»network«

Alone for economical reasons work is taken very serious in Poland. The gap between the rich and the impecunious is bigger than in Germany without a broad middle class. There are only the very rich, then a rather small middle class and then nothing for a long time. And there is no legal coverage by law like we know it from Germany. ("Die, die keine Arbeit haben, die, die nichts haben, die sind wirklich arm - unterhalb des Existensminimums." Vieth, 25.14 min.) For most families it is taken as a matter of course that both parents work.
For their workplace people are willing to shuffle 80 km every day from home to work and back again. ("Fahrgemeinschaften - 4 Mann in ein Auto und dann 80 km." Vieth, 2nd 04.06 min.) This reflects also how difficult it was for Panopa to find enough workers and it explains the necessity to train them into decent forklift drivers: coming from the countryside most of them will have only driven a tractor before. ("Das war eins der Probleme natürlich auch, dass Sie Leute kriegen; deshalb auch die Staplerschulung. Wenn die vom Land gekommen sind, 40 km weg, die haben - auf Deutsch gesagt: am Tag vorher haben die noch Traktor gefahren. So, und dann Staplerausbildung, sind da teilweise hervorragende Leute dabei. Kann man nicht anders sagen. Und die sind Ihnen auch ewig dankbar, dass sie nen Job haben. Sobald sie da in ländliche Gegenden reinkommen, dann ist auch in Polen noch: Licht aus." Vieth, 2nd 04.20 min.)

Continuing training is seen at the least as absolute necessity. Many understand it as means to learn something for oneself in order to be able to get ahead. And getting ahead offers the possibility to afford a nice appartment or little house. ("Sie werden kaum Familien sehen, wo die Frau zu Hause bleibt. Da pflegt wirklich die Mutter das Kind und die beiden arbeiten - weil sie's müssen, vom Finanziellen her. Sonst könnten sie sich kein Haus leisten, keine vernünftige Wohnung leisten, und so weiter. Da hat Arbeit einen anderen Stellenwert." Vieth, 24.31 min. "Arbeit hat wirklich unter anderem den Stellenwert irgendwo Karriere zu machen. Die sehen die Notwendigkeit, dass sie lernen müssen, um später irgendwann mal gesichert dazustehen." Vieth, 24.13 min.)

At the same time work also has a different social significance. When faced with problems concerning retirement payment for example, Polish employees would definitely turn to their company instead of turning to the official institutions. Mr. Vieth accounts this partly to the complicate bureaucratic system in Poland. ("Das Unternehmen in Polen hat eigentlich einen anderen Stellenwert für den polnischen Mitarbeiter als ein Unternehmen hier. Wenn die ein Problem mit der Rente haben, lösen sie das über die Firma. Hier würde man selbst die LVA oder wen auch immer anschreiben; machen die nicht. Dazu muss man aber auch wissen, dass das System das die da haben wesentlich komplizierter ist." Vieth, 26.15 min.)

The Expatriate Business
The expatriates in a construction company are of course working on their projects long before they get to go on the construction site. Additionally, everybody is working on several projects at the same time since normally it is not clear till the end which company will actually get the order to build. From 10 projects planned only two will get ordered. Thus projects normally are kicked off four to five years in advance. For the expatriate business this as several advantages. First of all every project is run by a small fixed team. Other people will join that group during the course of the project but the leading troop will remain together. Thus by the time an expatriate mission is becoming relevant all the parties concerned are already long acquainted to each other. And of course the company tries to install groups that already proved to work well together in order to not face any additional problems. The more tricky a project is the more important the personal binding turns out to be ("bei den Schlüsselfiguren achten wir auf eine feste Bindung").
The company further promotes personal bounds by organizing workshops or training programs in which employees from all over the world join together. ("Damit möglichst viele Menschen im Konzern ein Netzwerk haben.") Thus when expatriates go to work abroad they do not arrive at a completely unknown setting. ("Normalerweise kennt man schon Kollegen aus dem anderen Land; Berührungspunkte gibt es überall.")
This concept of personal bounds also helps to avoid problems of power structures which the host country nationals often face. While it is never easy to admit mistakes or to ask strangers for help, a company is dependent on sharing knowledge. But a Polish employee would never call for help in the head office in Germany even though he might knew that the company has 100 experts sitting there especially trained in solving problems just like his. This is eased up by introducing employees to each other. Then the Polish employee does not have to call some unknown boss but calls Hans or Karl and turns to them for help as a friend.
The company also tries to consider employees personal preferences. This means if somebody often goes on vacation in Greece, he will most likely be assigned to projects taking place in Greece. As an international company they are dependent on being enrooted in the environment. They kind of expect their employees to also deploy their personal contacts and to cultivate networks ("ein Apparat will gepflegt werden").

Networking is further institutionalized by the kind of projects the company is participating in: joint-ventures are the most successful projects where each participating company is responsible for their share. Sometimes this is the only way to get into big building projects. They are often initiated by public institutions and nowadays financed through public-private-partnerships. Consequently it is difficult to give projects such as airports which are of public and national interest to a foreign company.
These professional partnerships on the other hand minimize the risks and allow access to already existing networks in the foreign market. The German company would assign a team of engineers which then would be responsible for assigning appropriate companies. The Joint-Venture-Board itself would meet once a month. And financial matters from all running construction projects are reported to the German head office every monday. While daily communication among all people in charge is absolutely essential, somebody from the German head office will visit the construction site at least every three to four weeks.

While sometimes only one expatriate will be sent abroad, a number between five to 20 is quite usual for a project with a turnover of 170 million ? and 400 employees in peak times.

My interview partner's company does not especially prepare their expatriates for their mission. Since they preferably hire people coming from a multi-ethnic background or having lived in another culture, they accept them to cope well in any cross-cultural setting. Prior to their employee's departure they conduct a so-called exit-interview. In this they simulate the employee's financial situation before and after his expatriate-mission, they talk about social insurance, the company car, .... and hard facts like that. My interview partner was actually disappointed that I did not show any interest in these facts, while they make up 90% of the future expatriate's concerns. Only by the time that they are on their second or third mission, they will start asking about the soft facts concerning the foreign culture and foreign attitudes.
In the host country a start up team which is assigned by the division manager is renting housing and helps organizing the required documents. If no facilities are available and the projects are planned to take longer, the company puts up its own camp.
The expatriates themselves are expected to learn the apparent cultural gestures of their host country and as said before they are expected to cultivate networks. The company understands itself as guest in the foreign country and it wants to keep that status/reputation. ("Wir sind Gäste in dem Land. Wir wollen auch in fünf Jahren noch willkommen geheißen werden.")

Additionally, it has to be mentioned that working for a big constructing company expatriates are not going to a "Polish" construction site - big construction sites are international by matter of investors and experts joining in. On 80% of their sites English is spoken as common language.
It also has to be remembered that expatriates are not coming to an unknown setting - they have worked on that project already for at least four years and know the relevant people on the other side, plus the colleagues they met in common workshops or trainings before. In addition construction sites offer a huge pool of diverse people thus it should be possible for everyone to find somebody he gets along with well. And, too, my interview partner says that it is still business and not about finding buddies.

They have hardly any problems with the acceptance of expatriates in the host country: On the one hand the expatriates are committed to excellence in their job, they want to show their best talents and thus are dedicated to absolute professionalism. ("Ich hab hier eine Aufgabe und ich zeige euch, dass ich das auch kann.") On the other hand their higher payments are usually accepted by host country nationals if they prove to be experts. ("Nach dem Motto 'ah-ha, der kann was', dann wird das auch akzeptiert.")

Nevertheless, expatriates especially in Eastern Europe hardly ever have problems with socializing. This is due to what my interview partner called "double binding". While it is simply their mentality to be more cordial than Germans, they are also aware that these are high-ranked people who are sent to them and they meet them as welcomed guests. Apparently, the biggest problem for expatriates is how to return this affection. Most of them can easily go along but then experience frustration and disappointment as part of a reversed culture-shock coming back to Germany. Others though perceive the call for socializing as an obligation and have a hard time to escape from it without appearing solitary.

In all cases it is up to the expatriate's personality if he succeeds in diminishing power structures or not. My interview partner argues that they never had any problems. "We are not putting anyone in a role, he couldn't play."
Every now and then they might have to send somebody who does not necessarily suit the expatriate profile but is an expert in a certain technique. In these cases it might happen that expatriate and host country nationals do not find a way to work together at all. But since the company cannot abandon the expert, they send a second expatriate to pour oil on troubled water by involving people in personal conversations, outlining the problem and showing empathy for the difficult situation. ("Ein Mensch kann nicht alle Fähigkeiten haben - in bestimmten Fällen muss man Abstriche machen. Da schickt man dann notfalls einen Gutelaune-Clown hinterher.")

In Poznań Panopa employs about 700 people which are responsible to store materials and parts as well as assemble some of them ready for delivery and distribute them just-in-time and just-in-sequence at Volkswagen. The smooth functioning is guaranteed by regular communication between and within the companies. ("Weil einfach die Verzahnung der ganzen Kette so eng ist, dass die Information ein wesentlicher Bestandteil ist; ansonsten können Sie den Job nicht machen." Vieth, 04.00min) Every morning at 8a.m. Panopa and Volkswagen sit together to review the last 24 hours: where did something go wrong? Were there distributional bottle necks? How can we avoid them next time? In this Volkswagen, Panopa and in this case Mr. Vieth follow the claim that nothing is worse than a mistake happening twice. Thus all operational departments, and Panopa as service provider is taken as just another operational department, sit together and make sure everything is set for the next day. Quite naturally the cooperation between Volkswagen and Panopa offered more possible sources of friction in the beginning than it does nowadays were the daily meetings can be performed within half an hour.

Start-up problems were diminished by the fact that both parties were basically run by German expatriates: the top two levels of management were occupied by Germans. Consequently, German was enforced as first language within the organizational structures. The situation was further eased by the fact that Volkswagen is the biggest employer in the area which facilitates the communication with the municipal authorities and communities. In terms of infrastructure for example the authorities renovated a quite decrepit bridge which was connecting Panopa's warehouse with Volkswagen's factory 6km away.
Dr. Hucht resumes that it was quite helpful for them to work for a well-known client who is conducting projects which are of public interest and widely appreciated. Nevertheless there were no networks Panopa could fall back onto. Their first project manager, interestingly enough a French, looked for a contact person on site who was then responsible for getting all the necessary admissions (water, electricity, ...). Without knowing a single word in Polish it would have been impossible to talk to the authorities and to apply for permits. ("Weil wenn Sie kein Polnisch sprechen, haben Sie keine Chance." Vieth, 09.14min) The only thing that was not run by their contact person was the building of the storehouse. That was done by a German architect who was already living in Poland since 14 years which left Panopa with hardly any work on that topic of admissions. ("Das ganze übrige Geschäft [..] haben wir eigentlich eingekauft." Vieth, 09.30min) Meanwhile several societies and groups came into existence which establish and open up networks to foreign entrepreneurs. This certainly facilitates start up and the possibilities to gain information.

When Panopa first came to Poland they also faced problems with the different legislation. Since it used to very be difficult for foreigner to actually buy a piece of land in Panopa built their first storehouse onto a site which did not belong to themselves. While they were putting up the lease contracts they had to find out that by Polish Law the building belongs to the owner of the site. ("Weil man eben doch die deutschen Zusammenhänge und Gepflogenheiten überträgt auf das andere Land und dann eventuell auch in eine Falle rein rennt, wo man gar nicht mit gerechnet hat." Dr. Hucht, 11.02 min.) Problems in that direction piled up because as a company you were not allowed to build a house before you were not operating in Poland since two years - but which company can actually wait two years. Thus you need somebody who talks with the parties concerned and explains that Panopa is interested in being a reliable partner and a future employer. ("Sie müssen da irgendeinen Sachverständigen haben, der für Sie dort hingeht und klar macht, dass Sie da eine Halle bauen dürfen; [...] dass Sie ein guter Partner sind, die nächsten Jahre in Polen auch für Arbeitsplätze sorgen und so weiter und so fort." Vieth, 11.52 min)