The environment you work in is just as important to career satisfaction as the actual job you have or the tasks you complete. You might be in the exact field you want to be in, doing work you love, but if showing up everyday drains, demoralizes or discourages you from being your best self, your chances of feeling unfulfilled or burnt out are high.
One of the reasons people sometimes leave their job is due to poor or toxic company culture. Company culture is made up of the values, attitudes and both the written and unwritten rules about the way things are done at a company. It’s driven by business owners, CEOs, leaders, managers, teams, and employees. Even though company culture usually starts at the top and trickles down, every person at a company contributes to either a healthy or toxic work environment for employees. It doesn’t matter if it’s deeply rooted organizational chaos or your coworker next to you that’s leaving you feeling burnt out or drained, if you know the culture of the company you work for is negatively impacting you, it could be time to look for a new opportunity.
As you search for career options, try using these methods to find the company culture you’re looking for:
Start by understanding what you’re looking for.
It can be easy to describe what you don’t like about the culture of your current company, but have you thought about what you’re looking for in your next opportunity? Getting specific in describing the type of environment you find healthy and inspiring will help you to know when you’ve found it. If you feel stuck on describing all the things you know you don’t want, try thinking about the opposite of those things when describing what you do want.
For example, perhaps you don’t like how competitive the culture is at your current workplace because you find it separates people and divides teams, so you know you want the next company you work for to be a cohesive team that supports each other through collaboration and celebrates successes as a team.
Name a company or brand you admire.
When thinking about your answer, your company or brand can be related to your career or can be totally separate. What is it about this company or brand that you admire? What do you know about how they run their business, what they value, how they treat their employees and/or customers, do they make a social impact or take care of the environment etc.? What about them stands out to you?
This exercise will help you consider what’s important to you and what might attract you to a potential company. Once you realize the type of company traits and values you admire, you can look for those things when you start researching companies to apply to.
Research the company on LinkedIn and on their website.
How does the company describe itself on their website and on LinkedIn? Do you feel connected to their mission, values and goals? What are they posting about or sharing? How many of their employees are on LinkedIn? What are the employees saying about the company? Are the employees posting or sharing about the company? Are there articles being written about the company? How does the company respond to comments and interact with their employees and customers?
Research the company’s reviews and ratings on Glassdoor.
What are former and current employees saying about the company in their reviews? When people can post anonymously, what are they saying? Which areas is the company ranking highly in? Which areas rank low? Compare what you’re looking for in the company culture of your next career opportunity with what’s being said in the reviews.
Talk to existing employees.
Connect on LinkedIn or email and ask for an informational interview to find out what it’s like to work for the company on a day to day basis. Keep the conversation positive and focused on the future. What do they like about the company they work for? What are the challenges? What’s it like to work as part of their team? How does the company live out its values in practice? Ask questions to discover more about the company culture and what you’re looking for.
In an interview, ask about the things that are important to you when it comes to company culture.
People often forget that they can ask questions during the interview process. So during your interview, take the opportunity to learn more about the company culture! Remember to keep the questions positive and don’t bring up negative experiences from past positions. Depending on what’s important to you, ask things such as: How do you celebrate successes as a team? How often do your employees participate in professional development? How are quarterly/yearly goals set and how are these goals communicated through various levels of the company? What are you doing to actively address diversity and inclusion? How are new employees onboarded? How is feedback given and received?
Do your part to create a positive, healthy company culture.
As we mentioned in the intro, every person at a company contributes to the overall culture of the organization. Even though it can be hard to do, try your best not to get caught up in the toxicity around you.
Whether your solution is finding a new opportunity or learning ways to manage your existing situation, talking to a career counsellor or coach can help you come up with strategies to move forward.
If reading this has you wondering if a career change is what you need, checkout our post on the 11 Signs You May Be Ready For A Career Change.
You are in charge of where you go from here.
~Ashley
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