Changing the office language

In today's episode, Mattias talks about why he changed the office language at iGoMoon from Swedish to English.

Becoming more international

First of all, he explains that it was never an actual decision to change the office language. It was more a natural process that started to evolve when more international people started working at iGoMoon. A good example of that transition is, for instance, Mattias' other vlog "Månresan" which functions as a branding medium where people get a glimpse of daily life at the iGoMoon office. Over time more people started working at iGoMoon who did not speak Swedish. This resulted in the Swedish vlog slowly turning into an English-speaking vlog.

Following the international dream

However, the company's website has been in English since day 1. Mattias dreamed big from the start and wanted his company to grow internationally. Some pages of the website were additionally also available in Swedish back then but got removed later. The reason for that was that maintaining a website itself was already a lot of work, let alone keeping it up to date in multiple languages. That step definitely led to a loss of SEO, but oppositely also resulted in more traffic from countries outside of Sweden.

Challenges with changing the language

The transition from Swedish to English was not always easy and not everyone in the leading positions was in accord with it. In fact, there were multiple incidents where Mattias had to defend the shift of languages. Mattias explains that the company's goals are clearly on an international scale and everyone at iGoMoon needs to work together and defeat all possible friction. That also includes being brave, getting out of everyone's comfort zone and being willing to speak more English at the office, even if Swedish would be the more comfortable choice in many situations.

Other challenges are also that some documents and contracts are still in Swedish and need to be translated to English. In addition, sometimes people (including Mattias himself) fall back into old patterns of speaking Swedish, especially in more personal non-work-related situations. Everyone is growing better every day and shows that they have an open heart by trying to include everyone into all of the conversations by reminding themselves to speak more and more English.

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If you want to grow your business internationally, speaking English at the office is a must.

What is the official language at your office?