During the course of my internship, I learned a lot about how business is conducted in France. I don’t have experience conducting business in the United States, but using the experiences of my family, I can make some comparisons and some contrasts. I realized that in France, people care more about the hierarchical structure of the company. People respect the higher-ups more while in the United States, people treat everyone with respect. Another difference is the way employees are treated. In France, employees have at least 5 weeks of paid vacation while in the United States, the average worker gets 11 days of paid vacation. Also, French people start their workdays at 9:30 or 10 AM (they are not very strict about the arrival time). In the United States, they typically begin at 9 AM. Another huge difference is the lunch breaks. In France, we had up to two hours for our lunches every day, while in the United States, people have to eat as quickly as possible to get back to work.
I believe there are some similarities between how business is conducted in France and the US. In terms of etiquette, people who face clients must dress professionally, while people in the R&D departments can wear what they want. Also, for business deals, I would say it is pretty much the same in both countries. People would make deals over Zoom/Microsoft Teams, on call, or in person. I would say the same about the United States.
Overall I expanded my knowledge on how business is conducted thanks to my internship.
