Company Culture: How To Prepare For Your Big Day
Our company is one of its own in Austria. Here is what you can expect when joining our multicultural team.
You are a foreigner and are considering coming to Austria to work and live here? Here are 4 things you should be aware of when joining our company. Read more about our company culture to be prepared for your big day.
Greetings
Get ready to be greeted with “Mahlzeit” whenever lunch time is approaching, should you be eating or not. In Austria as well as at Tractive, greetings are important. Everyone starts the day by saying hello: Morgen, Hallo, Servus and more rarely Grüß Gott.
Shaking hands and keeping a strong eye contact while doing so is the general way to greet someone. If you know them better then you might embrace or kiss the person on the cheeks two times. In the morning at Tractive you don’t have to shake everyone’s hands. You will hear everyone say good-heartedly Hello. Either in English since it is our company language or in German for the Austrians among us.
Read more about how we welcome our new employees.
At Tractive also, we have this little friendly tradition of “Anschreien”. Whenever someone brings cake (which tends to be very often), the whole company is notified by a friendly “HundehĂĽtte, HundehĂĽtte, wau wau wau” repeated in choirs.
Communicating and sharing our ideas
Tractive benefits from a very friendly and open atmosphere. Part of our core values is open communication and responsibility. Everyone is encouraged to speak up and since there are flat hierarchies we tend to communicate easily and smoothly.
This being said, as a foreigner do expect and understand a rather direct and straightforward form of communication. Austrians tend to be focused and serious when tackling business goals and will simply say things as they are.
At Tractive, as part of our company culture, we aim at keeping all our employees up-to-date with our business and goals. We benefit from different monthly company-wide meetings. Furthermore, most departments work together by having daily short meetings where they discuss challenges, successes and problems encountered. Thanks to this everyone can keep up with information and discuss openly what happens within the company.
What happens at our business meetings?
As in every company, business meetings are regular and important. In Austria generally and at Tractive also, being late is considered to be rude. Being on time usually means being 5 minutes earlier than expected. At Tractive we usually work with the 2 minutes rule and being just on time is also okay.
How do we behave in our office?
Part of what makes working at Tractive so friendly is also it’s casual style. Here everyone dresses casually. You will quickly get used to seeing everyone going barefoot, in socks or flip flops around the office.
Our employees have the possibility to use bathroom facilities at the office so they can easily come in sportswear and change or freshen up. Also our kitchens give the opportunity for everyone to eat together or do cooking lunch groups.
Another thing you will see at Tractive are rather neat and tidy desks. Austrians tend to be organized and tidy. On Friday we have our clean-our-desk day and we encourage our team to keep the place clean, so everyone enjoys working here.
Finally, waste separation is also an important thing in Austria, as well at Tractive. Since the team produces different sort of wastes (paper, plastic, organic, etc.), we encourage everyone to adopt good ecological practices and help protect the environment.
You like our company culture?
This post was written by Richelle Aichberger, a dedicated member of Tractive’s HR team specializing in Employer Branding. With a background in HR, she loves connecting paw-some people with Tractive.
When she’s not busy brainstorming new ideas to attract the best talent, you can find her enjoying quality time with her family, getting her hands dirty in the garden, or unwinding over a relaxing three-day weekend!
