Cana­dian Flag on Par­lia­ment Hill

Wel­come to the “How To… Find A Job In Canada” series!

Say­ing that last year wasn’t great eco­nom­i­cally speak­ing is an under­state­ment. Pretty much all coun­tries world­wide suf­fered from the global eco­nomic down­turn and Canada was no excep­tion. Yet, a lot of peo­ple are still con­sid­er­ing mov­ing to Canada, while oth­ers are already in the process and are prob­a­bly wor­ried about whether they will get a job at all.

There is no easy answer when it comes to employ­ment. You know the story… a bit of patience, a bit of skills, a bit of luck.

I’m not a job coun­selor, and I’m not an expert. But I do know how it works in Canada and I’m hop­ing to pass along some infor­ma­tion that may not be obvi­ous to every­one. A post will be pub­lished every Sat­ur­day… enjoy!

Being com­fort­able in your work­place greatly impacts how suc­cess­ful you are at work. Here are 10 tips on work­place eti­quette in Canada:

• Dress code: in gen­eral, small busi­nesses are less strict about busi­ness attire when com­pared to larger cor­po­rate envi­ron­ments. Some sec­tors are tra­di­tion­ally more con­ser­v­a­tive, for exam­ple bank­ing, account­ing and law. Gen­er­ally speak­ing, the fol­low­ing clothes are not appro­pri­ate for work: beach san­dals and sneak­ers, sports clothes (i.e sweat­pants), graphic tee shirts, ripped cloth­ing, spaghetti tank tops.

Tip: most work­place have “casual Fri­days”, which means that every Fri­day, employ­ees are allowed to wear more casual dress, such as jeans and tee shirts.

• Greet­ing peo­ple: the notion of hier­ar­chy is less impor­tant in Canada than it is in most coun­tries. Remem­ber the les­son: every­one is part of the com­pany and should be treated the same. Always treat the recep­tion­ist, admin­is­tra­tive assis­tant, clean­ers etc. the same way you treat the top executive.

Tip: most work­place try to remove bar­rier by going on a first name basis.

• Respect peo­ple: Cana­dian soci­ety is extremely diverse and chances are, you co-workers will be too. Be pre­pared to work with peo­ple from dif­fer­ent back­grounds, dif­fer­ent reli­gions. In a pro­fes­sional set­ting, all dif­fer­ences should be put aside any­way.
  

Tip: even if Eng­lish and French are Canada’s offi­cial lan­guages, pre­pare to be patient with peo­ple (clients, cus­tomers, co-workers) who have vary­ing abil­i­ties in these two languages.

• Big no-no’s: drink­ing alco­hol at work, for exam­ple dur­ing an infor­mal busi­ness meal, can be very frowned upon. Sim­i­larly, smok­ing in the office is of course for­bid­den. As a mat­ter of fact, smok­ing out­side any­where near a door may be for­bid­den too.
  

Tip: some work­place are “scent-free”, due to recent health con­cerns aris­ing from scented prod­ucts. Appar­ently, per­fumes and other strong scents (sham­poo, deodor­ant, sun­cream etc.) have been reported to trig­ger symp­toms in peo­ple with asthma and peo­ple with envi­ron­men­tal sensitivities.

• French and Eng­lish: Canada is offi­cially bilin­gual, Quebec’s offi­cial lan­guage is French, New Brunswick is bilin­gual and the National Cap­i­tal Region is try­ing to be. Dis­cus­sions on French-English rela­tions are best avoided at work and one should try to respect everyone’s pre­ferred offi­cial language.

Tip: even if you don’t speak French/ Eng­lish, try to ini­ti­ate the con­ver­sa­tion in that lan­guage, or just learn a few words. For exam­ple: “excusez-moi, parlez-vous anglais ?”.

• Time: Cana­dian are pretty punc­tual and meet­ing start on time. Notice peo­ple if you are late, or can­cel alto­gether if you know you won’t make it.

Tip: Canada’s noto­ri­ous win­ter weather can occa­sion­ally account for being late. When there is a big snow storm or other severe weather con­di­tions, it is under­stand­able to be late… once in a while. That said, you should always learn how to pre­pare for such weather and arrange your travel plans accordingly.

• Get­ting involved: Cana­di­ans value work and social­iz­ing in the work­place is not uncom­mon. For exam­ple, pot-lucks are pop­u­lar around Christ­mas time, as well as par­tic­i­pat­ing in var­i­ous char­ity events or chal­lenges (such as fundraising).

Tip: while you may not be able to attend all events, par­tic­i­pat­ing once in a while is rec­om­mended. Not only it will help you fit in, but it’s also a great way to net­work and meet new people.

• Intro­duc­tions: they include one’s title if appro­pri­ate, or Mr., Ms, Mrs. and the full name. When co-workers or oth­ers higher in the hier­ar­chy want to be addressed on a first name basis, they will usu­ally say it (“Just call me John”). It’s actu­ally pretty com­mon to address peo­ple by their first name, includ­ing super­vi­sors… and in French, most peo­ple will use “tu” instead of “vous”, except with CEOs and clients.

Tip: if you are not sure how to pro­nounce a first or last name, just say so, and the per­son will tell you! I usu­ally do well with French, Ital­ian, Span­ish, Chi­nese last names etc. but I must admit I’m clue­less when it comes to Indian or Viet­namese names.

• Polit­i­cal cor­rect­ness: love it or hate it, chances are you will get famil­iar with political-correctness (PC) at work. This include using proper ter­mi­nol­ogy when refer­ring to eth­nic groups, avoid­ing telling jokes that key off sex­ual or racial stereo­types etc. Be care­ful, peo­ple are sen­si­tive to this.
  

Tip: some work­place pro­mote the use of gender-neutral terms when­ever pos­si­ble. For exam­ple, “chair­per­son” or sim­ply “chair” in place of “chairman.”

• Dis­cussing prob­lems: Cana­di­ans are quite straight­for­ward and most con­sider that the best way to solve a prob­lem is to dis­cuss it. A lot of super­vi­sors or man­agers have an “open door” pol­icy and you are wel­come to express yourself.

Tip: remem­ber to ask peo­ple before­hand if they are avail­able to dis­cuss an issue. You may want to send an email and set a time to make sure you are com­ing at a right time.

Related arti­cles:

1. Street Pho­tog­ra­phy Tips (II)
2. 5 Cana­dian Work Cul­ture Tips (9÷10)
3. Two Soli­tudes And One Loneliness
4. Blog­ging Eti­quette (10÷10)
5. Lucile And Mur­taza: From France and India to Montreal