Salut YouTube today I have got a special guest with me my lovely friend
Daniel from Colombia! We're coming at you today with an interesting video
which is ten tips for working in France with French colleagues we've a lot of
industry experience let's say between us I've done videos on culture shocks
and in the workplace and stuff but in this video it's really about like ten
practical tips that we can give you that will make working with French colleagues
a lot easier. So the first thing would be hierarchy, a huge concept here in France
something we need pay attention to so the first thing is be careful about VOUS
vs. TU - here in France this is very important it's a good thing I would say
don't get too familiar with people too quickly just give them some time like if
you see a senior manager in the hallway you're not you're definitely gonna be
like hey Mark, how was your weekend? How are the kids? Like no no no. Never speak
about personal matters, at least not at the beginning. Also, before getting connected or introduced with other
people just ask your manager this authorization it's like when you're
sending an email in France they may not respond to you if they don't know who
you are and you don't have someone with more power and heirarchy in copy
Just respect that there's hierarchy and keep the distance accordingly. So the second
one which is a struggle for me is about speaking during meetings
meaning basically the rule is that if you don't speak during meetings you
don't exist. With the French like love of discussion
and debate in meetings and stuff if you don't raise your voice if
you don't have an opinion if you don't like put your idea out on the table you
might as well not even be in the meeting I remember one of the first managers I
have here in France that said once well if you don't speak if you don't ask
questions during a meeting then you were not part of this meeting - you weren't even there
So the third thing is definitely
respect the line between personal life and professional life you have to keep
the conversation very factual you maybe you talk about how you get to work or
you talk about the weather or general politics or current events but you
definitely just don't go in there and ask your boss or your colleagues like
are you married you have children like you know this kind of things that can
be seen as very personal and you've got to respect that in also which is
really surprising here in France that you never invite colleagues to your home
True! In the last four years I can't even remember how many times
I've been to actually invited around to a colleague's house maybe twice
you were lucky, once in my case and I've been here longer than you!
The point here is basically don't take offense if people don't seem
interested in your personal life and don't maybe ask them too many questions
and don't expect you know for your colleagues to come right to your house
and for the two worlds to overlap like they may do in your culture because here
it's not really the done thing and it's quite exceptional
So relationships here in France may take some time so please take advantage of
every single free minute you have to approach people and to build a relationship
with them. So typically here in France we have the pause cigarette which is
a break whee people go outside o smoke so if you're a smoker please do that
and enjoy it - go! - because this is the time to get to know other people
We have the pause déjeuner which is the lunch break and also pause café
coffee break so these are good opportunities to connect people that
this is actually work time yeah exactly like every minute that you invest in
to a colleague will make your life easier in the future because you'll be
able to ask them to collaborate with you on something or to help you
with something at work. Here if you don't know someone it can be really hard
to get them to collaborate with you sacrifice some of their time to help you out
on something but if they know you and you've got a strong relationship
with them then it will be so much easier you need to earn their trust so the next
point on the concept of ambiguity and things not being clear and just having
to deal with it and the classic experience of this is the French meeting
Well, things are never clear here. You're at the end of the meeting and you're
like what just happened? Decisions seem unclear processes seem undclear
You can easily feel very lost in what are we actually talking about? It seems like
you go to a meeting to talk about A and you go on such a big tangent you end up
speaking about Z like this feeling of frustration after every single meeting
like what did we actually decide? What was the point of that
meeting? And then even in processes I know that a lot of my American
expats that come to work in France that drives him crazy
because things are disorganized, like where's the policy where's the process?
And we're like well we don't really have one!
Prepare to defend! This is a key one!
Whenever you have a project to present or people to convince
make sure you have prepared all the answers to any objections you may have
because there will be too many it's straight into the negative feedback yeah
where did you get that number from what makes you say that I'm not sure about
that and then they'll start discussing it and debating it and you're like guys
I've got ten minutes present yes you've got to be prepared to have like your
answers and quick and snappy because they're gonna challenge
you on different points and if you can answer them short sharp then you can
keep moving on and you've also got to kind of it's hard to say that like
harden up because if you're sensitive and you're someone that takes things
really personally that will be hard because there is such a focus on like
challenging you. I just feel like you always have to fight for your idea and
your project. But if we look at things positively they realize that you can get
skills especially negotiation and also convincing people and how to manage your
influence to get things done yeah that's definitely true
Also know that here in France you need to seek for consensus
especially when developing a new idea or implementing a new project meaning
that you will need the approval by every single person - by EVERYONE - if you haven't spoken 100 people
about it, don't even try to launch it! You have to get their validation
his/her validation before you can really start actually. Don't think that you can do
everything on your own because that won't work you need to support and also as I say
the approval from your stakeholders, so managing your stakeholders when managing
a project is key otherwise you won't succeed
exactly it comes back to that relationship stuff we were talking about
before like your stakeholders your relationship your network such a huge
skill in France. You have to let go of the objectivity what I mean by that you have
to let go of strict KPI's objectives measurable outputs like
don't get me wrong we set objectives in my workplace but not so black and white
Personally I think that you are never good enough
here so you can never be hundred percent it's not about it was only of
corporate culture but also if you look in the school system the scoring
system at school you can never be 20 out of 20 because that doesn't exist
perfection doesn't exist. It's still a measure, it's still an indicator but no
one is 20 they will always find a reason, a subjective reason, coz that's the way they've grown up in their
education system to always do better and better and better
I've got quite a few Expat friends and colleagues who say I've lost a
lot of confidence working over here you know because I kind of feel like my
flaws are revealed and my strengths aren't really celebrated and you've just
got to kind of realize that it's just a different mindset so you've got to do
some work on yourself to know be sure of yourself and what your strengths are
because you know your flaws will be exposed, so don't get too upset in the
workplace wing the same kind of rules apply - they don't hate you you're not doing
a bad job it's just a way of measuring performance and another point that I
wanted to kind of bring up as well let's just make sure you adapt to the office
hours because I know in some countries like in New Zealand for example you can
kind of adapt to your own schedule like what my brother does because he has 2
young girls he gets into work super early eats lunch at his desk in 20
minutes and then goes home you can't really do stuff like that here it would
be quite poorly seen I think you have to be present I agree with you and
especially speaking about the Home Office is something which is not really
developed in some companies for a country like France which is at the same
level all the countries or anglo-saxon countries is not the case in all the
companies, there are some big groups that do not have any home office policy developed
Yeah that's true. Something you need to be very careful with
with anywhere in the world and not specifically in France is observing the way
people behave yeah before proceeding especially when saying good morning every
time you get into the office I know in some companies in France people do
double kiss on each cheek in one of my former company's it was really such a
struggle every morning to have to kiss everyone on the floor before starting your work
It takes so much time right! Because France is such a culture where a
lot of things go unsaid but there's lots of little social rules that's a perfect
example like observe the rituals that happen
do people kiss each other on the cheek every morning before they start working
do you say bonjour to everyone in the office? And usually yes
How do they say good morning? When do they take a coffee? Go with them to take
the coffee you know, when do they have a lunch break? How long do they take?
and really adapt yourself to that way of life because if you stand out you can be
perceived as not wanting to try to integrate yourself
A bonus tip for you because we haven't covered that yet speak French if you
don't speak French like at the coffee breaks in lunch time and you don't try to
speak a little bit in meetings you can really be perceived as this typical like
foreigner that's not trying to adapt. Yes we're in international environments and
yes you can find jobs in English and everything but
honestly like it's social suicide I think if you don't try to learn the
language. It's just a matter of principle
to speak to them in their own language and communicate with them
in the language they use. yeah cool so I hope you guys found this
video useful especially expats for people that have projects or plans to
come to France for work yeah I hope you guys liked it and if you have any other
questions whatsoever ask us down in the comment section below we will be
checking and we'll be responding to all of your questions so feel free to do
that and if not until the next video see you next time
à bientôt, bye bye!
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