bernadette_li

I am newish to Canada and the company I work for is pretty good overall. Hiring manager is a strong, competent woman, they had a good person help with my move here. I would like to develop my career over the long term in this firm.
HOWEVER, I find the cultural elements a bit of a challenge sometimes. For example, I would prefer direct coaching advice. But I feel like people won't tell me when or if I am doing a bad job, so I end up having no clue..well I do, I think I am underperforming to an extent..long story and never had an underperforming experience but that's for another day. So the lack of a support structure or feeling like people will not talk as directly at times is a challenge. For the first time in my life, I both feel like I actually need support but I'm in an environment where I am not sure if people tell you a bat is a bat..If that makes any sense at all.

DandNHill

I like Canadians but for the most part they don't want to offend....so they can't tell you if you are doing something wrong as they might offend you!! They're in a catch 22!!!

scrubbedexpat091

In my experience the only time employers say anything about job performance is when you do something they dislike, otherwise they say nothing. That's how it has been at the companies I have worked for over the years. It was rare for anyone to say something for a good job, only when some sort of mistake was made.

BristolUK

And it might not even be something they dislike so much as just not wanting to praise.

My step daughter works in retail - has done for quite a few years now with the same employer.

It's obvious she's well thought of with her ability and willingness to always take on the different roles they ask of her and they're now training her on something different again that is likely to guarantee her more hours.

But her appraisal reports don't seem to reflect that. It seems formulaic in that one report will be a little negative about one aspect, and the next year they'll pick on something else as if they always have to include some sort of criticism.

She's had different reporting managers so it's not like it's just one person's motivation methods.

Jimbo2012

As a general rule, I've found Canadian society in general to be much less confrontational than in the UK. While this is fine in many situations, it can obviously lead to some frustration such as when needing feedback in the workplace.

It may unfortunately be a case of you requesting a 1-2-1 with your manager and directly asking for the feedback you need.
Other than doing that, I suspect any underlying issues might just simply be sidestepped in order to avoid that "awkward chat".

JamesM

I wouldn't worry about it.

Your perception of "under performance" in the workplace is probably the aspiration of "over achievement" for most Canadians so give yourself a pat on the back and carry on.

JonboyE

This.

Oink

But they'll talk to their colleagues/friends or go hame and talk about it behind your back. With your attitude, you're naffed mate, you've got to learn the silky art of desk napping to survive here.

scrubbedexpat091

It was the same at all the retail jobs I have had as well. The companies I was with raises were based on those reviews, and they did everything they could to find ways to reduce the raise, so nobody ever got a good review really.

One year I got a review and the manager clearly liked me, but he had to include a negative as it was mandatory on the pre-printed form they used, so he put that I was efficient, good at my job, and well liked but a little quiet.

Company used that last part a little quiet to reduce the raise from the maximum of 25 cents, down to 14 cents.

At the airline I was with before we went union, they did the same things, had to have a 90% on the annual review to get your raise (which was only only 10-20 cents per hour) and nobody ever got 90%, the whole thing was rigged so they could find ways out of the raise.

Once we went union, the company stopped annual reviews altogether as pay changed to years of service instead, so you got a guaranteed raise every year, varied depending on service from 10 cents per hour up to 85 cents per hour.

When I moved to Canada, I was shocked the first time I got a raise and it was a dollar as in the US raises were so small to non-existent....

Edo

As long as you are not pissing people off on a personal level cuz they are doing something wrong then everybody will love you even if you are the most underperforming and most complacent employee, simply put even if you are a burden upon the company (talking about the corporate culture here).

The Canadians that I have worked with over the last year or so were 'laid back' to the point that they would care least about things like dishonesty and corruption and would happily join in if it served their personal interests.

Welcome to Canada

helga14

Hi there,

I see what you mean. After spending 8 years in a British company, I can feel the difference.
What I did, I stock up on books about Canadians, and in a nutshell it's all about torn cultural identity, hoping to be French and British, being heavily dependent on America, plus multiculturalism and lack of international travel due to geographical location, hence the cultural insulation. Obviously the variables can get more detailed than that

I found that this place is more about building long-term relationships and it takes time. Saying that, when I moved to the UK, it took me about 4 years to figure out what the british culture was al about.

I found this book quite useful:

The unfinished Canadian : the people we are
Cohen, Andrew, 1955 October 23-
Book, 2007. 270 p.

if you are in Toronto, you can borrow it for free from Toronto reference library.

Hope this helps.

Jack_Judge

Separately, those two have been bug bears of mine since landing in Vancouver but I'd never seen the causal link between them 'til now, thanks.

To answer the OPs question:
There's two things that inform the Canadian workplace and they have massive repercussions.
The first is the inherently non confrontational nature of Canadians which has already been remarked on. This also leads to lot more office gossip and hence office politics. This plays a much larger part in the worklife here than in the UK, which with exceptions, operates more on a meritocratic basis than Canada.
You have to be able to brown nose, especially when you're building a career, personal egos are much more delicate here.

The second thing is that employment law is heavily rigged against the employee. When I was checking out the law in BC regarding being fired it boiled down to this; your employer can fire you at any time with zero notice providing they're willing to pay the legal minimum severance pay which would include compensation for the lack of notice. So you have a culture of, not fear exactly, but certainly one of deference. There's an unspoken expectation that people are supposed to be grateful for their jobs.
There was a saying in the UK, "A lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part." That does not go down well here. I've seen folks lose their jobs coz they just got fed up picking up the pieces after their less able colleagues persistently messed things up.

There's your lack of confrontation and job fear rolled into one.

Day to day life in the office is quiet and subdued compared to a British workplace. There's little idle banter beyond the bare minimum sports talk. There's not much interest in news and current affairs here in Vancouver so you have to work a little harder to get the chatter out of the office space.

The managers like to keep an eye on the worker bees here, teleworking's not usually an option even when it's more practical.

There's exceptions of course, sometimes you'll find an unusually progressive company but by and large the working landscape reminds me of Britain in the early 90s.

One interesting thing I've seen though is that Brits tend to hire other Brits and certainly enjoy working with fellow ex-pats. An expat recruiting agent explained it as having common expectations in the work place. The level of professionalism (at least in IT) is several degress lower here on the west coast than what I'm used to in the UK.

It's very different working over here, and I can't say it's for the better to be honest.

jandro

I agree for the most part. It was an employees market when I arrived in Vancouver before the recession and will continue to be so for most job sectors.


There's an assumption by many recruiters and managers that job seekers are desperate for any job and workers are desperate to keep their jobs. In my last job there was an unspoken expectation to work extra unpaid hours from home.

Banter is obviously at a minimum since your co-worker could be sacked and escorted off the premises at any moment.

Passive aggressiveness is one of the traits that differs us from Americans. Yes, it's hard to get feedback from managers or co-workers - you often have to read between the lines.

dbd33

Most of the offices I've worked in have been in the US but I have worked for long periods in three offices in Canada (besides our own), two of them being the offices of Canadian owned firms. I'd say that the most noticeable feature is the lack of cradle Canadians. Within sight now I have a British Asian, an Indian, an American, a Nepalese, a Korean, someone I believe to be from mainland China, someone I suppose to be from Pakistan, and a cradle. This Heinz 57 is typical of computer departments.

I attribute the lack of banter to language difficulties and the lack of shared cultural references; sometimes people get excited about cricket or the World Cup but it's rare that a majority of people in a room know enough about a single subject to debate or joke about it.

tweed_wearer

I work for a very large company in the UK. My experience of the Canadian office is that they do not want to be involved in anything global or outside Canada. Any initiatives or problems raised by the UK office, the response is "we're fine, butt out" or "things work differently in Canada, we have our ways, keep out of it". Very resistant to change. Everybody in my department in that office followed the same career path, too. None of them seem to have studied of worked abroad, in vast contrast to our office here.