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For a company developing in France or Germany, it is very important to well understand salary differences between these two countries. This understanding helps taking the right decisions in terms of cost for the company and salary level for the employees.

As an example, for an annual gross salary of 50 000€, social charges for the company amount to 18 500€ in France (=37%), whereas this amount in Germany is only 9 850€ (=19,7%) ! This difference is clearly an economical advantage for german companies.

On the other side, for this same salary level, french employees pay taxes of 6 298€ whereas their german counterpart pay twice as much (13 210€)!

GBO Human Resources are publishing together with the Franco German Chamber of Commerce a complete study to better understand these differences « Löhne und Gehälter in Frankreich »

Cooperative projects between French and German companies can have great results as can be seen on in numerous examples, one of which is the Airbus.

The French and the Germans seem to perfectly offset each others weaknesses and strengths. Nevertheless, as one finds out when dealing with HR in France or executive search in France, in French/German cooperation there is also a lot of misunderstanding.

The two mentalities are quite different due to of historical differences in education, domestic political circumstances, their approach to business and their divergent ideas of success. The Germans are trained to be punctual, reliable, to fulfil their defined duties and to avoid unnecessary risk. From the French point of view Germans possess limited flexibility. The French are used to being spontaneous and creative, to seize the opportunity of the moment, which makes them more flexible than the Germans but which also leads to a certain lack of reliability from the German point of view.

The French expression "se debrouiller", the capacity to muddle through in difficult situations, cannot be easily translated into German. Enjoying one’s work is less important to Germans then to the French.
Germans tend to enjoy themselves in their free time. That is why Germans start work earlier, at 8 or 8:30 in the morning, fulfill their duties, make shorter lunch breaks and finish in time to go home and enjoy the free time during the rest of the day.

A French working day starts later, at 9, lunch breaks can be between one and two hours. In southern France the breaks are even longer than in the north. While Germans finish at 5 pm the French work till 7 or 8 pm, which does not annoy them because they enjoy what they do and take their time to do it. Working long hours is not considered wasted time because they can apply their creativity and ideas to tasks for which they are responsible. The more difficult the situation, the happier they are to have a challenge.

Germans apply this creativity in their free time. Germans are specialists in improving and optimizing products to reach a level of perfection.

The French are bored by this kind of activity. They prefer to invent new things and to solve challenging problems for which they can implement creative ideas. They like assuming risks and trying the unknown which often results in new inventions.

As already mentioned, Germans prefer to avoid risk, that’s why they sometimes miss opportunities. French leadership style is authoritarian, while the German is democratic. In France the boss has all decision-making power, in Germany team work is appreciated and all team members have their own predefined responsibilities.
Germans respect written rules and do their best to fulfill them. The French know that rules exist but are used to breaking them. They respect the authority of a person, such as their boss. A defined written plan is of little use in France if the boss does not tell his staff what has do be done. In Germany there is a lot of mistrust towards strong personal authority.

Companies with HR in France can face challenges when conferences and business meetings between German parent companies and French subsidiaries are so often unsuccessful, because the differences in mentality are ignored by both parties.

The French pay little attention to a written working plan that defines objectives and responsibilities and are annoyed by someone wanting them to stick to fixed and inflexible regulations. They trust in their capacity to find the right solution in the moment and dare to risk and make great discoveries. Germans wonder why the French do not stick to the defined plan and consider the French irresponsible, lazy, and unable to fulfill their contractual duties, which is not true at all.

The French have to be give an interesting and challenging task and, almost more important, the freedom to have their own ideas and to implement their creativity to fulfill the task at hand. The bigger and more difficult the task seems, the more motivated and enthusiastic are the French to achieve a result.

The above-mentioned differences between French and German working culture explain why when conducting an executive search in France, working with an intermediate party that knows both the French and German culture and mentality is important. The need of a consulting and recruiting party arises, to support your HR in France, helping to choose French personnel who have experiences with the German mentality.

The expert consultant on executive search in France gives advice to both parties in how to deal with each other to obtain results that respect both working mentalities and talents.

Helene Kunz