“Throughout the summer season of 2022, my spouse and I will probably be returning the keys to our residence within the seventeenth arrondissement of Paris to cool down… in New York! My accomplice has dreamed of working there for years; she fell in love with this legendary metropolis on a earlier journey. And that is good: BNP Paribas, the place she has been working for eight years, she provided a really good place there.
I additionally fly to UNITED STATES with a job concerned: a month after I arrived, I began my job at HP, a neighborhood contract producer of computer systems, printers and audio and video conferencing options. An organization I joined 8 years earlier than, on an end-of-study internship, on the firm’s headquarters in France, situated in Boulogne-Billancourt (now in Meudon, editor’s word). On the time, I had simply graduated from Ieseg, a enterprise faculty primarily based in Lille.
My internship ended, I signal a everlasting contract and stay in the identical crew. As a sedentary gross sales engineer, I bought PC tools contracts to massive French organizations.
After three years, a change of place: I turned a subject gross sales consultant, for main worldwide accounts and for the availability of IT tools and repair contracts.
100% telecommuting
When BNP Paribas provided my spouse a place in New York in 2021, I made a decision to observe her, hoping to have the ability to proceed working at HP throughout the Atlantic. In any other case, I am contemplating discovering a job at one other tech firm there. I’m very assured as a result of there are lots of job gives and since I’m bilingual – I spent a yr there Scotland throughout my research, and I work in English more often than not already.
A stroke of luck. At first of 2022, HP officers in the USA will come to satisfy prospects in France. I took this chance to introduce myself and inform them about my want to work there. The French authorities helps my challenge. After a number of interviews, I landed a job as product supervisor throughout the HP Companies group in the USA. Any further, I would like to enhance the service gives (upkeep, workstation safety, financing gives, IT fleet monitoring and administration). A brand new problem for me. So I stop my job in France and signed a contract in the USA.
Throughout the Atlantic, my day by day life has been turned the other way up. I now not have an workplace life with my colleagues, I’m 100% telework, like virtually all the seven colleagues on my crew. We’re unfold throughout the nation, in several time zones, and I’m the one one in Manhattan.
Limitless holidays
After I arrived, I signed a job provide with fifteen days depart a yr. Seen from France, this does not look like a lot, but it surely’s regular right here.
Happily, in January 2023, HP adopted a vast trip system in the USA. On paper, workers can take trip once they want it, with a inexperienced gentle from their supervisor. I’ll take the chance to take six weeks off a yr. That is additionally what my colleagues aside, which is coming Spain.
However, my American colleagues take a lot much less. I believe it is cultural. For instance, a colleague went on a cruise for 2 weeks and he or she instructed me she had by no means been away that lengthy. She felt slightly responsible when she got here again as a result of it appeared like a very long time…
At HP in the USA, wage varies relying on the area during which you reside. My spouse and I’ve an revenue that matches the price of residing in New York – which is at the least twice as a lot as in Paris. However once we have been on the lookout for a spot to hire in Manhattan, we have been nonetheless stunned to see home costs, which have elevated considerably because the finish of the pandemic.
Aside from wage, medical insurance is an important factor. At HP fortunately, we’re nicely lined. After I arrived, my employer gave me a catalog with many formulation and requested me to decide on my medical insurance and the system that was adjusted in accordance with our wants… It is vitally complicated once you come from France and you do not perceive All! And above all, it’s in our curiosity to not be incorrect as a result of right here, well being prices are very excessive.
Totally different stage of labor
Day-to-day, I see that the way in which of communication at work is completely different in comparison with France, particularly in the case of giving. suggestions. In France, when one thing is incorrect, we don’t hesitate to say it instantly and straight. In the USA, we desire to emphasise the constructive first, earlier than speaking in regards to the destructive.
Think about {that a} supervisor asks an worker to make a presentation, and the worker suggests one thing inappropriate. As a substitute of telling him straight, the supervisor tells him “It is good what you probably did, it is attention-grabbing, however…”. At first, I instructed myself that we have been losing time, that it was not helpful to work like that, and even slightly hypocritical at instances. However over time, I revised my judgment. Ultimately, I discover that this makes the work atmosphere very wholesome. There may be much less stress and frustration, and it’s extra conducive to studying and private improvement. This fashion of doing issues can be seen in human relationships, the place everybody is okay pleasant at work, as in on a regular basis life.
One other distinction: the pace of the work. That is very true as I work with colleagues world wide. Right here, we organize conferences internally or with companions from 7:30 am or 8 am. It is vitally frequent right here, my spouse and our buddies additionally begin comparatively early. At midday, staff do not actually take a lunch break like in France. So it is quite common – and never frowned upon – to rearrange conferences between 12 and 2pm. It is also simpler as a result of we do not all work in the identical time zone.
Normally, I end my working day at 5pm. It is vitally good to complete sooner than in France, as a result of it leaves time to do actions and benefit from the early night.
Places of work which can be ever extra welcoming
If I need to work away from dwelling, HP has places of work in two buildings in Manhattan, the place dozens of different firms have places of work. I am going there often, for a change of surroundings. On web site, I meet HP workers, however it is vitally quiet. Some go there on occasion for conferences with prospects and since, amongst different issues, we have now a showroom the place our merchandise are displayed.
For the reason that finish of the pandemic, many American firms have requested their workers to return to the workplace at the least three days per week. This isn’t the case at HP, the place we’re free to telework as we want, if our missions permit it.
One other distinction with my expertise in France: the after work. Right here, there may be much less of a tradition of ingesting between colleagues after work than in Europe. People desire to go train or meet up with family members after the day is over. The tradition ofafter work There’s a higher presence amongst foreigners, lots of whom stay in New York. However some firms recurrently manage occasions for workers to spend time collectively exterior of labor, round cooking lessons, intercompany competitions, journeys to the museum, and so forth.
By conversations, I discovered that tech firms right here stand out from their French subsidiaries with increased salaries and buildings during which all the pieces is completed to draw expertise: meals and free drinks, roofhealth club, music room, skill to point out the property and benefit from the roof with household or buddies, and so forth.
My spouse and I actually like New York. It is nice to stay there and we’re fulfilled each in our private {and professional} lives. We see ourselves residing right here for just a few extra years, earlier than returning to France, not removed from our household and buddies. »
2024-05-30 05:02:57
#York #tempo #work
