“Iranian people are extremely nice and diplomatic, avoiding conflict and trying to comfort everyone, as opposed to Croatian “Balkan” people in general – latter are more direct and sometimes are (verbally) perceived as yelling when they just want to make a point clear.”
“When a new Russian colleague start working in my team and she couldn’t understand why we talked to each other without using formal vocabulary (even with our manager) because in Russia they always speak very formally with all the work colleagues, managers or clients (in spanish she always used “usted” instead of “tú”).
“Usually in Croatia, when there is a presentation held in front of audience, speaker is rewarded at the end with loud applause if he was good. In Austria, speaker is rewarded with knocking the table which may sound really strange in Croatia.”
“Discussions and conversations in Serbia are driven in a very emotional way, accompanied by lots of yelling and swearing”
“I have definitely experienced very different work mentalities when doing the international job rotations within the trainee program. In some countries (AUSTRIA) people were very keen on always being on time, coming to work early and staying late whereas in other countries (CEE) it was much more focused on trying to enjoy work and have a good work life balance.”
“In Budapest, I was one of the only foreigners in the company, I could see the difference of management style. There was no team-meeting to keep the employees up to date and to give and get a feedback, lack of trainings, and the once- per- year meeting with the manager was done “only because HR require it”. In consequence, employees do not know what happens in the department, they all report to their manager without communication between them, creating a real lack of initiative, pro-activity, and entrepreneurial way of thinking.”