The position, pay and perks were exactly what you hoped for and the job search didn't take that long after all. You even got that corner office with a view of the palm trees and city skyline that you were craving. And yet, four weeks after joining, it all doesn't feel right; in fact you feel quite miserable and depressed about the new job. So what went wrong? As the career experts at the Middle East's #1 job site bayt.com explain below, chances are, you simply don't fit into the company culture.
Company culture is that intangible, difficult to define, set of values, beliefs, practices, styles and attitudes that are shared by, and shape the interactions of a company's employees. It is at its most basic, the 'personality', or 'character' of a company as defined by the collective styles and personalities of the people that work there.
Cultures may change over time as employees leave a company and others take their places bringing with them a different set of values, attitudes and agendas but the stronger and more ingrained a company culture is and the more leadership has taken steps to align the culture with the company's goals, the slower that pace of change will be.
Working at a company where the vision, mission, ethics and values, as manifested by the norms of the group, or as articulated in the company handbook, are incongruent with yours can be highly stressful, unrewarding and counterproductive. Employees who clash with the company culture may feel their acceptance by the group wane and will generally experience a feeling of hopelessness and despair with their surroundings that will probably permeate their attitude and influence their productivity and longevity in the position. Employees who really feel at odds with the culture and alienated by it may start experiencing all the symptoms of depression with the result that their work performance may be severely impeded.
You are far from likely to advance and excel in a company if you are dissatisfied with the work conditions and environment or if the generally acceptable behavioral cues are alien or unacceptable to you.
Professional career consultants at top executive search firms such as Bayt.comExecutive Search spend an inordinate amount of time trying to understand a company's culture to ensure that the candidate they place, in addition to being able and willing to do the job, is a perfect cultural fit, and that the placement they make is one that will withstand the long-term.
So how can you determine a company's culture before it is too late and you have already signed on the dotted line?
The answer is to be a keen observer and ask all the right questions at the interview stage, perhaps right after you receive the offer letter, but before you sign your life away. If you have friends or acquaintances in the company, even better; have them elaborate on what it is really like, on a day-by-day basis, to work for the company.
Better still, ask to visit the company for a day to spend time with the people you will be working with if permissible or to attend a meeting where you can observe the people in their own surroundings and analyse, albeit to a very limited extent, their interactions and modus operandi. If that is out of the question, ask for a tour of the company.
It is important to meet every person you will be working with so if you haven't yet by the time you receive the offer letter, ask before you sign it. When you do visit the company, trust your instincts, and don't turn a blind eye to screaming cultural cues, be it a highly clinical atmosphere, happy friendly faces in the cafeteria, a row of consistently closed doors, a throng of people playing pool in the lobby area or an un-budging full house at6 pm.
Online reviews such as on Salaries by Bayt.com, blogs, company message boards, college alumni boards and other networking sites are also a good way to make enquiries about a company's culture and to assess the 'intangible' benefits or drawbacks of working there. Contact your college alumni association, find out if there are fellow alumni who work at the company and ask to speak with them to ask the questions you really need answered. Suppliers, competitors and clients can also often shed valuable insight into the company's culture.
The following are some key questions that can shed light on the company's culture and should help you make the decision as to whether your values and life choices are consistent with the company's. The more the interviewer or employee can articulate answers to the following questions, the less likely you are to be taken by surprise the first week of the job. Watch out for the word unspoken and the question left unanswered as that may also shed some light on what areas the employer may be weak in or prefers to leave unaddressed.
At the end of the day, if you are looking to advance and excel in a company, you are better off in a place that upholds the same set of values you do or at least where there is no significant cultural clash and you do not feel your ethics, values, objectives or sense of integrity are being compromised in any way. Forewarned is forearmed as they say and while you will never really know a company till you work there, diligent detective work and the right line of questioning should at least avert any substantial surprises once your new business cards have been ordered and your nameplate is at the door.
