Workplace culture: Sie and du, hierarchy, feedback and Feierabend

Newcomers commonly mention four things in their first months at a German employer:

• Formal address at the start. deutschland.de (2026) advises using the formal Sie with colleagues and managers at first, with Herr or Frau and the surname; some academics like to be addressed with their title (for example Frau Dr. Weber). It also notes that the casual du is now common in many companies and that newcomers are often soon invited to use it.
• Who offers du. In a ranked work setting, the person with the higher rank offers du to the person with the lower rank, regardless of age or gender (DAAD; deutschland.de). An in-between step some people use is first name plus Sie, but ask before you try it.
• Direct feedback. The DAAD describes criticism at work as direct and meant constructively, not as a personal attack.
• A clear end to the working day (Feierabend). deutschland.de says most companies clearly separate work and free time and that employees are normally not expected to send emails late at night or take calls at the weekend. The flip side, according to trainer Christina Röttgers: because colleagues keep job and private life separate, many newcomers feel lonely and find it hard to make private contacts through work.

Hierarchy and responsibility

Two descriptions circulate, and both can be true in the same company. The DAAD describes clearly defined, vertical structures in which decisions come from the top, everyone knows their role, and approvals can take a while. Röttgers, interviewed by deutschland.de, stresses the other side: many German companies hand an employee responsibility for a whole task or project, expect independent work, and expect you to report problems in good time. In practice that often means formal structures on paper and a lot of autonomy within your own area.

Rules that shape the culture

• Working hours: eight hours is the usual working day, ten are permitted in exceptional cases, and breaks of at least 30 minutes (six to nine hours of work) or 45 minutes (more than nine hours) are mandatory (deutschland.de, 2026).
• Leave: the Federal Leave Act sets a minimum of 24 working days a year counted on a six-day week, which is 20 days for a five-day week; deutschland.de notes that many companies give 30.
• Works councils: in workplaces with at least five permanent employees eligible to vote, staff can elect a works council (Betriebsrat) under the Works Constitution Act. If your employer has one, it is worth knowing who sits on it.
• Work-life balance in numbers: in the InterNations Expat Insider 2026 survey, 66% of expats in Germany were satisfied with their work-life balance (62% globally), with an average full-time week of 40.4 hours (42.2 globally).

• Sector: the DAAD reports that du is common in IT, e-commerce, start-ups and telecommunications, sometimes even with customers, while banking, insurance and traditional retail stay more formal. Its rule of thumb: the more expensive the product, the more formal the address.
• Generation: younger employees use du as a matter of course, influenced by social media and by English as a company language, which the DAAD notes many people equate with du.
• English-speaking teams: deutschland.de suggests you can switch to first names when speaking English even if you use Sie in German, but switch back when you return to German.
• Place and organisation: an intercultural coach quoted by deutschland.de (2026) notes that an IT firm and a hospital, or Berlin and Bavaria, can feel very different.