Workplace culture is rarely visible in job descriptions, yet it’s the hidden force determining everything from your work-life balance to your career progression.

Understanding workplace culture differences is critical for career success, especially in international businesses. In this post, I’ll share how my experiences travelling between London and Amsterdam offices revealed the unwritten rules that determine workplace success far more than any employee handbook.

The Amsterdam fishcakes-and-champagne chronicles: international business culture in action

My introduction to international business culture came in a variety of memorable transport experiences. There was the now-defunct World Airlines, a budget carrier who were all over London buses and cabs for a year before they folded.

Their unique selling point was serving fishcakes and champagne for breakfast. Those were the days! Even on budget airlines they would serve complimentary breakfast and hand out free newspapers.

Anyway, with World Airlines the smell hit you during boarding, creating an olfactory experience that lingered well beyond the mercifully short flight.

Anyone for Suckling Airways?

Then there was Suckling Airways, a family operation with a handful of ancient prop planes. At check-in, the counter agent casually mentioned that if I changed my mind about checking my luggage, I could “just chuck it in the back of the plane.”

When departure time approached with no gate announcement, I nervously enquired with staff who simply told me to sit and wait. Someone would come for me.

Sure enough, a man eventually walked into the terminal building and shouted, “Anyone for Suckling Airways?” A dozen of us picked up our bags and walked across the tarmac to the plane.

Mrs Suckling herself welcomed passengers – many by first name – and instructed us to take any seat. She then shouted from the back of the plane to ask what everyone wanted on their sandwiches while passing around newspapers and coffee.

The journey to Amsterdam took ages to even reach the English Channel, but it remains one of my most enjoyable business travel experiences.

Why stop once for cake and coffee when you can stop twice?

As a Dutch native working for a British team within ABN AMRO, I’d been sent with specific instructions to pretend I couldn’t understand Dutch. Why? Because briefings would occur in English, but subsequent discussions would mysteriously switch to Dutch, leaving the British team consistently disadvantaged when competing for internal projects.

Our British approach was to outwork everyone: 7am breakfast meetings at our hotel near Central Station, in the office by 8am, working until 8pm, then shower (not collectively, thankfully) before 9pm dinner briefings and optional nightcaps in a traditional Amsterdam pub doubling as our hotel bar.

Meanwhile, our Dutch colleagues operated in an entirely different reality:

• Rolling in around 9am
• Immediately departing for coffee and chat
• Breaking at 10.30am for coffee and birthday cake (a sacred Dutch tradition)
• Taking proper lunch breaks
• More cake at 3.30pm
• Departing en masse at 5pm sharp

The result? I often cancelled Friday flights home to work through weekends in my hotel room while my Dutch counterparts enjoyed their famously excellent work-life balance.

The unwritten rulebook every workplace has

Every office operates according to an unofficial rulebook that nobody gives you during onboarding. These cultural norms determine everything from when you’re expected to arrive and leave to how meetings actually function.

The same organisation can have dramatically different cultures across locations.

When I worked as an office manager for the London office of a Dutch law firm, our small team of two partners, two associates and three support staff would gather daily in the boardroom to share lunch together. It was collegial, informal, and deliberately non-hierarchical.

Then I visited the head office in Amsterdam for meetings. People would approach to greet me, only to turn on their heels upon learning I was “just” the London office manager rather than a new associate.

The large staff restaurant functioned as a physical manifestation of the org chart. Support staff segregated to one area, associates in another and partners sequestered in their own separate room.

And let’s not forget the typical Dutch business lunch: cheese or ham sandwiches with a glass of milk, a far cry from London’s client lunch culture. My friend Lesley attended a business conference in Amsterdam once and said it was the only time in her life she had seen adult males drink milk and eat cheese sandwiches.

I once worked at a London advertising agency that held monthly staff drinks featuring awards for “most ridiculous client interaction” and “most outrageous hookup with a colleague.”

Participation wasn’t technically mandatory, but absence was certainly noted. These gatherings functioned as the real decision-making venue, where account allocations and promotion discussions happened informally over the fourth round of drinks.

Rather than compete for talent on pay – the staffing equivalent of a nuclear arms race -, the agency understood that it was its workplace culture that attracted top talent – and often persuaded them to rejoin after experiencing the workplace culture in other agencies.

This is the shadow organisation, the unofficial hierarchy and rules that determine success far more effectively than any employee handbook.

The role of language in cultural dominance

Despite having my spoken English officially assessed as A+ (Distinction), my Dutch accent occasionally became the subject of good-natured workplace banter in London. Yet in Amsterdam, language became a power tool.

The irony of my ABN AMRO situation was particularly rich: as a native Dutch speaker with perfect English, I was specifically hired to pretend I couldn’t understand Dutch.

My role was to sit quietly as our Dutch colleagues switched languages during crucial discussions, then afterward, I’d translate exactly what they’d said when they thought the British team couldn’t understand.

Their strategy of switching to Dutch for the substantive parts of meetings was a subtle form of cultural protectionism, appearing international while maintaining home advantage. What they never suspected was that they had a spy in their midst: me.

Similar dynamics play out in most multinational workplaces. The employees who speak the dominant language most fluently (or with the “right” accent) tend to advance faster, regardless of technical skills.

The productivity paradox

Perhaps the most surprising lesson from those Amsterdam trips was discovering that working longer hours didn’t necessarily translate to better outcomes. Our British team put in considerably more time, yet the Dutch teams consistently secured more internal projects.

Their advantage was deep institutional knowledge, strong local networks and the ability to influence decision-makers through informal channels. These were all resources our gruelling work schedule gave us no time to develop.

It’s a pattern I’ve observed repeatedly across different sectors: the teams most visibly “working hard” aren’t always the most successful. Instead, understanding the informal structures – knowing whose birthday to celebrate, which pub discussion matters or who actually influences decisions regardless of the org chart – often matters more than hours logged.

How to decode workplace culture before accepting a job

So how do you detect these unwritten rules before you’re trapped in a misaligned workplace culture? Here are some approaches I’ve found useful:

1. Ask about team rituals during interviews
   “Does the team have any regular social events or traditions?” reveals more than you might expect.
2. Request to speak with potential peers, not just managers
   How forthcoming are they about everyday work life? Hesitation often signals problems.
3. Visit during lunch hours if possible
   Do people eat together? At their desks? Outside? This simple observation reveals volumes.
4. Enquire about work-from-home patterns
   Not just the official policy, but actual practice. “How many days do most people come in?” often reveals the gap between policy and reality.
5. Ask about communication norms
   “Would I be expected to answer emails on weekends?” is a perfectly reasonable interview question that cuts through the official narrative.

The value of the cultural translator

The most valuable team member isn’t always the most technically skilled, but often the one who can navigate different workplace cultures. These cultural translators understand how decisions really get made and can help others navigate the invisible obstacles.

My role at ABN AMRO was precisely this, a cultural and linguistic double agent. My British colleagues benefited from my ability to understand the Dutch conversations they were deliberately excluded from, while I could function effectively in the English-speaking meetings. This cross-cultural positioning provided strategic advantages my monolingual colleagues lacked.

These bridges between cultures are increasingly valuable in our globalised workplace. If you have the ability to function effectively across different cultural environments, don’t undervalue this skill. It’s often worth more than technical certifications.

Identifying workplace culture types: from hierarchical to collaborative

Through my years navigating international business environments, I’ve observed that most workplace cultures fall into recognisable patterns. Hierarchical cultures, like the Amsterdam law office, emphasise clear power structures and formal protocols.

Collaborative cultures, like our London office, value open communication and flat structures. Task-oriented cultures focus on outcomes rather than relationships, while relationship-oriented cultures prioritise social connections and team harmony.

What makes workplace culture differences particularly challenging is that the same organisation can maintain completely different approaches across locations.

The Dutch law firm’s contrasting lunch arrangements perfectly demonstrate how corporate values can vary drastically even under the same company banner.

The hierarchy visible in lunchtime rituals

Perhaps nothing reveals workplace hierarchy more clearly than lunchtime rituals. My experience at the Dutch law firm showed how the same organisation can maintain drastically different approaches to hierarchy depending on location.

In London, our daily shared lunches created a space where ideas flowed freely between partners and support staff. In Amsterdam, the segregated dining arrangements reinforced that each person should know and maintain their place in the hierarchy.

These physical manifestations of culture – where people sit, who they eat with, even what they eat – aren’t trivial details. They’re daily reinforcements of what the organisation truly values, regardless of what mission statements might claim.

Learning to play the culture game (without losing yourself)

The reality is that every workplace operates according to unwritten rules. Your career trajectory depends partly on how well you navigate them. This doesn’t mean surrendering your identity or work preferences, but rather understanding the game being played around you.

Sometimes this means strategic attendance at fish-and-champagne breakfasts. Other times it means recognising when a culture is fundamentally misaligned with your values and finding an environment where you can thrive without constant adaptation.

Becoming a workplace culture expert in your own right

Navigating workplace culture differences requires observation, adaptation and sometimes strategic non-conformity.

Whether you’re encountering birthday cake traditions in Amsterdam or segregated lunchrooms in corporate headquarters, recognising these patterns helps you transcend being merely technically proficient to becoming culturally influential.

The most successful professionals aren’t just experts in their field; they’re experts in reading and navigating the cultures where they operate. By developing this cultural intelligence, you position yourself as that invaluable team member who can bridge different worlds, just as I did as the Dutch-English translator revealing what was said when my British colleagues weren’t supposed to understand.

Because the most important lesson business travel taught me? Life’s too short for fish at 7am unless the workplace culture it gives you access to is truly worth it.