Fellow colleagues at HAS electric. For your information.

Fellow colleagues at HAS electric. For your information.

Dear fellow colleagues.

Due to our increased workload with our new projects, we have successfully landed a contract, and are happy to inform you that we have hired four new colleagues from Poland. They will supplement the teams we are already familiar with. The labourers we have hired are unskilled workers that master some English, but at the moment don`t speak any Norwegian. This is going to be a challenge for us, and we would like to inform you how we will cope with this. This is tremendously important for us, as we know you would all agree.

There are some rules and regulations for foreign workers in Norway regarding learning the Norwegian language and social studies. This isn’t our responsibility as a firm to facilitate, but as a firm we will make sure our new colleagues know about this and we will facilitate courses and exams to make sure we are able to communicate as well as possible, to maintain a productive and equitable workplace. See the link below for information about the introduction courses for foreign immigrants.

http://www.sprakradet.no/Spraklige-rettigheter/sprakopplaring/Norskopplaring/

Include your new colleagues

In addition to the obvious issues regarding communication, it could be useful to know about some of the diversities between Norwegian and Polish business cultures, and the way workers and leaders coordinate. In Norway we have a very flat wagestructure, and workers have more administrative tasks and more liberties and responsibilities in their daily work. This can be confusing for our new colleagues. They are used to a rigid system, and direct leaders. They are used to sit down or wait for new orders when a task is completed. This is normal in Poland, and should not be confused with laziness. See more information in the link below.

http://lederne.no/magasinet/skal-laere-norsk-lederstil/

Not necessarily laziness

In Poland there are other regulations than in Norway. It will be crucial to our success with the new employees that they learn which regulations apply and what standards are expected in our country. Primarily to execution of electrical installation, but also for the work to maintain a high standard, also visually. To make this happen, we need to give a introduction to the NEK400. Particulary the housenorm - NEK 400-8-823 , this is part norm (a standard), which is specifically aimed at electrical installations in houses. For our work to be "by the book", this is important. For all the other, unwritten rules, they will just have to "learn as they go". They will not be working on their own before we can tell by their work that they understand what the norwegian customers expect, and what quality the firm prefers.

Until the newly hired labourers have mastered Norwegian, they will answer to the designated foreman on their team, and if anyone is concerned with communicating in English, thry should relay the message to the foreman.


HAS electric  J.E. Hansen B.R. Arntsen T.Sorfjord