What do you do if you love your job but hate office culture?

The main problem of corporate culture: what one employee considers ideal, for another can turn into a living hell. Suppose you prefer to separate work and personal life, respect someone else’s personal space and cannot stand idle chatter, and your colleagues turn any business meeting into a lively gathering and invite the whole team to their birthday party. Or vice versa – you are sorely lacking in camaraderie and spending time together in a team, between whose members a rather significant distance is accepted.

And it’s not necessarily about the fact that you ended up in a toxic environment, you just don’t fit into this particular company. Apart from this, you may like the work, you can perfectly cope with the duties, love what you do. And how to be? How do you know if it’s worth sticking with or if it’s time to leave? And is corporate culture really that important?

Office culture only came into focus for employers a few decades ago. Each company has its own, there are several universal rules. A good corporate culture is one in which every employee feels supported and understands that they are valued; in a bad one, it is often about harassment and insults.

Research shows that in companies with favorable environments, employees work better, which allows such firms to thrive. Employees who are dissatisfied with the prevailing atmosphere in the company do not linger in place for a long time, and it takes six to nine monthly salaries of a retired employee to find and train a newcomer. Investing in corporate culture is not philanthropy, but a path to better financial results.

Everyone understands in their own way

You can understand what the corporate culture of a company is only by working in it. It may turn out that the bonuses that the employer stakes on (table tennis tables or donuts on Fridays) are not so important for employees.

Another problem is that corporate culture still does not have a clear, accepted definition. “This is the way we work,” said Hewlett-Packard’s 1980 manifesto, which is considered one of the first steps in recognizing the importance of corporate culture. “It’s how people treat each other in the workplace,” disagrees Chris Edmonds, founder of The Purposeful Culture Group.

Most experts believe that culture includes a well-established set of shared values ​​and group behaviors among employees.

If you are invited for an interview, there is no guarantee that the corporate culture adopted by the company will suit you, of course, but it is still worth taking a few steps. Search the Web for employee reviews, study the site of a potential employer: does it say anything about values. If the company is large enough and they write about it in the media, look in what way; you may come across stories about employees. Feel free to ask direct questions during the interview. For example, specify what happens if an employee makes a mistake, what behavior is welcomed and, conversely, not approved. Be sure to ask to be shown around the office.

Leave can’t stay

But what if you already work for a company and realize that the atmosphere does not suit you? First, ask yourself: is this just an inconvenience or a real problem? Does what I’m experiencing affect how I do my job? If not, perhaps you can look at the situation differently.

Try to globally revise your approach to work. For example, salespeople who spend most of the day in meetings and set their own schedules find it easier to come to terms with an inappropriate corporate culture than those who spend all day in the office. The more freedom, the more things are easier to put up with. Staying with the company, you must understand that you will have to put in extra effort to maintain productivity and motivation.

But hoping that one day you will be able to change the corporate culture is not worth it. Experts are sure that one person is powerless to influence it, unless he is a leader (and it is difficult for him to change something on his own).

Of course, you can move in small steps and build new relationships at least with those with whom you work side by side. You can start to support each other, learn to think creatively together, offer non-standard solutions, and, perhaps, sooner or later, other departments and teams within the company will follow your example. The main thing is to ask yourself whether the game is worth the candle, whether the efforts will pay off in the long run.

You can do your job well even if you are very unhappy with the office culture, but it’s exhausting. Answer yourself the question of how long you are ready to exist in this mode. It’s up to you to stay or leave, but if you really love your profession and duties, try to find a place where it will be more pleasant to perform them.

Source: Medium.