Australian Work Ethic
 

I've been in Melbourne since March, working for one of the big 4 banks.

I'd be very curious to hear about others experiences regarding the Australian work ethic. I spent many years in London and in New York, and I continue to be shocked with what I experience here.

I had my annual performance review recently and for my 'negatives' I was told I 'work too hard' and that it 'looks bad to finish work on weekends'. In almost 9 months, I've probably worked a net of 20 hours total over the weekend and work in the office to 6 or 630 rarely and only then to meet a deadline. In the USA or even the UK, my work effort here in terms of hours worked would be viewed as utterly lazy. I regularly witness people leave at 5 pm as if a school bell went off (despite deadlines), leaving work unfinished, or presenting something to senior executives that, frankly, if you tried in New York or London you'd likely be shown the door or given a personal development plan.

There also seems to be a strange sense of pride in NOT having qualifications - I've heard many say things like 'I wouldn't waste my time on an MBA' or 'I do compliance and never needed to study law formally' etc etc. Most of the ex-pats I work with have impressive credentials so perhaps some of this is just trying to justify not having them by some of the locals, but again I find this attitude strange.

The most common expression I hear weekly is 'I am not putting my hand up for that' and the amount of blaming others vs admitting you screwed up is unreal. I have been involved in some projects that would have been completed in two weeks in London or New York that are still going on, never progressing past a powerpoint (which is then reworked) presentation since no one will take accountability to actually deliver something.

Is this typical, or did I just land at an unusual bank or department? Something just feels a bit off to be working the least hours in my life, and making by far the most money, while being surrounded by people that seem to take no pride whatsoever in their professionalism or quality of their work.

*Note: Australia itself is great, I love Melbourne and all there is to do here, this is just a question about the Australia work ethic.

Re: Australian Work Ethic
 

Don't know why you're experiencing that poor standard - it's certainly not my experience at all. Everyone I work with has a strong work ethic and takes pride in their work. We all regularly work late, very long days and at weekends. Even sometimes when we're on leave!

High standards are a personal thing - I don't think it can be attributed to a nationality/country - there are sloths and hard workers everywhere -but like I said, no idea why you're seeing it so consistently. Maybe you can raise their game by example!

Re: Australian Work Ethic
 

Good to hear, it may well just be the bank and the department then. That said I do think standards do change a bit country to country - comparing working hours in New York vs London for example. It is not always a bad think, my work life balance in London was far better vs New York, as the American culture is more based on hours in the office and putting work first at least in my area (banking) - certainly not healthy long term and I always respected the British approach more which I think is a nice balance of professionalism and work life balance. Thanks for your view!

Re: Australian Work Ethic
 

I don't work in finance - and never wanted to - it all seems a bit cut throat! My boss is great - we are judged solely on performance which means I can happily dictate my own destiny!

Hope it improves for you and your next review is more appreciative of your efforts!

Re: Australian Work Ethic
 

Professionalism and the word Quality are missing from the Australian business dictionary.

As a recent study showed what takes a day in the US will take a week in Oz.

Working in London is like having a double expresson with no sugar
Working in Australia is like taking tea with teabag used 5 times already with full cream and sugar to give it taste.

Re: Australian Work Ethic
 

As immigrants usually only have a few companies to base their experience on you often see totally contradictory opinions on threads like this. When people try and extrapolate out their good or bad experiences to a whole country it often just doesn't work. I think the trick is to know when it makes sense to generalise and when it doesn't. Imo this falls into the latter, which is probably why you've asked for other's opinion...

Re: Australian Work Ethic
 

My boss said if there is a deadline, we should pull together in order to meet it. If every day is an 'emergency' then things need to be questioned, you do what you can in the time you are given and if every day turns out to be an emergency, then managerial and work tactics need to be re-evaluated.

I have worked behind before to get stuff done but if I suggested coming in on a Saturday to work, I would not be allowed - my company feel time off is important.

I have worked in places where most people come in on a Saturday and if you dare not to or you go home on time, someone will look at their watch accusingly.

So whilst it is admirable that you go in at the weekend, perhaps others might feel pressure that they too should be going in as well, I have had that pressure and it isnt nice.

Personally I work to live, not live to work.

Re: Australian Work Ethic
 

Actually, I rarely go in on the weekend. My point was simply that, at least where I work, working after 5 even once in a blue moon to get the quality of work to a certain standard is rare. I agree this can be a negative going the other way too as your example shows, but what I am talking about here is leaving at 5 pm as if you have a school bus to catch vs working once in a while an extra 5 or 10 minutes to do a better job. Id also add many of these people take off at 4 or 3 for various 'appointments' as well so many don't even work a true 40 hour work week.

Again, I have seen this sort of thing even when what is being produced is critical for a product launch, or is for example a report for a senior executive where as extra 30 minutes of effort to get a number right or fix an issue would have made a big difference. I'll be curious to read about more experiences here - also please note I am talking about highly paid people at a major bank, my view of my industry in New York and London was that while we were well paid, with that pay came an expectation that we did good quality work and put in the required time to do so.

Re: Australian Work Ethic
 

I have been here just over 2 years now I work in construction and would say its similar in my line of work sometimes if you were to the extra half a hour you could save half a day.

I would say its a 50/50 split some do some dont or will not as some one said its like the school bell ringing oh I have to go and just leave everything for someone else to pick up ,it's the same for my wife she is in a very tough area of nursing and some of the nurses will not start treating some one if its going to make the work half hour over ,it's always the uk trained nurses who stop back to clear that days work.

Re: Australian Work Ethic
 

I think I work quite hard here and I think that the work ethic is quite strong amongst the more senior ranks.

But amongst the troops there are many doing the absolute minimum they think they can get away with and these are people on $130-$150k or thereabouts. There is one lad in the team and we cannot even get him into the office before 9.30am and he only lives in North Sydney.

I am an accountant in financial services, as I was in London for a long time and many people here would not survive five minutes in the London market.

Re: Australian Work Ethic
 

I am surrounded daily by feckless work-shy slack arses who can't wait for the weekend to arrive and life to start.

I fit in well.

Re: Australian Work Ethic
 

:thumbsup::D

Re: Australian Work Ethic
 

The irony being that most of my workmates are imported Poms or Kiwis :D

Re: Australian Work Ethic
 

Every single person I work with, doesn't know how long their day will be when they arrive at work. They all do OT as the work demands and we've rarely seen less than a 12 hour day for months now. It's almost like a bonus when we only get 2 hours OT and can get home relatively early.

In fact some of us are doing 6 days a week..... I baulked at that one. It's Football season for xsakes.


Dreading Xmas. :unsure: :eek:

Re: Australian Work Ethic
 

I work for a consulting engineering company in oil and gas, and the only way we can compete on the international stage is to sell quality, smarts and experience as India and other similar countries can undercut us on man hour rates every time. So it is in our interests to ensure that our staff get adequate time off and are not working excessive hours - most work 40-45 hrs a week and only go over that when a deadline needs more input to be achieved. That way we ensure that our engineers get a good balance between work and family/social life and are never too tired to be at the top of their game.

Ozzieeagle, how long do you think you can work 12 hour days before performance and productivity decline drastically and people start making expensive mistakes?

Re: Australian Work Ethic
 

7.25 hour days, an enforced xmas shutdown and a 'free' extra day off for us.

It's like a holiday camp but with monitors. ;)

Free fruit too, bananarama! :thumbup:

The commute turns it into a 12 hour day mind ... I just use this to oggle the women in short skirts.

It's a full life.

Re: Australian Work Ethic
 

:) you back working in the city again?

Re: Australian Work Ethic
 

I am, a week and half in ... the commute hasn't got to me, yet ...

Re: Australian Work Ethic
 

There are standards that have to be met and they are still being met. Apost are refusing to take on new staff, they haven't employed anyone new at our facility for almost 10months now. In that time around 15 people out of 250 have left. Apparently we are getting some new starters in two weeks. That'll only alieviate the Xmas upturn though.

The facility manager has had enough though and put in his resignation, thats 2 gone in one year. .

Re: Australian Work Ethic
 

Well those of us who are here can all thank God we live in Australia instead of London or New York I suppose, although I guess our standard of living will gradually be ground down until we're all workbots as time goes on. The piss-poor Australian work ethic has put the country at second highest standard of living on the planet compared to UK's 26th and US's 13th, although the US recently changed the way the stats were measured to get them in to the top ten.

Re: Australian Work Ethic
 

I've been here for 2 years and am an electrician, i work for a Macadonian guy who moved to NZ late 90s then got into Oz mid 2000s.
I am worked like a dog told to sell people more stuff they call me the minute i am supposed to be at an appointment, to check i am there. I live in fear of being a couple of minutes late. Last week i missed my lunch break to make it back to the office for 1st aid course, when i put no lunch on my time sheet i was told "well you ate when the 1st aid guy was here" I have to charge $75 an hr plus materials but i am paid $28...
The reason i stick at this sh*t is i have a south australian licence and all the jobs here demand a Qld one. I need this guy to keep signing my log book ( now complete) so i can hopefully get a qld licence.
So i work hard in this stupid heat/ humidity much much harder than i did in blighty. But outside work i can afford to do so much more.
I stay here because i dont want to have to divorce my aussie wife, she did 8 yrs in blighty.

Re: Australian Work Ethic
 

We get free fruit as well and it is like a bun fight for the bananas :thumbsup:

Re: Australian Work Ethic
 

I love my commute, even if it adds a couple of hours to my day..... Up time and down time.... Me time.... Bliss

Re: Australian Work Ethic
 

In my experience, in my floor(2nd) it's normal seeing the marketing and sales people working long hours and weekends. The company doesn't encourage employees extra work so it's up to you. Also we work Fridays until 1:30. Having said that, we work under such amount of pressure all the time that I really think that they are sweezing us until take the last penny they are paying for (fair enough). On the other hand, If you go down to the 1st floor (admin) at 5 o clock you are not going to find a soul around.

Regarding qualifications, Higher positions are occupied for mature individuals (some wihout formal qualifications) who have worked hard to succeed in their companies so they automatically are going to do their best not to leave anybody threat (or intimidate) them with formal qualifications or intellectual crap nor to work on preparing the new generation. Also, to me Australia is more or less 10 years behind the rest of the world (including some developing countries); if you go 10 years back a MBA was a degree for few selected pretentious people with the money to pay for it and now in USA and the UK to have an MBA is a must even for junior positions (including my headquarter in US) so the MBA days will come to Australia when the belt get tighter. I wouldn't relate the MBA with the nationality because I'm one of the few non Australian students in my MBA course.

Finally, I would agree with some of your comments but in essence, I see my company more like a sales branch that has to pump products in the market than a proper corporate global office. Also, having worked in the UK and USA the most important difference is the extremely hierarchical and reactive culture at the point of even thinking strategically or critically can be almost regarded as a direct threat (going back to the qualifications) to the big fishes.

Re: Australian Work Ethic
 

Same in our office :rofl:

Re: Australian Work Ethic
 

I used to be like the OP, then I caught myself on. Its Australia where any excuse is good enough to shoot home early etc, its a relaxed lifestyle why waste time complaining if you cant beat them join 'em.

Re: Australian Work Ethic
 

[QUOTE=Bermudashorts;10376239
I am an accountant in financial services, as I was in London for a long time and many people here would not survive five minutes in the London market.[/QUOTE]

This is exactly my point. Many here are on excellent salaries - top 5% in Australia - yet can't be bothered to work a bit later at times to get the job done right. The impact is the people willing to do so tend to get dumped on with more work, so I suppose this attitude makes sense. I've also seen a number of people hammered in performance reviews because they did take accountability while those that take off at 5 or say 'I can't figure it out, give it to the intern' seem to do pretty well since they never took accountability to begin with.

The environment reminds me of the USA during the .com boom, but even then people worked decent hours and did good professional work despite have 5 or 6 job options per week (I was working in pure tech work at the time), so some of it must simply be cultural.

Re: Australian Work Ethic
 

[QUOTE=MAR001;10376413
Regarding qualifications, Higher positions are occupied for mature individuals (some wihout formal qualifications) who have worked hard to succeed in their companies so they automatically are going to do their best not to leave anybody threat (or intimidate) them with formal qualifications or intellectual crap nor to work on preparing the new generation. Also, to me Australia is more or less 10 years behind the rest of the world (including some developing countries); if you go 10 years back a MBA was a degree for few selected pretentious people with the money to pay for it and now in USA and the UK to have an MBA is a must even for junior positions (including my headquarter in US) so the MBA days will come to Australia when the belt get tighter. I wouldn't relate the MBA with the nationality because I'm one of the few non Australian students in my MBA course.
[/QUOTE]

Good points, the MBA was an example, I see similar comments re law degrees (I happen to have both - can't win!) This isn't by the way with people bragging about their qualifications (most of the ex-pats here have them, many of the Aussie's seem not to for reasons likely being those that you outline) but rather more senior people making throw away comments about how credentials or for that matter self improvement is not worth it. I know of a fairly senior person offered an executive MBA by the company - fully paid - that said no because she 'can't imagine what she could learn' - same goes for a few in compliance that from what I can tell don't even know the basics of Common law but seem to feel they are effective.

Perhaps some of it is just insecurity - I worked with senior execs in New York and London with and without qualifications and none seemed threatened by junior people - if anything they developed them and had a clear development plan. Case and point, I made many presentations to by previous company's risk board in London over a 4 year period even though it was really for our COO to do - he let others present to develop us. Same for New York. At my current bank, I have yet to see one 'Head of' allow a senior manager to present anything to executives - prepare powerpoint packs and argue over fonts, yes, but get facetime or exposure to senior execs - heck no. Longer term I find it odd - in New York for example the view was always support your team, grow them, and as you get promoted hopefully so will they. My experience here so far is to watch your back.

Re: Australian Work Ethic
 

With respect, how accurate do you find these surveys? As ex-pats we are all lucky to have experience in different cultures. For me personally I'd take the USA over Australia and the UK long term, but that is my view having spent time in each place. (Bananas are the same price in the USA each day for example, and you can actually now buy a nice home in most places without need a million dollar mortgage like Sydney or lately even Melbourne) For now, Australia is definitely the place to be, but if the productivity levels can't compete longer term this is a problem.

The other factor being overlooked in those numbers is the simple fact that, for now, we are lucky that there are a lot of things that can be dug up in this country and sold to China and others at high mark-ups. Canada is in a similar position for now. This will change with time as mines in Mongola and other places come on line - when that happens Australia will become a more interesting place, although I suspect many of us are here for the boom times and plan to head off in a few years anyway before all that $hit hits the fan.

Re: Australian Work Ethic
 

I think it's a lot longer than "for now". The quantity of stuff in Australia is mind-boggling. As for the stats - they're the only thing we have so we have to go with them. And shit hitting fans? Are you kidding? The biggest pile of shit, heading towards the biggest fan on earth is in the US. $16 trillion debt, totally unrepayable, 320 million people with 14% real unemployment. Australia will be an oasis of calm bowling greens and suburban respectability compared with the US in 25 years' time.

Re: Australian Work Ethic
 

The kiwi fruit are always left till last - and the big fat oranges but the little oranges and the bananas are bitterly fought over with the bananas in first place and I will snag two on a Monday morning for breakfast with my cereal :sneaky:

The apples are slowly eaten through the week out of desperation. I hate peeling kiwi fruit so avoid them.

I do like my bananas.:thumbsup:

Re: Australian Work Ethic
 

So you seem to be here to work hard, make a few quid and head off for the next thing. Which is totally fine. But you can't expect everyone to have the same attitude. Most people, especially aussies obviously, plan to stay here and to enjoy their life while doing so without necessarily obsessing about crawling up the corporate ladder.

Re: Australian Work Ethic
 

Cut the ends off the kiwi and eat it, skin and all. Or cut it in half and eat it with a teaspoon.

Life is too short to peel a kiwi fruit.

Re: Australian Work Ethic
 

We get the punnets sold here with a plastic spoon/knife implement to do exactly this - cut half and scoop :)

Re: Australian Work Ethic
 

I do whatever is required off me from 8.30 to 5pm, but I never feel compelled to stay beyond 5pm. People who feel compelled to regularly work longer than they get paid for either

a. don't do a good enough job during the day and know they need to make up for it?
b. need their head looked at, why the hell would you do more hours than you get paid for?

I think you should be glad you're no longer getting the pi$$ taken out of you by your employer

Re: Australian Work Ethic
 

Hmmmm.. I wish there wasa way the Immogration Department could weed these "its all about me, stuff Australia' people out and give visas to people who are actually grateful for them.

Re: Australian Work Ethic
 

I used to work for a lady in a bank branch, she was married to a chef and seemed to have no life. We only got paid to 4.30pm but she would regularly make us work to 6.00pm for no reason. It is stupid. Work to live. not live to work. Be efficient while you are there and you shouldn't need to stay late all the time (except occasionally.) The American and UK banking systems fell apart during the GFC so all this crowing means nothing.

Re: Australian Work Ethic
 

And fasta the shit will cometh

Re: Australian Work Ethic
 

They are target #1 for me too. Our floor is more focused on the Social Club chocolates, bonus for me :thumbup:

I hear that, time on train reading is good time :cool:

Re: Australian Work Ethic
 

I'm Australian, and my ethos has always been 'a fair day's work for a fair day's pay.'

I work the hours I'm given, for the pay I'm promised. I'll work overtime if it's paid but I won't work for free. I am not a charity. If an employer wants my time he must pay for it.

When I lived in the UK I noticed a lot of employers expected their staff to work regular overtime without pay. This is unacceptable and I simply refused to do it. The more free labour you given an employer, the more he will expect and the more he will take.

The only time I'll work without remuneration is when I choose to do so on my own initiative. In the past this has included going the extra mile for a valued client, covering emergency situations, and helping stressed colleagues to clear a backlog. I found my employer valued me more as a result, and rewarded me by increasing my autonomy.