are the swiss lazy or hard workers?

Complaints Corner
61
Lazy? No! Not in general, of course there are bound to be a few shirkers in all nationalities but in general I find the Swiss workers hard working and conciencious. Slow as hell but that stems from wanting to get the job done right first time and done well.

62
thank goodness someone has something positive to say!

63
All I would say is that Swiss are quite reluctant in experimenting with new things, but when they do it, they put their heart and soul into it. I completely agree with Kingswood - "Slow as hell but that stems from wanting to get the job done right first time and done well".

64
Absolutely agreed upon

65
motivate them with somthing and hopefully they will work like donkeys all day and night eg. cookies, cash bonus, day off, early finish etc... I do find german workers to be more efficient than most swiss employees in my work place though, but I'm sure it varies from office to office.

66

I found Germans to be a lot more motivated and enthusiastic as well as being more likely to express their own opinions and take the initiative. They tended to be better educated (university-level) than the Swiss too. It also helps that their High German is much better so they do well in meetings when debate is involved.

That could explain why they seem do so well in Switzerland: In the organisation that I worked in, Germans were rocketing (in Swiss terms) up the management ranks. There did seem to be an undercurrent of resentment about this amongst the Swiss workforce about that. However, there was such a shortage of qualified Swiss candidates for lots of the positions in the company that they couldn't help but take more and more Germans in.

Gav

67
As far as education goes: it's an open secret that Germany has the worst universities in all of Northern Europe. There certainly are some top-notch ones (Heidelberg and the like), but generally, the education level in Germany is much lower than in Switzerland. So much so, in fact, that most Swiss universities require assessment tests for candidates from German middle schools. Swiss universities have an excellent reputation and so does the educational system in general.

There are probably other reasons for the way you perceive your German colleagues: many of the best qualified German workers leave their home country for Switzerland because they make more money here and taxes are lower. There's also a general tendency for foreigners with a good command of German to be more successful in Switzerland.

So called "secondos" (those born in Switzerland with immigrant parents) are statistically much more successful than people with Swiss parents. It's perhaps the cultural diversity and the general urge to fit in by being better than others while at the same time being able to keep a necessary distance to your peers that determines productivity and success.

It's no surprise, therefore that Swiss workers who emigrate to Germany, the US or the UK are also disporportionately more successful than the respective native colleagues.

68
Would you care to quote which ones? The official position seems a little bit different.

69
I would say that the reason that the second-gen people do well is because their parents (who probably came in to do low-grade jobs) motivate them to 'better themselves' and since they face a certain degree of prejudice, they feel that they have something to prove. I knew quite a few second-gen people in Switzerland and they were all pretty sharp and motivated.

Education wise: I wasn't really impressed with the low numbers of people in Switzerland who receive a degree-level education (as discussed on another thread). I certainly wasn't aware that German universities were somehow regarded as 'sub par'. Is that a Swiss perception or a common opinion in Europe, backed up by statistics?

As for Swiss workers who go abroad doing better too, that wasn't something I had in mind when I was relating what I saw in my old Swiss workplace where lots of Germans were coming in and really showing the local workforce up. Maybe the Swiss are having a similar effect in the other European countries that they go to but of course with a much smaller population you don't tend to see large numbers of Swiss popping up in other countries like you see the Germans coming into Switzerland, Zuerich in particular.

Gav

70
Well, the EU seems to have a different opinion on that:

http://www.proinno-europe.eu/index.c...=5&parentID=51

Have a look at page 23 of the report. According to this, Switzerland is the 3rd most innovative country in the world, right after Finland and Sweden, but ahead of Japan, the USA and Germany. The UK is on rank 12, btw.

Indicators were the availability and quality of education, the number of patents, investment in R&D etc.

Obviously you guys simply work for lazy companies and try to generalize form there.

71
Time to revive an old thread...

http://www.swissinfo.org/eng/top_new...88191000&ty=st

New report from ILO reveals that Switzerland lags in productivity even behind France. So much for general perceptions !

72
You have to consider that Switzerland has what one could call a split economy. There are companies which successfully compete on highly competitive international markets. That's where the productivity is usually high or very high.

On the other hand there are many companies which cater to domestic markets which are often highly regulated and not competitive at all. Companies in these sectors typically have a very low productivity, mostly due to the lack of competition.

73
Maybe we work together without knowing it , you just described my everyday at work

74
i'm at the cubicle behind the guy who wear the grey suits with those colorful ties!

75
my wife works at a national newspaper, my best friend in the construction business, me in advertising and distribution, my neighbor works for the social security, other friend of mine is ceo of an intermediate I.T company. all of them complain about the low swiss productivity (and their obstructive ways), at a dinner at home we arrived to the conclusion that the swiss in general have the attitude of pensioners, they know that they get their money at the end of the month regardless their performance, even more, they don't care if they lose their jobs because they'll find another one. since then we refere to the swiss as "the pensioners".

76
My experience (only one company) is that the Swiss are hard working when they have a task or objective in hand, but are totally inefectual unless something is delegated to them. Very difficult sometimes, as I come from a very entrepeneurial background where, initiave, creativity & self starting are all qualities that are admired, if not sought after.

Made it difficult to settle in (for the first 2 years) ....

77

I am really sorry to hear that swiss make a lazy impression to you. Not all are like that, but one point I must give you right, they like to go early in, to get out early....

78
The thing about going in early is that not a lot of work is actually going on so early in the morning. Not collaborative stuff, anyway. On the few occasions when I was in really early to do something specific, I could see that an awful lot of colleagues were just turning up, reading the newspaper, going for coffee etc. etc. More or less just making up the hours.

On the other hand you do tend to get a lot of stuff happening after 3pm as a result of things that have been churning away during the day and many of the 'early risers' are leaving at 4pm leaving a lot of work to be done by those who stay.

Another trick was not to bother going to lunch so as to get an extra half hour/hour of 'work time' onto the timesheet. Not much collaborative work happens during lunch hour, either. That meant that they could leave by 4pm every day and get a day off in flexi-time every couple of weeks. Plus they had about 1.5 hours a day 'to themselves' when they weren't likely to be receiving calls or demands from others.

Other essential ploys - make sure you have a copy of next year's public holidays and get yourself down ASAP for the 'bridge days' when you can make really long weekends. You can always get those bridge days from flexitime so no need to use any of your vacation days (which you can save for whopping month-long holidays during July/August).

Make sure you take a sick day if you so much as feel a runny nose too. No questions asked unless you take more than 3 consecutive days.

Oh yeah, and always make such a song and dance about doing anything that next time people take the work elsewhere rather than face the hassle.

Then sit back and wile away the years as you wait for your pension.

79
It seems every thread turns into an argument over what this forum is and is not, who should be here and what the moderators should censor...why cant we simply have a discussion on the topic at hand?

From my point of view the Swiss "generally" the laziest people in the world. Worst of all, they've filled their heads thinking they are all irreplaceable assets to their companies. And constantly complain about being overworked. Where i come from you have the freedom to leave and find a new job if dont like yours. In the words of Judge Judy "if you dont like job, find a new one!"

the Swiss have the same freedom, but the difference is in the culture. instead the swiss sit and complain about their jobs, using their complaints to justify their own inefficiencies. Which only shows how lazy they truly are.

Not to over-generalize, i have been to some swiss german towns that had such hard workers i thought i was on an army base.

80
My experience from working in various countries and/or with local branch offices including Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, the US, the UK, Poland & Portugal is that the locals are all lazy and expats are the only ones do any work. I wonder how the earth moves without expats?