Quirky Swedish office facts Posted by Katja on May 3, 2010 in Culture
Alright, as most of you already know I have written a few posts about various “quirky facts”. This time we’ll be focusing on the office. What you must understand is that there will of course be exceptions to the things I have written in this post. I am telling you about the rule not all the exceptions 🙂
I am going to start with the number one and the most essential thing that happens at Swedish work places.
#1. FIKA! (Coffee break) This happening during the normal working day is a social and very central part of belonging to a work place. Many of you will know another meaning of Fika and immediately thought when reading the explanation above “what about the three o’clock fika?” Well you are quite right about that as well. At the Swedish workplace people usually start at 8 o’clock unless their job requires them to be there at seven, no matter really since the morning Fika still takes place at nine o’clock. This is the first Fika session of the day, people all go down to the lunchroom, have their coffees and usually have a bun or a sandwich as well. Everybody is expected to be there, not like a lot of coffee breaks in other countries where people actually just go to get their coffee and then bring it back to their desk. Otherwise you are considered antisocial. There are also groups in a workplace called “Fredagsfika grupper” (Friday fika groups) Usually between three and five people are in charge of providing the rest of the employees with Fika for the nine o’clock morning fika. In the afternoon (three o’clock) people eat their sweet fika.
#2. In Sweden there is a law called “Lagen om Anställningskydd” (Secure Employment Law) most commonly known as LAS. This law means that the first person employed is the last to go, ie. last in first out. This is meant to give people job security, the people who have worked the longest stay the longest. This sounds really fair (rättvist) doesn’t it? But if you have been working at a place for 15 years but everybody else has been working there for 20 you are still the first to go, no matter how good you are at your job. This law does not take into consideration if you are lazy (lat) or do a bad job. Most people who have just finished university have a lot of new and good methods but don’t really get into the system and don’t get to keep the jobs that they do really well for long.
#3. However weird (konstigt) it might sound there are “summer and winter” working times in Sweden. After a certain date in the spring the working week is shortened by a certain number of hours. You still work the same number of hours per year but the hours are just distributed differently over the year. This whole thing about summer time is to give people more free time when it is light out and is organized by the unions (fack föreningar).
#4. Swedes dress much more casually for work than in many other countries, the clothes that people wear here to work would be considered “weekend clothes” elsewhere. If you have read the previous posts about “Quirky lifestyle facts” you’ll know about Swedes wearing special shoes that are supposed to be good for your feet, posture and with therapeutic toes, open toe sandals (Birkenstock). So people go to work in nice shoes, heels etc. but switch as soon as they arrive. High heels are in general saved for parties, not for work.
Once I started asking people and brainstorming about all the different or funny things about the Swedish workplace I thought of so many things that I have planned to write a part 2 on “The office”. Feel free to comment if you recognise any of these Swedish ways or tell us about the differences between Sweden and your own country.
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Comments:
Steve:
I pretty sure that the “Lagen om Anställningskydd” (Secure Employment Law) has been relaxed in recent years, or at least can be negotiated with the Unions involved.
I have been through several rounds of redundancies where people were laid off but it wasn’t done in last in first out order. Normally the employer discusses with the unions about the key people that they need to retain irregardless of the length of their employment and usually some agreement is made.
I am almost certain that the law itself has also been relaxed as I have witnessed several times now a cynical “clearing out” of older people nearing retirement age without any regard to first in last out order. So, either the employers I am talking about were breaking the law, or the law has been altered slightly.
LC in Seattle:
I worked for six months in Norway, which has a similar although not identical culture. We would knock off work early on Fridays and two people (assigned by rotation) would provide fika.
As the only American in the office, I decided to introduce my co-workers to something new, so on my assigned day I brought apple crisp (called apple crumble in the UK, I believe), and my Norwegian partner brought vanilla ice cream to go with it. I prepared two batches the night before (with and without nuts), and was able to arrange for them to be baked just prior to serving. Both versions were big hits, and several Norwegians asked me for the recipe.
I was surprised they’d never eaten it, as all the ingredients were readily available there and it didn’t seem exotic to me. I suppose the dish has a vague family resemblance to Änglamat.
Katja:
Steve, I’m not saying that you are wrong, oh how I wish the law had been relaxed but no… At least in the educational sector LAS is as strong as ever! New teachers are desperately needed but are always the first out. Pupils are stuck with teachers that don’t like teaching and take that out over the students and their working colleagues. The law might have relaxed more in certain areas more than others but the law in general still has a firm grip on many other sectors however unfair it might be.
LC in Seattle:
#4 really depends on who you work for and what you do. Here in the US, many people do wear suits, dresses and heels to work, but many others dress like you say Swedes do.
I’m a software developer who works at an office where people typically wear T-shirts and jeans, and most other companies I have worked for are the same. Nevertheless, I know a software developer who works for a different company who always wears a suit to work, since that is his company’s culture. I wear slippers while in the office, while someone I know who works at a nearby bank says slippers would never be tolerated there.
Might Sweden actually have the same variety of dress, but you are familiar with only certain workplaces where people dress casually?
Katja:
Of course, since I go to school I personally only meet people in very casual clothes. Today my mother met a person, who is almost always dressed casually, in a three-piece suit since he was meeting an international client. People dress up for special occasions or international meetings/exchanges etc. As you pointed out, some companies might have a culture of dressing up. My point was that it is much more uncommon in Sweden than in very many other countries.