Reply to European Expansion: Eye-Opening, Frustrating, and Possibly Not Worth It

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Working with our Europe branch has been quite an intense endeavor. As part of a large tech company expanding aggressively across the region, I’ve been leading hiring efforts for multiple new office locations — and I’ve hit a wall of cultural and structural friction.

Simply put: they don’t want to work long hours. They don’t want to commit. And they have a lot of demands — mandatory holidays, strict work-hour rules, protected leave policies, the list goes on.

Yes, salaries may be half the cost of U.S.-based employees, but in many cases, it feels like you’re getting half the output. And no, that’s not an exaggeration.

Here are some of the realities we’ve faced:

One employee took a full year of maternity leave, then extended it into a second year for a new baby — with no firm return date.
A male employee took one year of paternity leave, returned just in time for “mandatory” summer PTO — a month off, like clockwork.
In Spain, we’re required to offer additional vacation banks separate from standard PTO, and summer laws restrict work to no more than 5 hours a day.
New hires often start with 20+ hours of vacation built in. Day one.

The structure seems designed to protect mediocrity — not reward performance.

Ironically, our best hires in Europe have been Americans who’ve relocated, or folks from post-Soviet countries who still bring hunger, accountability, and a willingness to go above and beyond.

I get that Europe values work-life balance. But when that balance tilts so far toward comfort that productivity suffers, it raises a real question: Is it worth it?

If you’re trying to run a business, grow fast, or compete globally, these restrictions are more than just frustrating — they’re counterproductive.

No wonder the U.S. keeps leading. Say what you will about hustle culture — it gets things done.
[/quote]

Imagine this is frustrating for you to work with given your handling the day-to-day operations. However, it sounds like your company just did not do its due diligence in developing plans for its European expansion. I used to see this a lot when I worked with American companies buying or expanding operations in Europe. They would see the market potential and crunch the numbers and fail to understand the complexities, often making a lot of assumptions. Most did not understand the differences between the countries in any substantive way and many did not understand much about what being an EU member actually entailed. I think a lot assumed that it would be enough to adopt a positive ‘can do’ approach, hire a bunch of lawyers (because that’s what you do in the US), and exhibit some humility around being willing to learn. Eventually they would all become very frustrated by how long it took to get things done and resolve  difficult issues particularly relating to labour. They would throw up their hands and admit they hadn’t realised what they were getting into.[/quote]

How can we be so stupid? See also: this is why you hire international affairs majors - they know all this stuff before they graduate from college! [/quote]

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