How to spot a toxic work environment

Finding a good work environment is often a real challenge and sometimes we don’t immediately realize that we are joining a company where the climate among co-workers is not the best.

But there are certain signs that may indicate that it is better not to move forward in the selection process, no matter how much recruiters present the company as a true paradise.

Liz Elfman, founder and director of recruitment agency E-Squared, believes it’s not always easy to spot the details that indicate a toxic work environment. In these cases, she says, it is sometimes worth appealing to the most primitive of senses: intuition.

O awesome.club gathered a series of “yellow signs” that it is good to be aware of and that may indicate that working in a certain company may be a scam.

You arrived for an interview exactly on time and now you’ve been sitting and waiting for quite some time. He’s already memorized each of the boards in the room, and the director or human resources manager still hasn’t arrived. It’s been 40 minutes and you’re still waiting. Half an hour later, the situation is the same.

When that person shows up, try to understand if the justification for so much delay is plausible or if, for example, the amount of work in the company is so great that, because of this, everyone is late. Or, worse, if your future boss just doesn’t care about you and therefore doesn’t value your time. It is unlikely that anything will change after you fill the vacancy.

Does the company that opened the job have no website or social media profile, and everything online about them sounds strangely amateurish? Stay tuned! It may be that it was founded very recently and does not have the slightest structure.

Ok, maybe you are facing a risky bet, but one day it will be a giant. Yes, this can happen especially in the technology sector. The first employees of today’s super-known companies like the e-Commerce giant Amazon or Nike worked in garages along with their founders.

But how to know? Thousands of companies founded at the same time as Amazon and Nike fell by the wayside and those who worked in them were out of a job. Ask yourself the following question: do you believe in the company? If not, it’s better to drop out from the beginning.

Your resume is clear and objectively indicates your professional interests. You want to work specifically with a certain post, and in no other. The interview is going well, but suddenly the person in charge of Human Resources, for no reason, offers another very different vacancy. Usually a lower position than what was offered.

Sometimes, in this way, recruiters check the motivation of potential employees. Or it could be a very different situation: the skills that your resume indicates serve them, but someone else has filled your vacancy before.

For example, the son of the boss’s mother’s friend, or who knows who. Again, the decision is yours.

Maybe this information wasn’t even stated in the job description, or maybe it was, but when you asked for more details before signing the contract, recruiters weren’t specific in their responses.

In this case, you are no longer facing a yellow warning sign, but a red warning sign! If recruiters don’t say anything specific openly, then there’s something wrong with the job or, worse, the company.

Workload and salary are very important issues and must be clearly stated from the beginning. If you find recruiters withholding information even when you ask for it, get out.

There is no one but you on the candidate list. Did you find it strange? Well, it’s not over. You carry out the interview and, at the same time, it is indicated that you have been selected and you receive a contract to sign.

What’s wrong with this kind of situation? Think for a moment: why are you the only candidate and were you hired right away? How many companies do you know that operate in this way? Maybe it’s because the vacancy in question is a huge stolen…

After discussing with the contractor your future obligations and working conditions, you are ready to have your formal admission. But that doesn’t seem to be a concern for the company. The HR person simply says you’re perfect for the job and you’re getting everything signed off, but the process drags on.

So, the situation can unfold as follows: you’ve been working committedly for almost a month, but your supervisor still hasn’t given you any news about your formal work permit or your contract. Even in the case of an internship, formalization is essential! However, as you are already showing your work, perhaps, when signing up, they will offer you a salary and even a lower position.

Okay, the selection process is moving forward, but at a certain point, your future boss or the HR person tells you what your job description (your tasks). And the list of activities, in practice, is much longer than what was suggested in preliminary conversations. It’s so much work that it would take two people to handle it.

If that’s the situation, maybe it’s time to check if the person who previously occupied the vacancy didn’t leave precisely because he couldn’t handle the stress of so much work. Would you take it? Again, maybe you need the job, but keep in mind that you’re going to have to work hard.

Try to observe your future colleagues. Is there a lot of gossip in the workplace? Do people treat each other very intimately? Does the boss use diminutives or augmentatives to refer to his subordinates — “oh, so-and-so”… very intimate phrases, especially coming from a superior?

Another warning sign along the same lines: Do interviewers only ask questions about your personal life? Is the interviewer not the same sex as you and asking questions about your love life? Professional companies hardly adopt this type of conduct.

Bullying at work occurs when an employee goes through embarrassing and humiliating situations and must be taken very seriously and carefully. Depending on the seriousness, it is even subject to lawsuits by the employee.

You were warned earlier that recruitment would be done in several stages, until and then that’s fine. However, they are people who demand very different things from you, each with their own criteria, sometimes being radically opposed.

Think: maybe you have more than one boss and each one has a point of view and a vision about your work in the company and you will have to manage to make both of them satisfied and leave in one piece if there is a power struggle between the two.

If, during the selection process, it is not very clear to whom you will report, take this as a warning sign.

We know that, in a market with so many unemployed people, it is often not easy to abort a selection process.

But it is important that things are clear and that you know exactly what kind of relationship you will have with your colleagues once you start working at a company.

If the situations we brought up in our post are familiar to you, tell us about your experiences in the comments!