How International Runtastics Adapt to Living in Austria

Runtastic has all the time grown like loopy. Ever since we started professionalizing our hiring process in late 2014, now we have greater than doubled from 100 to 240+ staff. And with this hyper-growth we managed to deliver superior individuals from all around the world to our offices in Linz, Vienna, and Salzburg.

By now, greater than 40% of Runtastics have an international background and have relocated to Austria (for skilled or private causes) in the previous couple of years. And whereas we as a corporation embrace our diversity and have fun it on any attainable event, we typically have a tendency to overlook the individual stories of our relocators, the challenges they might face, and the teachings they’ve realized.

Learning the language could be difficult – however strive it anyway!

We have the privilege of working for an organization stuffed with good and well-educated people. And most of those people are open to new challenges – reminiscent of studying German. Runtastic subsidizes German courses for all staff, as we really feel that integrating into the nation could also be simpler should you can converse the language.

“I am finally coming to terms with the fact that I studied German for 5 years and still can’t understand the people in this country :-).”

While our Dutch Translator Aaron does converse German fairly nicely, he light-heartedly sums up the problem so many individuals face who’ve studied German in college: in Austria, people don’t really speak German. Yes, German is the official language, however each little a part of the nation has its personal dialect, which could be so robust that even Austrians from different elements of the nation don’t perceive some regional expressions.

Within the corporate, we eradicated the language barrier by shifting the corporate language to English. This means, that every one written correspondence, all displays, and each inside assembly is held in English. In each day work-life we additionally strive to preserve all the pieces in English, which typically continues to be not as straightforward because it sounds, as previous Glassdoor reviews reveal. However, we do our greatest to ensure that everyone feels included – no matter their native language.

Appreciate the prime quality of life

Something Austrians have a tendency to neglect is the excessive way of life our little residence nation has to provide. Not solely can we at Runtastic provide a large number of health and workforce associated advantages for our staff, however the social system general makes our lives fairly snug.

Be it fundamentals like cleanliness and security, or a powerful social system with high-quality (and inexpensive) healthcare, or the 25 paid trip days per 12 months: the overall set-up makes it easy to live here.

“Austria is a great place to raise a kid.”

Software Test Manager Alexandru, who’s slightly new to parenthood, is satisfied that staying in Austria to elevate his infant was the proper selection for him and his household. Most fathers at Runtastic even take a month off to take care of their infants and spend time with their family members at a really early stage – one thing Runtastic promotes and encourages every father to do.   

Exploring the attractive panorama

Austria is a small nation positioned in the guts of Europe. This signifies that it solely takes a couple of hours to attain the neighboring nations the place you possibly can discover utterly totally different cultures. Monday’s social media feeds are normally stuffed with Runtastics enjoying weekend trips together.

But – in accordance to Kate, certainly one of our User Acquisition Managers (instagram @kitkatez) – it’s truly not essential to go away the nation to see stunning locations. Almost each weekend she explores the areas close by and has fallen in love with the well-known Salzkammergut space.

“I sometimes can’t believe that I am not in a postcard when I take the train through the mountains.”

Austrian and worldwide Runtastics alike do take pleasure in being exterior, exploring the outside shut to the places of work in Linz, Vienna, and Salzburg, and plan their workforce occasions accordingly.

Integration: quirks and perks

Carla, our Italian Language Specialist had some bother adapting to the opening hours of the Austrian shops. They shut at 7:00 pm on weekdays and are closed all day on Sundays – which could be very annoying if you end up used to having entry to groceries 24/7.

Indeed, it’s nonetheless onerous to perceive for a lot of (Austrians included) why smoking continues to be allowed in designated areas in eating places and bars, and Austrians is probably not the simplest individuals to get to know at first. But general, we really feel that our relocators have not regretted their choice to move here for most of the causes talked about above.

We strive to create as many opportunities as possible for everyone to discover their new nation and in addition assist them combine in the group and set up new and long-lasting relationships with different individuals residing right here. Whether by means of quite a few workforce occasions in the course of the week, biweekly firm breakfasts, or just the open workplace house – it’s essential for us that everybody feels part of the (work) community.

After all, all of us profit from our various work setting. Different viewpoints, increased tolerance, and easily higher concepts make us stronger together, with out forgetting the place we come from!

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