Differences between the work culture/environment of Turkey and Sweden?
Hello there 👋🏻, I am a software engineer focused on iOS technologies with 4 years of industry experience. In this time period, I’ve worked in 3 different companies in Turkey as an iOS Developer.
Now, I’ve been working at Textalk Media (opens in a new tab) which is a Sweden company works in the Media Technology Industry since 1979 for the past 1 month. This is the very first company that I work abroad for. During this short timeframe, I’ve seen some differences between my past companies and Textalk Media’s technical scale and products.
Our Swedish(European) counterparts are deemed happier, healthier, and more productive while working fewer hours, having longer breaks, and more paid vacation.” https://usalinksystem.com/whats-new/details/6-differences-in-work-culture-between-the-us-and-europe-284 (opens in a new tab)
- Work culture in Europe and Turkey is like black and white.
- In Turkey, many employees and some employers (but not so much) are still experimenting to find the perfect work-life balance.
Work hours
In Turkish companies, I was working at least 9 hours per day and 45 hours per week. But, it was not enough for Turkish managers, and they always wait for more hours to work without paying extra money. I was able to endure this bullying for just 3 years 🤯. Finally, I burnt out and changed company.
In a Swedish company, I am working 8 hours per day and 40 hours per week. And of course, every Friday we have fika (opens in a new tab) time at 15:00 CET and after that, we don’t work. My company doesn’t know anything about overtime and always cares about employees’ mental health and decisions.
More vacation time
In Turkish companies, I don’t remember any time that I used for vacation more than 1 week. On top of it, you have this opportunity if you have been working in that company for at least 1 year.
In a Swedish company, I have 25 days of paid vacation (the vacation earning year is April 1 to March 31). I’m pretty sure no one will disturb me when I will get a vacation 🤠
Lunchtime
In Turkish companies, this was around a maximum of 30 minutes for me.
“In Sweden, they have a common practice called fika. Fika at the workplace translates to two 10–30-minute breaks, one in the morning and another in the afternoon. And they pair Fika with a lunch break that lasts for an hour.” https://usalinksystem.com/whats-new/details/6-differences-in-work-culture-between-the-us-and-europe-284 (opens in a new tab)
Technical perspective
In Turkish companies, I have never been in a development environment like every developer checks others' code and comment about it. Opening a Merge Request even 😪 I’m not saying this for every Turkish company but at least for my former companies environment always was like this. You just write your code and if it is working and solving your current problem you can send this code to production 🥲🥲🥲 Also, never been in a Test Driven Development environment.
In my current company, the environment is not like my former companies environment, even though we are 2 iOS Engineers. For instance, in my 3rd week, I completed a task without so much testing and created a merge request. As you can guess, like an old habit I completed those tasks don’t think so much about them, and implemented them in one way. Finally, my colleague didn’t merge them and said that don’t think as same as the old developer who wrote this code 😊
TL;DR
I tried to compare the work culture between Turkey and Sweden so far, and put some technical perspective. If we do not act hastily and proceed in a more humane way, a higher-quality job will emerge.
European governments and businesses are looking after their people to boost productivity and improve workers’ work-life balance. https://usalinksystem.com/whats-new/details/6-differences-in-work-culture-between-the-us-and-europe-284 (opens in a new tab)
See you soon :)