[00:00]

Are you terrified of going to work? Do you feel like you’re scared of making a mistake because you’re going to get reprimanded, you’re going to get judged? There’s going to be a lot of issues there. Are you safe to share your ideas if you see something that needs to be corrected or fixed or you think, hey, we could really improve this process, are you free to say that? Are you free to speak up in a meeting?

Hello, and welcome to The Career Shake Up Podcast. I’m your host, Kristin Szalajko. I’m a certified professional career coach who specializes in career exploration. I believe everyone deserves a meaningful career they love. I know it can be hard to find that career, and that’s why I’m here. I’ve developed an easy formula to help you identify the right career path for you. Let’s shake up the way you view your career. I’m going to challenge you to look at careers in a brand-new way. Whether you’re stuck in a job you don’t like or just starting out on your path, my goal is to empower you, to take control of your career.

[01:02]

Hello. Welcome back. It’s Thursday here. I don’t know if it’s Thursday for when you’re listening to this, but welcome. As you may know, we are going through the six key elements to a happy career. So, it’s a series of episodes where I’m covering each element. I break them down because I really want you to ponder what each of these mean, what it means for you, what this looks like for you, so that you can kind of internalize this and find the right career for you. So, I provided a free PDF. You can find it in the show notes of this episode or any of the really the last few episodes. And it just walks you through what each of the key elements are. And it just asks you some brainstorming, thought provoking questions to help you identify what it is you’re looking for in each of those. So, I really encourage you to go find that in the show notes.

Okay, so today we’re going to talk about the company that you work for. The company you work for can really make or break your experience. I think we’ve all had experiences where we’ve worked for great companies and awful companies. Hopefully you’re at a great company at the moment, but if not, I’m going to teach you how to kind of move past that and find a good company. But there’s a few reasons and a few, well… it seems obvious why you want to work for a good company, right? It could just, I don’t know, working for a bad company can really break you. But if you can understand the elements of what you need to look for in a good company. This will help you when you’re choosing the companies to work for.

I have another guide. I’ll put that in the show notes, too. It’s just a list of questions, questions you can ask in an interview. And one – these will help you land the job. But two, and I think more importantly, is these are questions that will help you identify red flags in a company. They’re going to help you identify whether the company is a good fit for you, and you like what they’re doing and you’re going to find happiness there. They’re awesome. They’re super helpful. And that’s kind of the way you catch a good company, right, is in the interview process. So, I’ll link that again in the show notes, you can find it.

[03:20]

So, let’s just break down what working for a good company looks like. So, the most obvious, I think, is good management. You want to work for a company where you feel supported, where you’re receiving feedback. Like when you have a question in your job, or you come upon a problem and you don’t have to solve it. You want to feel safe to go ask questions, right? Like, is there maybe there’s an online, like, network where you can…of resources where you can turn to to try to find the answer to your problem. Maybe there’s people in your office or virtually right that you can reach out to to try to get…try to ask questions and get answers. So, you just want to have support at work.

You want to be able to make sure you’re getting feedback from your manager. Are they telling you where you are? How much feedback do you need? That’s personal preference, but you need at least occasional check ins to know that you’re producing the work they’re expecting or if there’s any issues that needs to be a part of this. Right? Micromanagers versus macro managers. Again, personal preference, but you need to know what kind of management you’re willing to work for.

Episodes but my first professional job, I had a management or a manager that was really angry all the time. I was just terrified. Every time he asked me to come to his office, I was just like paranoid because I was worried he was going to yell at me and I was going to screw up. And of course it was my first job, so I did screw up a lot. I just didn’t understand stand everything. I mean, I was trying I was genuinely trying to learn. I mean, I tell them I could do something, I get back to my desk and I’d Google like, how do I do that thing? So, I’m trying to teach myself at work how to do it, but I’m, you know… my relationship with him really made my whole experience, or for me, it kind of broke my experience, and so management makes a difference, right?

So, the other part of that is one, you have a manager, your bosses, but you also have colleagues, so the people you work with matter. Now, they don’t have to be your best friends, but you have to at least get along with them, right? You have to feel like you kind of fit into the culture what’s happening there now. Maybe you do want to find your best friends at work. Maybe it’s critical to you, maybe it’s really important to you, maybe you need a social life, and work is typically where you find that. If that’s the case, then you want to make sure there’s a good connection there. And maybe you don’t, maybe it doesn’t matter. For me, I’ve always gotten along with my colleagues, but I just never find my best friends at work, and so I’m not too concerned about that. I always seem to land in places where I’m the youngest and everybody’s older than me, and so clearly, they’re not going to be my best friends, but we certainly get along.

They also want to just feel valued by those you work with. Do they appreciate the work you’re doing? Are they acknowledging what you’re doing? Sometimes you’re working with people who are stealing your thunder or throwing you under the bus, and that obviously can break your experience, so just look for that.

Another part of a good company is training and procedures. When you have a job that offers you no training, no procedures, no nothing, you could just feel really lost. I had two clients before who both worked at the same company. It’s a well-known company. I won’t mention the name, but when they came in, neither of them got training. And when they had questions about what they were supposed to do, how they were supposed to handle certain situations, there was no one to give them answers. And they just were kind of left in the dark trying to figure it out. It just wasn’t a healthy situation. Both of them were miserable, quite honestly, for many reasons, but that was one of them. And so you just want to make sure that the company is going to provide you proper training.

Another one is procedures. Procedures can kind of go in connection with engagement, which we’ve talked about before, and I think procedures are healthy, but they certainly could go overboard. Right? If you have so many procedures that you can’t even like…you just have to check each box as you go along, and you can’t think on your own and you have no control of what’s happening, maybe that’s a little too much. But if there’s no procedures at all for what’s happening, it’s going to be mass chaos at work, right?

Working for a startup, you’re going to have less procedures. They’re going to have less things figured out. You’re going to be kind of helping and assisting in creating those procedures and processes. And maybe that’s okay for you. And, you know, that’s not necessarily right or wrong here. You just need to know what you’re comfortable with.

[07:41]

And another part of working for a good company is psychological safety. Are you terrified of going to work? Do you feel like you’re scared of making a mistake because you’re going to get reprimanded, you’re going to get judged? There’s going to be a lot of issues there. Are you safe to share your ideas? If you see something that needs to be corrected or fixed or you think, hey, we could really improve this process, are you free to say that? Are you free to speak up in a meeting? And you just want to know that you could be your authentic self. Do you have to put on a show when you come to work? Do you get to be yourself and feel comfortable there?

That makes a huge difference in our experience, right? When we just don’t feel safe at work to be ourselves and safe at work to speak our minds, we really can kind of bottle up and shut down. And that’s really unhealthy for you, and that tends to carry over to your personal life right, outside of work. So, you want to feel safer work.

Another part of a good company is ethics. You want to work for someone that has good ethics. My husband took a job once in his career, and he was a marketing manager, and he hated the job so much – for a few reasons. But one of them was that they just were really unethical. They were a software company, and they were making up case studies to try to get new customers, right? So, they would just make up these stories from other companies and other clients just to try to sell people. And he just got really uncomfortable with that. He’s like, this is not honest. I don’t like what they’re doing, and I got to leave. So, he left because he just couldn’t handle the ethics. He wasn’t okay compromising himself for a job.

Unfortunately, he left and then COVID hit three weeks later, which nobody saw coming. So that was a setback for a little while, but he did end up finding another job, and he’s doing just fine. I think we’ve all had positive and negative examples of working for a good company. I’ve shared my first job and how that was a bad experience. But the company I’m at now is my positive example.

I love it because they understand that I have a life. I have a life outside of work. If a kid gets sick and I have to call off work, they get it. If I have to take off for a couple of hours to take my kids to the doctor – they get it. If my kid has a play, I get to go. And they’re flexible; they work with me, right?  I’ve gone on maternity leave quite a few times and I still get to come back.

But they also trust me at work, which is what I really love. I get to come in, I get to do my job, and they trust me. Like, I make mistakes. I have. But I’ve never ever been yelled at or belittled or just made you feel terrible because I messed up. But of course I make mistakes. I’m human, everybody does. But I feel safe there. I feel safe at work, which is one of the reasons why I love the company I work for. And it tends to be very supportive company. If someone needs help, there’s always somebody there willing to jump in and answer your question and to help you out.

[10:58]

So, like I mentioned, the best way to spot this in a company is through an interview. Obviously, we can’t hand pick the company you want to work for and then it just works out that way. Hopefully it does work out that way, but sometimes you’re at the mercy of whoever will give you an interview. And so just remember, in an interview, it’s a two-way process. They’re interviewing you for the job, but you’re also interviewing them to make sure it’s a good fit for both of you.

So, I just want to give you an example of a few of the questions you could ask in an interview. You could say, tell me about the team culture. Is this a collaborative role or an independent role? What does the training process look like? What’s the management styles? Are there opportunities for advancement or professional development? Why did you come to the company? That’s a question you could ask the interviewer. Do you hold company events or families or employees? Will there by travel? How’s the relationship between you and your manager? Those are just a couple of examples of what you can ask to help you start seeing red flags or get confirmation that the company you’re interviewing for is a good company.

Check out that freebie that I mentioned. It kind of gives you a list of questions to ask an interview and you’ll find it to be very helpful. You can find that on my website at kristinszalajko.com/episode8 and it’ll be there.

So, thank you for joining. That’s all I have for you today.

[Outro]

Thank you for joining me today. I hope you found value as you listened. If there’s anyone you feel can use this episode, please go ahead, and share it with them. Also, you’re likely listening to this on the go. When you find a quiet moment, could you be so kind as to leave me a review? That will help others find me as well. Be sure to come back next week for the next episode. Same time, same place. Have a great week.