Tips on Working in New Zealand

By Galia BarHava-Monteith

At the very beginning of Professionelle's life, we were asked the following question:

My husband and I are in the process of immigrating to New Zealand from the US. He's got a job in Auckland and I'm in the advanced stages of discussions with a large company.

A friend of mine who spent some time in New Zealand told me that things are quite different to the US, and at the time I didn't think to ask more. Now our move is getting closer, I was wondering if there are things I should know about the reality of working in corporates in "Kiwiland". Do you have any useful tips?

Given that both of us at Professionelle immigrated here and had to decipher the 'kiwi code'. We felt we could definitly give some helpful tips.  New Zealand can be quite deceiving at first glance. Everyone speaks English, and many have immigrated here from England. It's easy for people who visit to assume it's like a mini-England. But it most certainly is not that. Others make the mistake of imagining it to be a smaller version of Australia, and it's not that either.

New Zealand has many influences on its culture; the Maori and the Pacific cultures, the outdoors-focused lifestyle, the climate and many others. All these factors impact on the way people here interact at work and in business.

So, while trying not to over-generalise, we thought we'd concentrate on what we believe are the four most important tips we can give anyone who's coming to work in New Zealand.

They are:

1. Turn down the volume.
2. Embrace the casual.
3. Understand the number eight fencing wire mentality.
4. Beware of the 'tall poppy syndrome'.

1. Turn down the volume

Unless you're from a Nordic country, the chances are that you'll have to turn down the volume. To say that New Zealanders are understated is an understatement.

Kiwis don't like to boast and really don't like it when others do so. (The local word for boasting, by the way, is "skiting"). They keep their tone and behaviour quite mellow and low key. You might meet someone who seems very casual (more on that later) and unpretentious. After they've gone, you'll find out that they're an incredibly successful and influential business person, yet nothing in their appearance or their behaviour will have given that away.

Kiwis are hard workers and generally committed to their work. They just get on with it without much fuss. They are not likely to tell you that they're really busy, work really hard and are really important. In some cultures where we've worked, if you don't say these things people think that you're lazy, uncommitted or not ambitious enough. This is certainly not the case here. Here people are likely be turned off by what they consider to be 'over the top' behaviour.

Over the top behaviour can relate to business presentation style as well as the personal. We've seen innovative and capable business people visiting from the US who've failed to connect with their local audiences. The Kiwis clearly felt assaulted not only by the visitors' intense enthusiasm, but also by how LOUDLY they spoke. 'Turn down' the volume can be taken literally!

So, this skill is a must if you'd like to win friends and influence people in New Zealand.

2.Embrace the casual

Perhaps because of their outdoor life style and Maori and Pacific influences, and in stark contrast to many of their British forefathers, New Zealanders are very casual. And we mean casual in how people are treated and how they are dressed.

New Zealand is an egalitarian society, and this is reflected in how people treat each other. There is no underlying class structure here, and basically most people are treated the same, regardless of how rich or how senior they are in companies or politics.

Don't be offended if people you hardly know refer to you by your first name. Sarah's father, an Englishman who's been here for fifteen years, is still taken aback when referred to as James by the Doctor's nurse rather than Mr. Wilshaw. Friends from Europe also comment on how ready our local supermarket checkout operators are to engage in conversation. In Tesco in the UK, the till staff will hardly presume to look you in the eye, much less ask where you bought your blouse!

There are dress codes here but they are not nearly as strict as in many other places around the world. Men do wear suits and ties in professional services, but increasingly, many don't wear ties unless in important client meetings. Women in business can wear anything from power suits, which are becoming less common, to deconstructed garments made by local designers.

So, embrace the casual when you're here. Don't worry too much about formalities and not 'doing the right thing'. Your colleagues aren't likely to pay that much attention to it!

3. Understand the number eight fencing wire mentality.

A really important thing to remember about this country is that its pioneering and agricultural roots still pervade the psyche of its people despite the fact that most now live in towns. You'll hear a lot about the 'can do' approach to things and the 'number eight fencing wire' mentality. Simply put, Kiwis tend to assume that they can do just about anything with very little - and they are more often than not right.

They'll take on great challenges with their understated and casual attitude, and they'll succeed. Sir Edmund Hillary's laconic words announcing his successful ascent of Everest - "we knocked the bastard off" - sum both these traits up perfectly!

In the corporate world you'll see the fencing wire mentality translating into staff taking on huge projects with what might seem to you like very little planning and resources. Sometimes they'll fail, but more often than not the projects will succeed because of their nothing's-too-hard approach to things.

What this also means is that corporates in New Zealand tend to be quite lean. You're not likely to find many vice presidents here. And you might find that even as a senior person you'll be expected to do tasks that in other countries managers would never dream of doing themselves. We're talking travel bookings, tracking expenses and even some of your own typing.

4. Beware of the 'tall poppy' syndrome

Back in my corporate days, we had an American executive join us. He was expected to 'dive right in' and nobody seemed to think he needed any cultural introduction or briefing to be effective in his job. I spent a bit of time with him, and maybe because I'm not a New Zealand native, I could tell he was somewhat bewildered by some of the things he saw.

So, we had an informal cultural briefing session and he said he'd heard about the 'tall poppy' syndrome.

I asked him, "What do you think the term 'tall poppy' means"?

He replied, "That the tall poppy gets all the attention".

Well, ah, not quite! In New Zealand, the Tall Poppy gets pruned down to size, and that size is to be no higher than the rest of the garden-bed flowers. That's what the term refers to. If you do well, and stand out of the crowd, expect someone to 'put you back into your place'.

Things might be changing, but in the fourteen years or so I've been here, I have witnessed it many times. It may be a less welcome facet of New Zealand's egalitarian society.

The one exception seems to be on the sports field, where the opposite happens: high performance is worshipped, and then expected every single time, without fail.

We hope these tips will help prepare you a little for what you'll find here, and that what we've said won't deter you. As I said before, things are gradually changing and there's a lot more embracing of success in fields beyond sports. But you'll be wise to sit back, observe for a while and then figure out how this place will work best for you.

Good luck!