Cultural differences. Experience with the French

After reading articles on cultural differences, I decided to share my work experience.

I worked in several foreign companies, at the moment I work in a company with foreign capital, and specifically French, about the work with the French and I will tell you.

I work in Ukraine. In the main and several main offices of our company in Ukraine, many French people work both in senior positions (top management, IT directors, department heads) and in ordinary employees (sales managers, economists, logistics).
I want to say right away that those Frenchmen who have been working here for 3-5 years already speak Russian well, speak good English (the French accent is quite pleasant in English as for me), understand all traditions, understand fun, jargon and practically are no different in character and communication from the rest of the staff, who are mainly Ukrainians. The only difference is always the style of clothing, the manner of dressing. They all wear a coat in winter, autumn, spring. No down jackets even at -20, always a coat and a scarf - this is the rule. And, yes, necessarily a slight unshaven.

Those Frenchmen who come to us directly from Paris (where our central office is located) are overly cultural in communicating with strangers and people they know. To ask where the toilet is located is very inconvenient for them, they are very sorry and very thankful when they are given the answer to their question. For us, any questions are normal things, they are asking subtle questions extremely reluctantly and only in a situation where they themselves can not find the answer to this question. They are very happy when they are invited somewhere and always willingly agree. An invitation to go somewhere is always a reason to talk, and they love to chat. On any topic.

Communication. Mostly they have to communicate in English, since few among our colleagues know French, but the French VERY do not like English. All French. All.
If you come to our Paris office and try to start speaking English with someone, you can see the displeased face of the Frenchman in response. If before that you try to ask something in French (at the same time knowingly), mix the question with Russian words, and then still ask in English - the Frenchman will understand that you still respect their language, but unfortunately do not speak it. Here is such a small trifle that initially changes further communication with a person.

Regarding IT. The biggest difference between us and the French is “IT poly density. If in our country a programmer can know for example Java, PHP, bash, perl and several more languages ​​at least at the basic level, then French programmers are more specific in their approach to learning languages. There is a department where they develop in Java, there is a department where on something else, administrators - one knows iron, the second knows bash, the third perl, someone else SQL, but there is no one person who knows several languages ​​or works in several directions. The French are very surprised at how this one programmer can know so much and use several languages ​​in his work. Therefore, they value us, communicate even with ordinary programmers during breaks or just at a meeting, organize training, internships in Paris, if only the employees were satisfied.

Back side. The French as IT professionals are very good, especially at the managerial level. Everything is always very correct, accurate and on time. They are great analysts. Very picky about the details (in a reasonable way and in a good way). They never suffer from bureaucratic inclinations, or invent unnecessary rules and unnecessary procedures. Everything is always clear and according to well-developed rules. They are very afraid of all sorts of risks, because the departments of risk operations are steep enough, although, according to them, our specialists are no worse than them and even better.

Attitude towards employees. The French do not consider us cheap labor; on the contrary, they value each employee and strongly support them. For example, recently, when the new tax code was introduced, the amount of the tax contribution increased. When the advance came - everyone was very surprised that it was less than 100 cu to 300 cu depending on the RFP. As a result, it turned out that the RFP will decrease by an amount of 40.u. up to 200u.e. each depending on the RFP. A trifle, but unpleasant. Moreover, they have already notified about it after the fact. The situation in our country was given to the leadership in Paris, the reaction came quickly enough, it soon became known that we were all compensated for, and asked not to worry. They asked for information as quickly as possible to convey to employees of all ranks so that no one would worry and know that they would receive their full salary.

In the end, I can say that I really like working with the French. There is something to compare. He worked for an Israeli company, worked with Italians, worked with Czechs, worked with Americans, Indians. The French are somehow closer to us than it seems at first glance. All of the above is not solely the experience of working in my company, I have comrades in France + I closely communicate with foreign colleagues, we adopt the experience, so to speak.

The next story will be about Italians.