No News Is... Also No News: Reading Feedback in Switzerland and Morocco

🇨🇭 Switzerland · 🇲🇦 Morocco

By Priya Mehta, The Global Office

Ask a Swiss manager how you're doing and you'll get precise, factual, unembellished feedback on the substance of your work — and quite possibly nothing at all about whether you're actually valued. Ask a Moroccan manager the same question and you may get warm agreement in the room and something entirely different decided afterward, because open criticism, especially in front of others, is close to a cultural taboo. Both systems can leave a newcomer equally unsure where they stand, for almost opposite reasons.

Do's & Don'ts

🇨🇭 Switzerland

🇲🇦 Morocco

Switzerland's reputation for bluntness is only half the picture. Business guides describe a communication style built around "Klartext" — clear, accurate speech that favors stating things explicitly over hints or vague wording — and Swiss colleagues will indeed tell you directly, and in detail, what's wrong with a proposal. What they're less likely to do is tell you explicitly that you're doing well. One American expat, a financial analyst from Boston, described the experience plainly: "Nobody said I was doing a good job, but they kept giving me more responsibility" — that expanding scope was the only signal she got that her work was landing. On Hofstede's power distance measure, Switzerland scores a low 34, consistent with a genuinely flat, non-hierarchical culture — but flat and effusive are not the same thing, and Swiss workplaces are far more the former than the latter. It also isn't quite uniform: German-speaking cantons lean most directly precise, French-speaking Romandie carries a softer, more French-influenced style, and Italian-speaking Ticino runs noticeably more socially expressive.

Morocco runs on the opposite mechanism entirely. Business and cultural guides are consistent and blunt about the core rule: "it is against Moroccan culture to criticize or confront someone, especially in public," and many people "will agree to anything, just to keep a person from losing face." Feedback flows through hierarchy rather than direct exchange — managers gather input from stakeholders extensively behind the scenes, then hand a decision down for implementation, with individual employees rarely challenging that decision openly regardless of their private views. Praise, when it comes, tends to be framed collectively rather than aimed at one person, since projects are treated as team efforts rather than individual showcases. Morocco isn't part of Hofstede's individually-scored original country set, so no official power-distance number exists for direct comparison — but the described dynamics (decisions made privately and delivered downward, public dissent avoided) point toward a considerably more hierarchical culture than Switzerland's.

Both approaches share an unexpected consequence: a newcomer genuinely cannot rely on the absence of criticism as good news in either country, just via completely different mechanisms. In Switzerland, silence about your performance might just be the local style — no news is deliberately no news, because praise isn't the currency being spent. In Morocco, apparent agreement or lack of visible pushback might be actively concealing real reservations that surface later, once the meeting has ended and face has been preserved.

The Reckoning: The honest comparison isn't "direct culture versus indirect culture" — it's where each culture chooses to be direct. Switzerland is direct about facts and evidence, indirect (by omission) about warmth and approval. Morocco is indirect about criticism and disagreement, but can be quite direct, eventually, about what actually happens once a decision is made behind closed doors. If you're moving between the two, recalibrate what "silence" means in each place rather than assuming either one operates on a single dial from blunt to polite.

The Part the Brochure Left Out

Quora — A recurring question about "the characteristics of employment in Morocco" draws answers that consistently mention strong hierarchy and personal relationships as central to how work actually gets done, echoing the same theme found across professional guides: who you know and how carefully you manage face matters as much as formal performance.

iamexpat.ch — A Boston-based financial analyst working in Switzerland described realizing she was succeeding only through indirect evidence — being handed more responsibility — since no one on her team ever explicitly told her she was doing a good job, a gap she initially mistook for dissatisfaction with her performance.

Expat Focus (Morocco office culture guide) — Its bluntest line states plainly that many Moroccan colleagues "will agree to anything, just to keep a person from losing face," a warning several contributors linked directly to the risk of mistaking polite agreement for a genuine green light on a plan.

InterNations (Expat Insider survey) — Switzerland dropped from 4th to 61st out of 67 countries for friendliness toward foreigners in a single survey cycle, with InterNations noting that "the acceptance of diversity does not seem to extend to newcomers" — though the same reporting notes the perception commonly softens once expats invest time in local clubs and relationships.

Conclusion

If you need explicit reassurance to feel secure at work, prepare yourself for both of these cultures to withhold it — just for different reasons and in different rooms. In Switzerland, ask directly for the praise you want, because it usually won't come unprompted; the data (a raise, a promotion, expanded scope) is the real feedback. In Morocco, pay closer attention to what changes after a meeting than what was said inside it, and never assume a smile in the room settled anything. Neither country is going to make you guess less — they'll just make you guess about different things.