I don't think English has any equivalent (but it's a big language so I wouldn't be surprised to find out I'm wrong). We do have a very similar and pretty common idiom though: "slowly-but-surely", often used in the phrase "slowly but surely wins the race". This of course comes from The Hare and the Tortoise in Aesop's Fables.
Another analogy that works in programming terms is comparing the speed of a container ship to the speed of a Ferrari. One of them zips about a lot and goes round corners really fast. The other one takes a while to load up and takes an hour to turn, but it will shift a hell of a lot more cargo, a much greater distance, in the same time.
There's a place for both and the most important thing is knowing the difference; not sticking to one or the other dogmatically.
Best I could fined.
Things that are expedited are put on a 'fast track,' obstacles removed -- and, frequently, corners are cut.
As said below Latin has it in festina lente -- "Make haste slowly."
First of all, I find the claim about 35 hours being the average a bit dubious. It may have been the average some years ago, but today it's probably closer to 38-40 hours, with service jobs (from retail to agencies) often adding unpaid overtime to that. On the other hand our work laws are pretty employee-friendly (e.g. a mandatory uninterrupted resting period of 24 hours per week in case you have to work on sundays) and larger companies are more likely to follow the letter of the law.
The rules regarding Facebook and private e-mail have more to do with German privacy law: if the private use of work computers is explicitly forbidden, there are less legal landmines involved with intercepting or monitoring Internet use. In practice many places have an informal policy that allows these things, just not officially.
The bit about employees not hanging around after work is also inaccurate. For many people a lot of friendships (and relationships) involve co-workers. In fact, this is one of the reasons there was such an outrage when Walmart tried to implement its US work policies in Germany (which forbade romantic relationships between co-workers -- not that that rule would have held up in German courts to begin with).
There are indeed more days of paid vacation and families do receive preferential treatment when it comes to scheduling vacations during the major holidays or summer break.
The difference when it comes to "Handwerk" is also very striking. Mediocre pay (and rampant moonlighting) aside, craftsmen are generally held in high regard and like most professions take a lot of pride in correctness and precision. This probably again goes hand in hand with Germany having a lot of laws, rules and standards for various fields of work (e.g. you can't just set up a shop as a car varnisher, you need a formal qualification for that).
Also, bureaucracy. Although the sibling is right in that you do usually get the expected result if you follow all the rules, the paperwork can be daunting. Most people joke about the tax law in particular, but we have laws, rules and standards for everything. German law generally tends to define even edge cases clearly rather than leave them up to interpretation by the courts, consequently the legal system tends to be less shady than in the US, but trickier cases can still take years (but on the plus side, they are much cheaper than in the US).
Also, universal healthcare.
This culture makes administrative processes bulky and tedious and tiring.
It often fuels my Ungeduld, because I want to get st done zügig.
To get your fishing permit you will need to provide all the right bits of paper and stamps, no exceptions.
The flip side of this is that if you follow a set of precise, unambiguous instructions you will get your fishing permit.
Source: moved from UK to Germany 8 years ago.
And even if you succeed, in the end there'd be a rule that requires the Pdf to be printed, signed, copied, filed, scanned and filed again, digitally.
A lot of the studies on it I've seen come down to "work time is for work, free time is for not working" and respecting that.
In English, I'd say a train has a fast & steady speed, therefore I propose the translation "steady".
For example, if I asked you to leave a hotel in a "zügig" manner, I would be asking you to quickly pack up your things and then leave. In other words, it's about doing something "faster than normal", but not so fast you can't take proper care.
If I told you to leave "zügig" and you'd first finish watching a TV show, I would probably be slightly irritated.
In this case "zügig" is better translated as "in a timely manner" (rather than with haste, which would imply dropping what you are doing and running away).
It implies that you are following that one named goal and considering nothing else.
We have a term for that as well -- cruising speed.
You can enter it in Bing Translate[0] to get a text-to-speech rendition. I can't figure out how to make a direct link with text already entered. (You can type "zuegig" if you don't have easy access to the ü key.) Interestingly enough, the translation there is "swift".
German has a very nice word for that: "zügig". It means "speedy" as well, but goes a bit towards "stable", "steady" and "friction-free". It's the good kind of fast, which sometimes needs a step back and a look at things.
So, if I came to work "zügig", I didn't speed, but there was no traffic jam, I didn't stop for a coffee somewhere, etc.