[nebji]

hi all - well after 4 months working in the UK, the work culture seems completely different (my experience has been in London).
firstly, it seems like everyone is very laid back and easy going, and they say nice things to you and act all friendly, but then later during a review or a meeting they will attack you! not literally, but they will vent and express their disapproval at a certain process/task etc
is it just this particular organisation? what happened to timely feedback....??
they also seem to 'work from home' an awful lot after a big friday night out, which doesn't enhance their credibility as hard workers... and they whinge and whinge about anything and everything....... seems to be a work pleasure for them?!?!

australians do work hard , but we are more upfront about things, and don't leave surprises to the end........
perhaps, just my experience..... comments/thoughts?

[TAPorSNAP]

I think work-related backstabbing happens everywhere, regardless of nationality.

Minute all your meetings, and make people accountable, the facts when they are on paper, are hard to argue with.

[anakin]

I just wanted to say that, as a Scandinavian with ~1.5 years of working experience in a large professional services firm in the UK I completely agree with your observations. Would love to move to Australia instead!

I notice a large difference between UK-centric british people and british people who have international experience themselves, but in general I find the working climate here to be what would be characterised as 'unhealthy' in my country.

A few examples that I find really challenging to deal with:
- The backstabbing that you mention in your note, and especially people behaving very differently when the boss is present than when he/she is not
- Not being brave enough to dare to say what you mean, especially not defending people who have been unfairly treated
- The constant lying, also from management
- Spreading false rumours about others to make yourself look better
- The constant fight for attention in meetings and other arenas where colleagues are gathered together
- It is more important to 'build relations', sell yourself and keep the right people happy than actually getting any work done
- The quality of what they produce is as a consequence of this highly political environment often below the standards that I am used to from my own country, and there are often logical flaws and very slappy QA of documents
- People from more honest cultures can often at a first glance be fooled into believing that british people are better than they actually are, because they are good at talking but seldom at execution
- They are also extremely nationalistic and in general so preoccupied with self-promotion that they become bad listeners, refusing to understand that several things in their country is very old-fashioned and much less advanced than in smaller nations, a good example is the poor availability of automated public services that we Scandinavians have been able to take for granted for ages, such as tax declaration on SMS, phone number directory services etc.

Based on my experiences I would be very, very cautious before hiring an employee from the UK unless that person could show a successful track record of producing results in an international environment. I would also check and doble-check their references as I, unfortunately, would almost assume them to lie by default