Welcome everybody, I'm Olivia Doyle. I'm one of the Career
Practitioners at the Centre for Career Development
and today's presentation as most of you will know is on
Australian Workplace Culture.
So let me tell you what we're actually going to cover
We're going to give you an overview of distinctive
features of Australian Business Culture
then we're going to look at some hierarchy and leadership
styles that you might typically find
in Australian organisations.
Then we will move on to look at what employers expect
of their workforce, and how you can develop
some of those attributes.
Then in particular we'll have a bit of a focus
on communication styles, because as you'll learn in this
presentation, communication is really fundamental
to your career within an organisation.
so looking at a few strategies to improve those.
Basically the feedback from employers is that
clearly we're working in a global workforce these days.
Swinburne's not just
preparing students to work in the Australian workforce
but very much in a global atmosphere.
so what I've done is I've tried to
do some research to find out
some of the employment challenges actually facing people
from multicultural backgrounds, and
one of the big ones that's clearly coming up is
understanding Australian workplace culture.
Another factor is that people new to the
Australian environment, or who don't have a strong network
are severely impacted when it comes to seeking work.
We know that in Australia, potentially
60-70% of positions are actually never formally advertised.
So if you don't have a network of contacts
it's going to make it a little bit harder for you
to actually find employment.
Culture is really the way we do things around here.
What we consider to be
sort of normal, if there can be a normal
and it touches on understanding core beliefs and values
but it is dynamic, and it's changing
and so whilst I'm going to talk to you in a general sense,
all organisations are going to be slightly different.
and I would say as a Career Practitioner,
it's very important that you understand
what an organisations culture is, and what its values are
so that you can find employment
that's actually going to match up with that
and you've got to remember that applying for a job is a
two-way process, it's not all in the hands of the employer.
it's very much in your hands too, and you've got to ask
questions, and make sure you're comfortable
working for that organisation.
So what do I mean by business culture?
I guess some of the stuff that I'm trying to
tap into here is basic, what we call, business etiquette
or manners I suppose, is another way of talking about that.
I'm talking about the organisational culture and values
I'm talking a little bit about the policies
and procedures of the company
patterns of behaviour and general ethics
and you'll find that they do vary a lot.
Bit of a list here, but I've got here that
Australian culture, some of the things that I've noticed
in companies, hierarchy is quite hard
to pick out, so it's less obvious who's
the manager and who's the staff member
so we have a flatter style, and I'm going to
talk about that a bit later.
Australia, even though our trains and
trams mightn't run on time, Australians appear relaxed
but, when it comes to meetings and deadlines
very focused on those, and meeting time frames
is very important. You'll find that in assignments here
but you'll find that very much in the workplace.
Quite team focused, so in Australia people
tend to work in teams, rather than very individually
By that I mean I know in some countries
you do individual projects and you've got all your own tasks
to do. I think you'll find in the Australian workplace
it's increasingly team focused.
There's quite a focus on workplace rights, and legislation
and laws, and following those.
On that same train, we've got a strong focus
on what we call Occupational Health and Safety
so a lot of companies place a lot of value
on following the right procedures and guidelines
to make sure they're complying with the law.
A lot of companies have quite a strong focus on sport
barbeques, holidays an social events
and I think that's just important to know about
when you're actually communicating with people
and to understand the importance of actually joining in
some of those activities, and this is what
Australians tend to value.
It's probably a whole lot of others, but let me try and
contrast it with some of the things that I've noticed about
international and I'm focusing probably a little bit
more on Asian culture, these are some of the things
that I've been told that are quite points of difference.
So perhaps in other cultures there might be more hierarchy.
and more respect for people in
positions of authority
as opposed to the junior staff members
who tend to often keep very quiet, and not interact.
What I want to do is give you an example,
a friend of mine who works in the health-care system
and she said here: "We have a lot of international students
in the workplace. Their technical skills are first class
but I often find I have to go around and fix up
problems caused by differences in communication
or lack of cultural understanding."
So, some of our research and some of the reports
being done in industry are showing that
there are some issues with people from
international student backgrounds or multicultural
backgrounds, and some of them relate as I've mentioned
before on punctuality, but very much
on communication and written communication
is one I particularly want to highlight.
Things need to be written in Australia in a very
professional style. So your emails, your letters,
your reports have to be as spot on as you can actually
make them in terms of your grammar, and your written
expression, but also in terms of your, I guess
the tone that you're adopting in those documents as well
and I would say that some of the ones that people from
international backgrounds they're perhaps not getting
the tone right. Some of them refer to me as Honourable Madam
in emails to me, and that's very formal,
and it's probably not appropriate in Australia
If you put that in a letter to an employer
Dear Honourable Madam or Dear Respected Sir,
it's just not right, and employers will pick that out.
Now in terms of oral communication, this is a big
factor as well. I know a lot of you have great
technical English, but really important before you graduate
that you focus very much on clarity, and that's
potentially trying to minimise accents, and perhaps
take on a little bit of the Australian accent as well.
So things like joining in office conversations is
quite vital to get those interpersonal
relationships happening.
Technical skills in terms of your IT skills
are really important too, and this is for all students
you know, I was speaking to one of the directors
at PricewaterhouseCoopers, one of the big
professional services firms. He said "Olivia, if anything
tell the students they need to know how to use Powerpoint,
and have very strong Excel skills no matter what they do."
A few quotes from people from different cultures:
"I often see Australian employees taking the time to
talk to the security guard, the cleaner, the tea lady
much more than you would in my own country.
Even top management will make sure they ask about
families, and get involved if there's an issue.
Natesh from India: "I was raised in India where it was
unacceptable to question the directions of someone
more senior. It was normal to follow directions
without questions. Here it's very different."
Communication tends to be quite open and direct.
So, you have to be very aware of that. Australians
will call what we call a spade, a spade
but Australians do love initiative, they don't
they expect you to work things out for yourself to an extent
and if you can't, ask a question. They like new ideas,
and creativity is generally encouraged
every workplace I've been in, that's very much been the case
To suceed, you need to show that you've got flexibility
and you can multi-task. Now Australians don't necessarily
de-lineate between jobs, and very important
in getting any job in Australia is continuing to
show enthusiasm and show that you're motivated
that's one of the biggest differentiators
when you'relooking for work. Show you're passionate
and you're involved and be able to actually demonstrate that
Now I'm not sure whether you're all aware of this service
This is the Language and Academic Skills service
that's a free service at Swinburne, and I don't think enough
people know about it, so they help local and
international students with lots of different issues
but in particular in relation to communication skills
they have conversation groups, workshops
individual sessions as well
where they can really help you with lots of things
to do with your spoken communication.
You know the big focus is on these skills as I've
been saying. So whilst you're at University
you need to start thinking of an employability portfolio
and how you can demonstrate these skills to employers
in your resumes, in your LinkedIn profiles
in your job application letters,
and definitely when you're going to interviews.
because this is what's going to set you
apart and start getting you the job.