not
gonna happen as you already said don't take it
personally so I remember myself so when I started working here I was I saw some
exchanges of French people about an idea and I was like wow why are they fighting? Why do they hate eachother?
Afterwards I understand it's not at all personal it's really
about the challenging the idea and having an exchange it can be a bit even
emotional and kind of like rough and then afterwards to be like okay
let's go to lunch! Yeah exactly! They'll really be there like I don't like that idea I do not
agree I don't understand where you've got your numbers from and then they'll
be like you know walking out the door so how are the kids? You see two different faces
you've got the personal side and the professional side and the professional
side that's business only don't take it personally don't be surprised if the
meeting doesn't seem to have a natural end. What they say for Americans is that
it's a good meeting if a decision has been made in the meeting for French it's
a good meeting if ideas have been discussed so you might find at the end
of the meeting it just ends with "et voilà" - like what's that supposed to mean?
Exactly like no action points no to-do lists no delegation of responsibilities
everyone's just meant to know. Speaking of meetings actually so it
actually relates directly to our next point which is feedback although you
wouldn't imagine it for the French personally it can be quite direct can be
quite like say rough so for example the feedback you would get like you would
never get okay Wow really good was excellent you know it
was something that I'm surprised innovative you're gonna get "pas mal"
which means actually translated like really good yeah that's true I think because
the French have sort of grown up in this French education system which is quite
harsh how it works is that you get graded out of 20 but no one gets 20
out of 20 like it's literally impossible and almost no one gets 18 or 19 either
like it's it's never perfect it can always be better and that definitely
translates into the workplace as well so you'll prepare and deliver something
what you think is very well done very solid they'll always be things that you
can improve upon and that goes for your performance in general. There are obviously
always upsides and downsides of different things and I saw
that although it's not the most rewarding kind of lets say culture
in the sense that they will say okay pas mal and you will be like okay wow is it
really that bad yeah at the same time there's this culture of excellence
that makes France so great also so you know you have products and things
like I mean look at the patisserie here like everything is like tiny and perfect
and like ooh wow. If they weren't constantly striving to be better and be more
excellent I mean we wouldn't have the booming French luxury industry the
perfumes the patisserie so there's definitely good sides and bad so on one
hand if you feel a bit deflated like oh it's never good enough I can never
deliver something that they're happy with on the other hand you deliver
things that you didn't even know were possible like that you push yourself
to be the best professional you can be as well yeah another point that was
quite surprising for us was that in France the separation
of the professional life and personal life is quite strong
so you would not necessarily share many things from your personal life at work I
was never invited for example to a colleagues house that's like a neutral
ground I mean unless like for interns maybe it works like very young people
but every colleague that say is not like 20 it doesn't work at all and
that's kind of surprising especially if you're new here and you're like would be
nice to go to a French house exactly I'm kind of used to like meeting a lot of
people and meeting friends and and building friendships at work and here
it's so different I mean there's definitely a line between your personal
and professional life because you know to be able to establish a friendship you
kind of need to share things like a boyfriend about you know like things
that you're interested in and you know you've got to keep a conversation very
neutral people don't really have photos of their family and their children up on
their desk which is something that people have everywhere in New Zealand I
mean when I first arrived I was dying to know if my french manager I don't know
was married had children I don't know she was at the age where she could have
had children so I was curious to get to know her but I didn't dare ask I mean
you just don't you can feel that it wouldn't be appropriate to ask and you
know finally I found out maybe three four months into working with her that
kind of information it's not something that they share upfront which is totally
fine but it does mean that you know you've got to be careful about what you
talk about definitely and you've got to be careful what you ask people and you
also can't expect to make best friends forever straight away at work it's just
not going to work like that exactly and lastly what's really
important what we feel is really important in France too in the workplace
is the relationship let's say it's a very relationship based culture so you
will see lunch breaks coffee breaks smoke breaks if you do smoke our super
important so I mean Austria actually how we do it is we come to work obviously we
also buy coffee and food it's still you know we come to work we
are our time we have half an hour lunch break and then we continue and here like
easily I can have one and a half hour lunch break so now it's really about
getting to know the other person if you don't know them or spending like a
really nice amount of time with the person you know and connecting various
issues learning what they do and so on and really creating this kind of network
that's super important here that was a big shock for me like your lunch break
is work actually because you're investing time into a colleague and
that's key here because you can only get things done through your network through
your relationships and in France that's the kind of culture where if they don't
know you they may not respond to your email or if you're not introduced by
your manager by someone that they know they may not reply because knowing each
other and that one-to-one connection is so important and you just can't get your
job done without it I think sometimes it can be a little bit depressing because
you just want to get in put your head down do a good job and you think that
that will open all the doors but it doesn't work like that here you need to
do the networking relationship thing it's very human based their workplace
here all right cool guys I hope you enjoyed
that one though culture shocks about the French workplace they're actually a lot
more so if you'd like to see a part two if you'd like us to explore some other
ones please let me know down in the comments I must say that overall I very
much enjoy working in France it's definitely stretched me in ways that I
haven't even been able to imagine and I definitely think that the stereotype
that French people are lazy is super unfounded very hard workers and I've had
I've got lots of amazing colleagues around me so overall a super positive
experience anyway we'll leave the video here for this time and we'll see you in
the next one, à bientôt!
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