Polite migrant engineers offend Australian employers

Raj, an Indian mechanical engineer I met in Brisbane last Monday said to me. - “I called him Sir, I did not look him in the eye out of respect, and he nearly broke my hand when he shook hands with me. Why?”

Well Raj, Let’s look at some of the differences between Australian and Indian cultures. These three actions are some of the most important as they are critical to making a good first impression. Australians pride themselves in having an egalitarian society: we like to think we treat people as equals. Maybe this is not all that much reality, but there is one important behaviour that migrants need to understand to help make a strong first impression. In the Australian workplace there is social  equality in non work matters.

Here are three important behaviours you must practice to make that all important good first impression when being introduced to someone in Australia:

1. Look people in the eye: meet their gaze. The employer interprets this as having confidence. You are equal. Australians interpret looking down or away as something dishonest or shy.
2. In the handshake, grip the hand firmly: being limp wristed is seen as lacking confidence, or different.
3. Use a persons first (given) name. This is a sign of friendship. It also helps you remember a persons name by saying it when you are introduced.

The basic cultural difference in these actions is that Australians show respect for each other by treating each other as equals, whereas Indians (and many other cultures) show respect by deferring to the employer.

Show Australian employers you understand the Australian workplace culture:

• look people in the eye

• shake hands firmly

• use given names

Australian employers look for confident engineers. Migrant engineers must adopt the practices of the Australian society to succeed .

GDay Boss!

Businesses Applaud GDay Boss!

GDay Boss! Australian Culture and the workplace by Barbara West and Frances Murphy

GDay Boss! heralds a new era in understanding the mosaic of cultures and customs engrained in the Australian workplace. It’s the first study of its kind into the enormously diverse mixture of personalities and beliefs in our unique nation, revolutionising the help available for anyone working, employing or exporting here. Gone is the notion that Australia is “just another Western society”.

Authors Barbara West and Frances Murphy - two well-travelled academics of the working world - talked to hundreds of workers based in Australia from all corners of the globe and some of the country’s most experienced management specialists. Listening to their illustrative stories and delving deep into their attitudes, perceptions, hearts and minds. Analysis of these interviews, in conjunction with numerous research studies, dissects the Australian culture, values, behaviour and communication like never before.

Underlying the multitude of multicultural issues and conflicts in custom that are highlighted, is the undeniable fact our diversity makes us like no other place in the world. “We are an incredibly multicultural society, with a patchwork past”, explains co-author and American ex-pat, Barbara West. “Currently in Australia there are 52% of us who were born elsewhere, or have a parent who was. The combination of our different heritages, cultures, customs and values result in a unique DNA footprint in terms of our workplace ethics and processes. “G’Day Boss holds a mirror up to the Australian workplace”, says Australian born co-author of G’day Boss, Frances Murphy, “so that we can better understand our own behaviour and communication style in relation to those around us who are culturally different.”

“And by understanding these differences, we can adapt when we come across them. In turn we can improve in all areas of business, offering a much more attractive option for high calibre overseas candidates and seeing much more success in our dealings with clients, partners and suppliers”.

“Far more than an academic meditation on cultural dissonance, G’day Boss! heads straight for the nucleus of the Australian experience, plucks it from its membrane and holds it to the light. This book will profoundly challenge the assumptions and actions of all Australian professionals, whatever their background or ambition.”

Australian Anthill Magazine

Read GDay Boss Review in Mosaic Magazine by Dr Sara Wills of the University of Melbourne

GDay Boss Review Mosiac Magazine

Radio Interview Audio - ABC Radio Australia Breakfast Club Interview- GDay Boss

Check out Phil Kafcaloudes interview with authors Barbara West and Frances Murphy

About The Authors - Barbara West and Frances Murphy

Barbara West received her Ph.D. in cultural anthropology in 1995 and has spent more than fifteen years lecturing, writing and consulting in the areas of culture, international studies and intercultural communications. She also has the most up to date Australian Certificate IV in Training and Assessment, fifty hours of training at the Summer Institute of Intercultural Communication and is a qualified administrator of both the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) and Intercultural Conflict Styles Inventory (ICSI). Prior to co-founding Culture Works, Barbara was an associate professor of international studies at the University of the Pacific and primary trainer for the Pacific Institute of Cross Cultural Training. During her ten years at Pacific she received nine different awards for teaching excellence, concern for student learning and public speaking. She has provided extensive cross cultural and intercultural communication training for domestic and overseas university students, faculty and staff members, as well as secondary and primary teachers, middle and upper management teams and immigrant and local ethnic community groups. She has also recently been interviewed for the S.H.A.R.C. e-newsletter on Cross Border Business, on West End Business’s radio programme, and in Australian Anthill Magazine.

Frances Murphy is an Australian citizen but has spent more than a quarter of her life living and working abroad in Germany, Africa, the U.K., Turkey and the U.S. She received her M.A. in psychology in 1999 and spent ten years working in various settings in the United States to provide psychological, cultural and educational counselling to families, children and tertiary level students. Additionally, she has three hundred hours of training through the Intercultural Communication Institute in Portland, Oregon, and is a qualified administrator of both the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) and Intercultural Conflict Styles Inventory (ICSI). Before co-founding Culture Works, Frances was an international student advisor at the University of the Pacific, for which she served as an ombudsman for international students. She also had in her portfolio the task to internationalise the campus, for which she designed and implemented dozens of international and intercultural programs. Her extensive and varied experiences as an expatriate, her academic work and her counselling experience have given Frances a unique understanding of intercultural competencies and outstanding skills in teaching them to others. She has returned to Melbourne in order to use her international and intercultural experience to help facilitate culture learning in her home city.

Learn More about GDay Boss Right Now…

G’Day Boss! Australian Culture and the Workplace

Australia-Culture in the Workplace

Excerpt from:

G’Day Boss! Australian Culture and the workplace

by Barbara West and Frances Murphy

 

Understanding Relationships

 

Equality versus Recognised hierarchy

Australia: Equality is to be honoured (including gender, race, class, etc).

Contrast: Society is better organised if status and hierarchy are recognised.

Perhaps the most important value orientation for a newcomer to Australia to understand is the overall importance placed on equality. In contrast with most of the rest of the world, Australians generally favour equality over recognised hierarchy. In his book Cross-Cultural Business Behavior (1999), Richard Gesteland writes that Australia is ‘a deal focused, extremely egalitarian and informal’ society (p 263) and that this egalitarianism leads Australians to look very negatively on anyone, especially newcomers, who express anything that even approaches boastfulness or showing off.

In our research we have found that migrants from Asia almost immediately notice the relative absence of recognition of hierarchy and status in Australia. In addition, most migrants from North America and Europe likewise realise very quickly that their own societies have taught them to value hierarchy considerably more than does the average Australian. Attitudes and behaviours that in North America or Europe seem acceptable or even a requirement for securing employment, such as discussing one’s tertiary degrees, are often seen by Australians as pretentious. It is certainly important to let potential employers know your skills and background, but this must be done carefully to avoid the impression that you are ‘putting on airs’.

Australian’s perspective repatriated after eight years in Hong Kong

I find that getting served in a restaurant or shop is very difficult in Australia. I think the service staff see themselves as equal to their customers, which is fine but they refuse to cater to customer needs. You almost have to make an effort to get them to serve you and if you complain about anything the attitude is ‘Whatever’.

The particular form the value of equality takes in Australia is general rather than specific. At least at the level of ideas, hierarchies are seen by Australians as disruptive of positive and productive social relations. This results in a situation in which women and men, at least on the surface, are supposed to be equal and equally able to interact with each other and serve as group leaders or managers. Women and men actively engage in discussion and even argument with each other. They may greet each other with a handshake and spend time together both inside and outside the workplace. Newcomers to Australia from more hierarchical societies may have to adapt their behaviour when interacting with the opposite sex, from being deferential or domineering to more familiar and equal.

In Australia the differences between people in terms of race, religion, ethnicity, nationality and socio economic level are likewise believed to be merely differences, not hierarchies. Workplaces in Australia are expected to be free of language and behaviours that denigrate or degrade any individual or group, and there are even laws that protect people from this kind of thing. The very word ‘class’ to refer to socio economic differences is not generally recognised as valid in Australia, despite the obvious differences in wealth.

Australian management consultant’s perspective

I often see Australian employees taking the time to talk to the security guard, the cleaner and the tea lady more than you would in a more hierarchical culture. Even top management will make sure they ask about the families of these workers and will personally get involved if there is an issue. In both individual and group interactions, Australians tend to ‘level’ or downplay superior skills and talents in order to bolster the illusion of equality. The Australian phrase ‘the tall poppy’ refers to this kind of levelling. The poppy that grows taller than the others in the field gets its head knocked off first, in the same way that a person who attempts to portray him or herself as above others will be brought down through joking or even gentle (or serious) mockery of his or her accomplishments. US-Americans, who are taught from a very young age to value individual accomplishments in themselves and others, are particularly vulnerable to this kind of levelling mechanism in Australia. Australian politicians are also common victims, as anyone who has watched Australian television comedy can attest. Comedians often infiltrate press conferences and other public gatherings to ask impertinent questions. If the politicians refuse to play along with the mockery or try to have the ‘stirrers’ thrown out, they are seen as bad sports. Doing the latter would also be considered an abuse of authority.

Switzerland to Australia perspective

What I would say to a new migrant: ‘The tall poppy syndrome must be understood.’ This means that on a daily basis nobody wants to stand out. And, at least where I work [which is currently undergoing major restructuring] there are very few people who provide any leadership or decision-making. Everybody is waiting for the big boss to do everything because they don’t want to take responsibility and thus stand out from the crowd themselves. Yet, at the same time, having titles is really important and you should put all of them on your business card. I don’t really understand the contradiction.

Of course, Australia is a hierarchical society. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, on average Australian men earn 10 r cent more than Australian women (see http://ofw.facs.gov.au/publications/wia/chapter5.html). They also garner more respect in the workplace and dominate the upper levels of corporate, academic and political life (see http://ofw.facs.gov.au/publications/wia/chapter4.html). While government policy has made significant contributions to the status of women, there is still a huge boys’ network and deliberate actions have to be taken to continue to improve the position of women. In addition, racial, religious, ethnic and national groups that fall outside the dominant Anglo-European sphere in Australia can face racism and discrimination of various kinds. In the workplace, there are bosses and subordinates. Nevertheless, the value of equality means that bosses are not automatically believed to be superior, and vice versa. Bosses must earn the respect of their employees. If you enter a workplace as a manager, your Australian employees will use your first name and expect you to use theirs. They are more likely to follow your directions if you earn their respect rather than try to rely entirely on your title or position.

Brazil to Australia perspective

It certainly depends on your workplace, but in general hierarchy is more subtle here than in Brazil. People have a more consultative style than a hierarchical one. Managers have to be seen to communicate with all levels of the organisation, not just those immediately around them. It’s also not uncommon to see managers having lunch on the shop floor with the employees because they are trying to mix with everybody. Everybody here uses only first names as well. I really appreciate this mixing between levels because I think it’s good for an organisation. However, it can also be hard because you can forget your position when out socialising and make a mistake. Hierarchy is subtle, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

India to Australia perspective

I was raised in India, where it was unacceptable to question the directions that someone of a higher rank has given you. It was normal to follow directions without question. When I came to Australia I joined the Australian army and was amazed to see that the orders we received came with explanations. I could not understand why my superiors were justifying their orders. In India, respect was a given if you were in a higher-ranked position and approval did not need to be sought.

Don’t expect to get any kudos in Australia for your status alone. Borrowing from Trompenaars’ notion of the relative importance of ascribed or achieved status, Australians are solidly of the opinion that only achieved status needs to be acknowledged and even that is done in an understated way. Status that comes to you through your position in an organisation will generally go unrecognised, whereas if you earn people’s respect through your mentoring or support of their efforts you will be held in high esteem. Of course, this esteem will play itself out in terms of relationships, rather than outward displays of honour and respect.

France and Britain to Australia perspective

Hierarchy is so much stronger in France and Britain than it is here. I am used to having to use quite formal language with my superiors such as Mr or the formal French word for you, vous. I also had to go through many steps to get to the big boss. I love it in Australia where you can go straight to your CEO and address him by his first name! I find that using people’s surnames in Australia puts a glass between you and them that is very uncomfortable for everybody. Here there is great openness and more opportunities to network across levels of the organisation. People are seen more on the same level as human beings rather than as holders of titles or positions. This is not so in France because of all the structures and procedures that people have to follow. In Britain as well, work is more structured; there’s always a sense of ‘I am the boss and you are the worker’. As an exporter the lack of hierarchy in Australia can unfortunately work against you because hierarchy is so important in places like China and the rest of Asia. Australians can be too forward, too intimate for many Asian people’s comfort levels.

United States to Australia perspective

In the US I was occasionally invited to my boss’s house with other staff members for parties, to celebrate Thanksgiving or to welcome new staff members. In these situations my boss was the host and to some extent it felt like an extension of work. I thought nothing of being asked to perform little tasks for my boss, even though it was at a party. Here in Australia I have never been invited to my boss’s house. I don’t think he has ever hosted a party for his staff . He does go to the pub for drinks on Friday nights and will occasionally be involved in weekend activities but only as one of the group; usually someone else has organised it. Socially everyone seems very relaxed around each other and work is the last thing on their minds. Socialising outside of work is separate from work and no one is going to ‘pull rank’ on you at the pub or at a barbecue. You’re expected to be more relaxed and informal and not fall into work roles outside of the office; that makes people uneasy.

South Africa to Australia perspective

South African work culture is very hierarchical. It’s always ‘Yes, Sir’ to the boss, while in Australia it’s much more on a first-name basis. At home, people give orders and others accept them; it’s a very top-down, directive discussion style. But Australians don’t like anything that sounds like an order. They don’t give them and they certainly don’t take them well. It’s not that there isn’t hierarchy in Australia, but it’s insinuated and maybe flatter.

 

Click below to listen to Barb and Fran’s short audio about G’Day Boss!

 

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G’Day Boss! Australian Culture and the Workplace

©Tribus Lingua 2007

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Australian Job Vacancies, Australian Workplace Culture and the Role of the OQP

Filling Australian Job Vacancies and the role of Overseas Qualified Professionals Program

Government policy-makers and immigration officials seem to assume that, in an open job market, all we need to do is to link suitably skilled people with Australian job vacancies in an identified skill-shortage area and the gap will be filled. Holders of recognised qualifications in “in-demand” professions are fairly easily granted permanent residency to Australia and encouraged to take up one of the many Australian job vacancies in their fields. The strong message is that this will be a fairly straightforward affair.

But we have seen that this is rarely so, and that we need special post-settlement programs to induct even highly skilled and literate professionals in the complicated art of landing a job. The OQP program (Overseas Qualified Professionals Program) was born of the failure of many migrants to:

1. Locate a job that was in their field but that they also had a reasonable chance of getting
2. Construct job applications that are acceptable, according to Australia’s peculiar conventions
3. Present themselves reasonably well to recruiters, in phone calls or interviews, as viable candidates

It is this last barrier that presents the biggest obstacle. On top of the expected requirements of qualification, skill-level and language competence, acceptance involves what recruiters and managers often call “cultural fit”. This is easier to name than to define and often seems to involve criteria that the recruiter is not fully aware of, let alone the job candidate. Talk of cultural diversity, a multicultural workforce or even culture shock has done little to clarify for overseas job seekers what it actually means. And it doesn’t help at all that it means different things to different people.

Defining Australian Workplace Culture

Most skilled migrants soon learn that to be successful they must absorb the values of something called “Australian workplace culture“. But what is this exactly? If they are lucky, someone will instruct them that, on the surface, the Australian workplace culture is:

• More egalitarian and informal, less hierarchical and authoritarian, than the one they may be coming from
• Yet, somewhat confusingly, demands a strict adherence to a strong “work ethic” (whatever that is)
• An environment where “selling yourself” and being assertive is highly valued
• Where qualities of initiative, leadership and independence are expected of professionals
• But, again conversely, where an apparently collective culture of “teamwork”, communication, reliability and punctuality is required

Unfortunately, when this rather unspecific set of prerequisites is listed in a résumé (however correctly) or recited at an interview (however sincerely) it often gets the candidate nowhere at all, and even elicits distinct impatience from a recruiter. Even if a candidate is able to relate by convincing anecdote where and when they have demonstrated these qualities, the response is still often not enthusiastic.

This is because the recruiter is looking for something further, something less easy to explain. They sometimes talk about a “fit” with the “company culture”, and a lot has been said under this banner about the need for recruiters to investigate and define the “culture” of a company before they recruit for it. The trouble is, it is a far different thing from what has been identified above as “Australian workplace culture”. How is the newcomer to negotiate this mystifying barrier?

Walking the “Cultural Fit” Tightrope

Clearly, “cultural fit” is much more personality-based than the former, and is now measured more and more (in a “professional” or an amateur way) by psychological or “psychometric” interview techniques. But knowing this won’t help the candidate much. The real “measurement”, quite apart from whatever facts and figures may be indicated from these tests and questions, usually takes the form of informal, unstructured and often fairly unselfconscious opinion-sharing by the recruiting panel, after the candidate has left, as to his or her ability to “fit in”.

An ability to “fit in” is often judged by impressions and “gut-feelings”. The more drawn-out, convoluted and process-driven our interview and selection methods become, the more scope there seems to be for nebulous, personal, “cultural” judgements to come into play. This is especially so when many interviewers are not specifically trained for the purpose.

One major Australian cultural tension is that between egalitarianism and individualism. Displays of equality and personal familiarity, even between people who occupy vastly different positions in the workplace power structure, are important in Australia. Understatement, not “blowing your own trumpet”, the rejection of all presumptions of superiority, suspicion of intellectual achievement (or even education itself in some quarters), the cutting down of tall poppies - these are prominent in the Australian popular identity.

Yet, on the other hand, locally-grown aspirants learn that to impress a prospective employer you must stand out, show individuality, initiative, self-reliance, great confidence in your own ability, even outspokenness. We admire the larrikin achiever, the one who goes against convention, the “self-made man”.

“Fitting in” as a professional in Australia is very much a balancing act between these two opposites. It is nearly impossible to express this mix in an interview unless it comes naturally, without self-consciousness. Yet, often unwittingly, recruiters apply this rule of thumb to local and international interviewees alike. Overseas-qualified applicants can all too easily fall down on one side of the knife-edge or the other. Trying the individualistic achiever approach, many applicants appear aggressive or even arrogant, offering a boring recitation of their qualifications and achievements, showing as trying too be too clever, lacking humour or even causing the negative suspicion that “self-promoters” provoke here. Yet if they try the other approach it often comes out as too passive, weak, lacking in energy, the recruiters noticing only too much anxiety to please and defer to all statements. It is hard to know which self-presentation affects Australian interviewers worse.

The Right Balance

Those who succeed in this balancing act have either been exposed to an Australian cultural experience (natives or long-term residents) or they have been instructed in our self-presentation conventions and have practiced them in a critically supervised environment. The OQP program (Overseas Qualified Professionals Program) attempts to give our participants a little experience of both of these situations before they actually submit themselves to the interview process. Firstly, by involving them in exploratory and critical examinations, in workshop environments, of their interactions with the Australian job-market so far. Secondly, by putting them through interviews that are as close as possible to the real thing. Thirdly, by placing them full-time in an Australian workplace cutlure, so they experience, albeit in a limited and somewhat protected way, an “immersion” of sorts in the “target” culture.

When instructed to “speak up for themselves”, we notice raw newcomer professionals tend to err on the overbearing side. This is perhaps reinforced by their position in their original societies, being esteemed as one of a small educated elite, belonging in the top 5% of the population in status and usually income. In Australia the class indicators are different. Education and privilege are nothing to be flashed around and our management and professional elite learns to adopt a ‘one of the common people’ approach when dealing with employees. People who exhibit self-satisfaction have ‘poor people skills’. I have seen several otherwise capable overseas professionals destroy certain job chances during an industry placement because they inadvertently drew too much attention to their high level of qualification.

With professionals who have been here longer, however, the opposite tends to be true. Imagine it. You are disappointed, even confused, by hundreds of rejections (or no replies) for jobs that appear below your real skill level, and by one or two years of unemployment mixed with low-paid casual work. You adopt a desperate, but somehow passive approach, either pleading or resigned, that cries out: “I’ll take any job.” This usually brings the recruiter’s comment “lacks get-up-and-go” and means certain rejection before the interview has even begun.

What have been the implications of this rather depressing reality on the evolution of the OQP program (Overseas Qualified Professionals Program)? One noticeable result has been a toughening of our attitude to any strategic shortcomings or inflexibility in our participants. In their position in a buyer’s market we have perceived that it is they who most have to change: “Diversity and multiculturalism is all very well, but that won’t help you where you’re going.”

The program has developed more and more into a series of revelations of harsh realities, each bringing with it a new counter-strategy to be considered, yet more work to be done, more barriers to be crossed. We tell them “Get real!” We urge them to develop thick skins. We tell them this is a competitive job-market and part of the test is to prove your endurance.

Getting Past the Recruitment Gatekeepers to fill the Australian Job Vacancies

Yet there have been other results and revelations as well. The interviewing “gatekeepers” are not the full story. We have sometimes seen potential interview failures blossom and gain confidence after “cold calling” directly to employers and being able to meet colleagues with their own technical background instead of recruiters.

We have learned that very often the application and interview process is a cultural ritual, a shortlisting and elimination tool (which pays lip-service to “equal opportunity”) of little relevance to performance on the job. So often our participants, in time and in a setting where they can complete a task and overcome nervousness, interact well with supportive and helpful colleagues and shed the “outsider” personae they presented at first. Supervisors and managers are also able to shake of the “risk factor” that haunts them when presented with somebody unfamiliar.

This process of managers and supervisors quickly accepting slightly different ways of “fitting in” has been helped along quite a bit by the increasing talk, and the reality, of the great Australian “skills shortage”. The increasing exposure of senior executives to international, multicultural professional expertise has also helped. We even find willingness at senior levels to reconsider the very rationale of recruitment gate-keeping and envisage new ways of assessing applicants of all types.

This article which looks at the realities of filling Australian job vacancies, understanding “Australian workplace culture” and the role of the OQU in regard to getting past the recruitment gatekeepers is taken from “Getting Past the Recruitment Gatekeepers” by Peter Hosford, Industry Liaison, Overseas Qualified Professionals Victoria, Northern Institute of TAFE (NMIT). Overseas Qualified Professionals (OQP) Victoria provides overseas qualified professionals with an introduction to the Australian workplace and labour market and the opportunity to undertake practical industry placements.

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OQP Victoria