WillTravel

I know this has been mentioned here, but I found it interesting to hear about various workplaces in Europe that have an official English-language policy. Professional communications, oral and written, all have to be in English.

I assume the reason for this is that companies need talent from all over the world, and cannot reasonably restrict themselves to people who speak the local language. And if they do not have the English-official rule, then much of the company will miss out on important communications. And some industries are officially English-only as well.

Has anyone had experience working at such a workplace, outside of an English-speaking country?

PatrickLondon

I'd be surprised if any were in France....

hetismij

There are a great many in the Netherlands. It hampered my OH in learning Dutch as he could get away with using English all day. It came as a shock to him when he ended up in a company with Dutch as the main language. He works in a very technical field, so English tends to be used more than in some other fields I think. It has little to do with using talent from elsewhere in most cases - he is often the only 'foreigner' in a company yet English is used.
Even in France when he visits the company HQ documents are in English!

beaupeep

One of my good friends works for SITA in Paris where the official language is English, before that she worked for OECD. Same thing. I work in Switzerland at a management school and our official language is English because we have people from all over the world who don't necessarily know French but do know English.

GeoffHamer

I work in the UK for a French company which has English as the main communication language.
If a company has offices in, say, Germany, Sweden, Italy and France, then English is the obvious common language.
This does not mean that tourists can be lazy and assume everyone in Europe speaks English.

travelgourmet

I work at one such company in Denmark. My wife works for a different Danish company that has English as an official language. And we have friends at two other companies. Famously, Nokia is an English language workplace.

What can happen, however, even in a place like Denmark is that, while the official language is English, some groups revert to their native language, when there are no foreigners present. Both my wife's company and mine have a very high percentage of non-Danes, so this isn't as common, but one of our friends is at a company where, though English is an official language, they are the only non-Danish speaker. I suspect it can be isolating if that is the case.

It works quite well in a place like Scandinavia, where English is so widely spoken, but even here, some jobs - mostly hourly-type stuff - may be staffed by people with relatively weaker English language skills. I think such companies are not uncommon in Holland or Switzerland, as well. In a place like France, I'm not sure it works quite as well and I would think that French is almost universally required.

I think the reasoning is, as you suggest, to get better quality employees. I think it also helps in building a global company. If you have offices all over the world, you need to have a consistent language all management can speak in. English, by virtue of being so widely spoken, particularly in the economic capitals of the world, simply makes the most sense. I would anticipate the trend will only continue and intensify.

altamiro

In the company I work in, offical documents (esp. presentations, reports etc.) have to be in english unless agreed otherwise (e. g. targeted to emplyees who don´t speak english well). All written documentation to other companies is in english as well. Of course not every email to a colleague is in english.

With oral communication it depends - if non-Germans are present it is usually in English; otherwise, there is hardly a point for a bunch of Germans to address each other in english.

gruezi

I work for an international pharmaceutical in the German part of Switzerland with it's parent company in the Netherlands.

The official language is English. Almost all written communication is in English but I do get emails in German. All the regulatory materials must be in English as I think is standard in the industry.

When only Swiss are present, people do speak Swiss-German. Or even sometimes they switch back and forth.

Most people are extremely polite about speaking English in front of those who don't speak Swiss-German (me).

Most of the people I work with speak 3 or more languages fluently.

There are people who lunch together weekly at special tables for practicing various languages.

I wish they had a German table!!

I feel a bit stupid sometimes.

gruezi

Cathinjoetown

Many, but not all, people working in the French country headquarters of my former company had to be bi-lingual in French and English.

Communications to and from corporate HQ were in English but otherwise communications to local employees, customers, vendors, etc. were of course in French.

amyb

Yes, I worked for a large investment firm with 6 offices in Asia and 3 in Europe, and all employees were required to speak English fluently.

DalaiLlama

Contributor Grüezi highlighted a special situation in Switzerland: The common expression "Swiss German" is really a misnomer - that part of Switzerland, roughly 60 percent of the population, speaks a multitude of different dialects related to but not identical with German, some dialects being more remote from the official German of Germany than others.

A Swiss can pinpoint another Swiss's provenance after a few words - a person from St. Gallen, from Basel, from Meiringen, from St. Moritz - they sound very different and sometimes have trouble understanding each other.

The official language in that part of Switzerland is the imported German from across the border, and not the southern German dialects either, but "Hochdeutsch" - High German. But no Swiss speaks in Hochdeutsch unless they have to - in an official capacity, when making a speech, reading the newsbulletin as a broadcaster...

So for someone like Grüezi it is doubly hard - if they learn a bit of the local dialect from co-workers and friends, that still isolates them from any written German communications since all Swiss learn German in school, and nobody writes in the dialect - all written communications, including newspapers etc., happens in the imported German that nobody speaks among themselves.

So the common English must be a relief for those foreigners working in the so-called "Swiss-German" part of Switzerland. No wonder a company with an international outlook makes English the official workplace language!

(The other parts of Switzerland: Roughly 30 percent speak French, roughly ten percent Italian, and a there is a smattering of Rumantsch in the Grisons, but that archaic language is on the wane).

hanl

There are certainly lots of companies in Brussels which use English as their working language. As it's a bilingual city (French and Dutch), companies often try to sidestep the controversial issue of which language to use.

I used to work for a French multinational (in France) that merged with a German firm and decided that English would become the working language. It wasn't a very successful or popular policy as many competent staff members were sidelined due to poor language skills, while the confident English speakers were the ones who got the promotions and prime jobs in the new hierarchy.

LoveItaly

Hi WillTravel, a friend of mine who is an attorney but manages his family's oil brokerage business in Italy told me some years ago that it was a legal requirement that all written contracts in Europe be in English. I had never known that. But assume it is correct. His English is perfect. I know that they speak Italian however in the company offices amongst themselves of course. They don't hire people from outside of Italy.

gruezi

Dalai,

You sure summed up my language frustrations better than I ever have!!

So many of my friends back home just can't understand why I'm not "fluent" after 2 years here. And I've studied German in Germany and the instructors also don't "get" it.

I would be working as a nurse if I were able to communicate. But that requires fluency in both Hochdeutsch and Schweizerdeutsch.

So, I'm quite fortunate to have found work in an international workplace. My job description did say "must be fluent in English."

gruezi

Passerine

I work at a very large Swiss company in Basel. English is the official language for most, but not all, communications. Multi-department communications are in English, with very few exceptions.
However, my colleagues are German, French, Belgian (also British and American, no Canadians). Very few Swiss. The Germans will chatter back and forth to each other in German, as do the French, but everybody accepts that. Nobody is plotting anything devious when they switch to another language; it's probably a stress reliever for them to be able to spend some time speaking in their native tongue each day. I try to communicate with them a little in German and French every day (because it's good mental exercise and it gets me "brownie points" for not insisting on English all the time).
Officially the English is British English, but among my English colleagues, I notice a lot of words now spelled with z instead of s...
one very nice thing is that we are all respectful of each other's nationalities and relate to each other as individuals, not stereotypes. No anti-American nonsense, nor anti-British or anti-German or anti-French stuff either. Most refreshing, esp compared to some of the posts over in the Lounge.

hetismij

Loveitaly I don't think that ALL written contracts in Europe have to be in English. Our mortgage contract is in Dutch as is the OH's employment contract plus any number of other contract we have signed.
I also know for a fact that some of the companies he has worked for have their contracts only in Dutch when dealing purely with another Dutch company.

gruezi

Hi Passerine,

If you have time, the Beyeler has a very nice Venice exhibit on right now...I think until Jan 9th.

gruezi

Passerine

Thanks, I do plan to see it. Also the three centuries of still life paintings at the art museum.

Did you get any snow? It was snowing hard here last night, but then, alas, it turned to rain and the snow promptly disappeared. Another degree colder and it would have been all snow

WillTravel

I am guessing that the English requirement for contracts would likely apply as a de facto requirement if the contract states that any legal disputes are to be settled in an American or UK court. Certainly for the oil industry I can see that being the case.

It's interesting that Nokia has an English-language workplace, but it also produces products in over 90 (or is it 120?) languages. I imagine something similar is true for other companies.

I have heard that some technical experts (or presumably others) are not necessarily comfortable writing in English. So if someone is relying on their communications, you may have to unofficially accept a non-English version or otherwise work with them to get what you want.

hetismij

As I said my OH works in a technical business, and they use English as the main language precisely because it is technical.