Scania-Vabis continuously expanded in the 1920s, but soon after that its growth stagnated. During the 1930s, the company had around 500 employees - one tenth of them white-collar. However, a big change was concealed beneath its stable surface. Scania-Vabis was transformed from a truck company into a bus maker with some production of trucks and separate engines.

The post bus that Scania-Vabis developed in 1922 was also its gateway to the rest of the bus market and to a new major customer, Stockholms Spårvägar (Stockholm Tramways). In 1929 that organisation bought a bus company, supplementing its tram network with city buses providing scheduled service. The same year August Nilsson, chief designer at Scania-Vabis, travelled to the United States to visit Twin Coach in Ohio, a maker of flat-front "bulldog" buses with both the engine and driver's station inside. Such buses were roomy, despite their short wheelbase and the tight turning circle they needed. Nilsson gained inspiration. In 1932 Scania-Vabis delivered its first bulldog bus.

The new bus was introduced at the beginning of a deep economic recession. Truck sales fell by half in 1932, but demand for buses remained stable. Scania-Vabis thereby succeeded in maintaining employment while other engineering companies in Södertälje halved their workforces. As unemployment became widespread, Scania-Vabis workers were therefore able to keep their jobs and occasionally work overtime. They also made sure that their friends, relatives and especially their own sons landed jobs at Scania-Vabis. Due to its working system, the company was regarded as the best possible employer for skilled workers.

There had sometimes been tense relations between management and workers until 1920. The company had streamlined its working methods and struggled to introduce cost-effective production. This occasionally led to confrontations with workers, including uncompromising showdowns with coppersmith Knut Georg Taberman, who as a young man had been a far-leftist political and union agitator. Taberman lost his job at Scania-Vabis under dramatic circumstances in 1917 but was re-employed by a legendary master mechanic, Gunnar Wester-berg, who visited him at home.

After the liquidation, no conflicts occurred between management and workers. The ambition to streamline production had disappeared with the previous management. The new Scania-Vabis became a typical master mechanic-dominated company, with an extremely small production management staff well into the 1930s. Under the works manager, a handful of master mechanics were responsible for direct work supervision. The few white-collar employees at the works office performed simple administrative tasks.

The entire production system functioned as a flexible service unit and experimental workshop for the design department. Workers made parts, components and vehicles directly from design drawings. Each worker decided his own methods and was in charge of his own tools and equipment.

Assembly workers enjoyed high status on the workers' career ladder. Individual assembly workers received boxes of items and put together entire front axles, rear axles, gearboxes or engines. They used a file and emery cloth, realigning and adjusting parts during assembly. When the plant's delivery boys brought the boxes to these imposing skilled workers, they took off their caps and bowed.
 
Forge and steel plate workers, coppersmiths, saddle makers, pattern makers and other skilled workers did their jobs under similar conditions. They worked independently and gradually taught their skills to helpers. Their working methods were highly craft-oriented. For example, Knut Georg Taberman's son and helper, Holger Taberman, made solder for his father out of tin bars and hydrochloric acid.

Machining work also required great skill. Workers themselves were responsible for pre-production engineering and for making tools and any fixed equipment. Work was allocated by distributing drawings to individual workers, who decided what cutting data to use.

The skilled workers at Scania-Vabis became the "cream" of Swedish engineering industry workers. Turnover was nearly non-existent and it was rare for people to quit. Also contributing to the low turnover was favourable wage growth. Hourly wages were not exceptionally high, but piecework rates, which were set in free negotiations with the master mechanics, resulted in very good flexible earnings. Put drastically, skilled workers set their own flexible earnings, which were normally twice as high as their hourly wages. Scania-Vabis workers were among the highest-paid in Sweden during the 1930s. They were something of a working class elite in Södertälje and were widely referred to as the "Vabis pork chop brigade".