It’s not a new notion, but there is a growing backlash towards toxicity in the workplace, which is great! People aren’t putting up with your shit in the name of an £18k job anymore. This isn’t a third-world country during its industrial revolution. We’re in the 21st century, and staff deserve respect. It’s not that hard.
Whether this is more/less difficult during the WFH revolution, I’m not so sure yet. But with reduced, and entirely different, interaction between employees, it’s gotta be as important as it’s ever been, surely?
“The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.”
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Though some people persist: ‘I need this job’ or ‘I’m breaking into this industry’, the key takeaway from Steve’s quote is don’t settle. There are a dozen other companies who would value your work.
I’ve been through enough of these, so here’s my red flags to look for that means you should GTFO of that workplace, now.
🚩Poor treatment of past employees
I’ve been at this one a few times so it’s an incredibly apparent one for me. Staff come and go. Especially in agency-land. Turnover is almost expectedly high.
What’s the general vibe like towards staff who’ve left for (frankly, better) pastures?
Look for: ‘ah, shit, Katie is absolutely smashing it in her now job! Good for her!’ or ‘Scott was only here for a short time, but did a great job’.
Definitely not: Look, some bad apples can royally fuck up a place. But in general, workplaces and especially middle managers should never be negative towards past employees. It is not a good look for the business they represent. Words like traitor, bad-mouthing of probably quite good work of past employees, or general upturned noses should all be very apparent warning flags. Don’t join in, ever.
If you’re an employer who does this, get over it. Move on. For fucks sake.
🚩Failure to listen
I know, I like to think I’m right. Sometimes I’m even wrong. But…
You’re literally paying money for my expertise and not listening to it.
This one really manifests over a long time. Unless requested, you can’t come in and within your first week rip up the rulebook and start again. Don’t expect sweeping changes early on. But if you’re still banging those same drums 12 months, 24 months on? Red flag, baby.
I believe this one is linked to a control problem (see the final point in this list). Very much ‘I’m right, you’re wrong’. Which is never how the employer-employee relationship should work.
Validate it: quash this one in the interview. Something like: ‘if I noticed there was a more effective way to do my job, how could you help me make that happen?’
🚩Lack of respect
Pretty obvious isn’t it?
How this one sometimes manifests itself:
- nepotism, cliques of upper-management pals, boys-clubs, herds of dinosaurs who ‘know best’, blatant misogynists, staff who’ve been there long enough to have gained immunity. Junior or new member of staff who doesn’t fit into one of these buckets? Good luck.
- Overbearing attempts at authority. LOL. When the geezer who knows absolutely fuck all about anything tries to give you a dressing down on the virtue that they’ve been there for five years and thinks they’ve seen it all. Pull the other one, pal. Sometimes you can be more experienced and wrong. It happens.
- You’ve made a slight boob — WE ALL DO — but someone has snakily copied in your direct line manager. This kind of behaviour can get RIGHT IN THE FUCKING BIN.
- Lack of compassion towards anything that isn’t work-related. Think: ‘oh so fuck if you won your football game at the weekend’. I’ve seen good colleagues of mine have compassionate leave been made an issue of. If that doesn’t tell you something about the type of manager, I don’t know what ever will.
What to look out for: this one should be easy to spot in an interview situation. Try probing questions that would matter to you and ask how the employer would respond. Try to develop trusting your gut instinct on character judgement. Otherwise, you’re gonna have to rely on first-party accounts, or sucking it and seeing.
🚩Micromanagement from the top down
By far and away my #1 red flag/breeding ground of a toxic workplace is the micro-manager. We all know them, right? If you haven’t, count yourself incredibly lucky.
The micromanager makes everyone else’s lives a living hell because they have an inherent inability to delegate. Where this comes from is sometimes well-meaning (“I want to see quality”) which is why it runs rampant in a lot of business. But it’s well studied, and it does not create a good workplace environment.
Things to watch out for
- ‘Let me check that email before you send it’
- Noticing in-depth parts of your work which have been validated or overlooked by someone who really should be just letting you get on with it. Think: Mailchimp campaign settings, history of Google Drive documents(!), intricate breakdowns of your comms
- Overall, and wider communications problems stemming from their desire to internalise and control everything
In my experience the root cause of the micromanager is because they are a control freak. This may well work well in some industries. But in marketing, 🤣 watch your back, or better still, just get out of there.
Do your preparation.
It can sometime be impossible to spot these things until you’re deep into the job. But you can do some prep-work to mitigate the risk of ending up in a toxic culture workplace.
- LinkedIn – I don’t think it’s out of bounds to ask existing staff what the score is. See also, ‘company name – past employees’ …how many?!
- Online presence: are the website team/culture pages and the social profiles full of guff-words, and little to no back-up? Does culture = pool table? (it may well to you, in which case, great!)
- Simple interview questions. “What’s the best thing about working here” or “how do you celebrate success?” can tell a lot about an organisation. The interview is your only real chance to decide if the employer is right for you — not the other way around.
- Glassdoor: it has its flaws, for sure. But it’s a great place to spot trends of employees complaints. Go and Google some of the top NE agencies and I think you’ll get a pretty good flavour for what the staff have really got to say.
It’s a tough world out there, but if everyone does their bit to notice and where possible — call out — these behaviours, the world of work gets better for us all, and especially the class of ’21.
