Fear of getting a job in a toxic environment

Charlotte_Ca

I'm currently on a maternity cover and my contract ends end of May. The company advised that since the lady is coming back full time, they are not going to keep me as there aren't any other jobs currently at the company either.

It was a nice job and the people were decent. I couldn't feel very related to them but at least they weren't toxic. They were very good at training me etc.

I'm now scared because my last job was very bad and in this job I put a lot of effort to find myself again and feel confident in what I was doing. I'm scared of ending up again in a toxic environment. The reason why I'm saying this is because some of the companies I've been looking at, have bad reviews  on indeed. They mention cliques, micromanagement and toxic people. 

Has anyone else had a similar experience and if so how did you find strength again?

Grumpy_chap

The reviews on Indeed or other such sites may not be representative.
The majority of employers pay an ever increasing focus on employee wellbeing.
It is a very difficult thing to assess ahead of accepting a job, so all you can do is take a positive attitude and move on if the environment is truly toxic.  The more positive your own attitude, the less likely the environment will be toxic as your own input will influence the whole.

elsien

I’ve looked at my last two companies on glassdoor and my experience has always been better than the ratings they give. I do think with things like that it’s more likely to be disgruntled employees who go and post.

For bigger companies with several offices, obviously so will be better than other, depending on the culture in the management style. Try not to overthink it - as and when you get an interview, you can try and suss out the culture then. 

coffeehound

One key point would be to avoid temporary contracts and aim for permanent roles.  Temps are often treated as second-class employees

DullGreyGuy

There are times when buzz phrases are really not helpful and I am afraid that "toxic environment" in a work context is one that just means a hundred different things depending on who you ask.

I once did an outbound telesales job, certainly not my favourite, and speaking to a friend who worked there too they recently described it as "toxic" and I was confused. They hated the high pressure sales and that if you failed to sell you were out... to me that was part of the job and actually the team was really good,  other than the sales it was fairly relaxed whereas to me working at another call centre with someone at your desk waiting for you if your toilet break was over 3 minutes was much worse. 

Its always a bit of a gamble when you take on a new job but once you know what you like and dont rather than using a buzz phrase it makes it easier to do research on if a place is likely to be for you or not. A previous place on glass door had a lot of negative reviews, most were commenting that if you weren't an alcoholic you won't fit in. Well I am not sure I'd go that far but I liked the fact that if you wanted to socialise with your colleagues that most nights something was going on that you could join. 

coffeehound said:

One key point would be to avoid temporary contracts and aim for permanent roles.  Temps are often treated as second-class employees

It depends... some companies its true, others its not. Also depends on the type of temp. As a day rate contractor for over a decade it's varied a lot but then I get paid well enough that I really dont care that I'm not invited to the Xmas party or team quarterly lunch... as I say, I'll just go home and cry into my day rate. As with the example above, almost half the team were temps and with the exception of the Xmas party you were free to join everything. 

At my new gig I'm 6 months in, will be gone in 6 months, but thats what I do. There are other temps there with over a decade with the client and many people dont even realise they are temps. 

Marcon

DullGreyGuy said:

There are times when buzz phrases are really not helpful and I am afraid that "toxic environment" in a work context is one that just means a hundred different things depending on who you ask.
 

I couldn't agree more. It's a fashionable phrase which, if you ask someone to explain what they mean (and I've done so on more than one occasion), is shorthand for 'I don't like my job/don't get on with my colleagues'.

OP - don't believe all you read. People are far quicker to leave bad reviews than good ones, and anonymous sites where you can take a potshot at a former employer, supplier or whatever is a golden opportunity to seek revenge, especially when the reviewer has actually been the agent of their own (often imagined) misfortune.

LightFlare

In the nicest possible way - looking at your previous threads, I think you maybe need to figure out how to ignore whats happening around you and realise that not everything that happens or is said in the workplace is personal

Have you considered retraining and/or changing job sector -- it doesn't appear as if your current one is a good match for you

SadieO

Marcon said:

DullGreyGuy said:

There are times when buzz phrases are really not helpful and I am afraid that "toxic environment" in a work context is one that just means a hundred different things depending on who you ask.
 

I couldn't agree more. It's a fashionable phrase which, if you ask someone to explain what they mean (and I've done so on more than one occasion), is shorthand for 'I don't like my job/don't get on with my colleagues'.

I see these as quite different things. They can and often do co-occur but I've been in jobs I disliked but wouldn't describe as toxic, and vice versa. I see a toxic work environment as one where there are things like bullying and harrassment (overt or subtle, such as snidey comments about someone being off sick for instance). Micromanagement or lack of trust and support from managers. Excessively hierarchical, for instance not valuing the work done or the opinion of someone because they are on a lower pay grade. People getting favourable treatment because they are mates with or related to the manager. Power trippy managers. Gossipping and backstabbing. Unfair distribution of workload. Blame culture, especially if lower grade staff get thrown under the bus. All of these things can create a toxic environment and can happen even if you like the actual work you are doing and your colleagues. 

TELLIT01

The working environment is largely down to the quality of management i.e. how they many potentially difficult relationships between staff members.  A poor manager will permit a 'toxic environment' to develop whilst a good manager will stop it.  There is no way to know for certain what the environment will be like until you are working there.  The problem works both ways.  At my wife's last employer before retirement a number of people were interviewed to take over from her.  The person who got the job apparently seemed great at interview but turned out to be the employee from hell once in the job.

Pinneypen

I do three things to check up on a job and see if it's toxic.

1. Check online reviews and get an idea of why they feel it's toxic. Some toxic places are obviously toxic in a bad way, some times it doesn't matter. E.g. one common issue is they are bureacratic, but that also often means stuff is slow and chill so it's fine. It's more of an issue if they hate work life balance.

2. Talk to current team members and see how they are and if they are nice people before you take the job.

3. Find ex employees of the place on linkedin and message them and see why they left. Ex employees tend to have good gossip.

Charlotte_Ca

Grumpy_chap said:

The reviews on Indeed or other such sites may not be representative.
The majority of employers pay an ever increasing focus on employee wellbeing.
It is a very difficult thing to assess ahead of accepting a job, so all you can do is take a positive attitude and move on if the environment is truly toxic.  The more positive your own attitude, the less likely the environment will be toxic as your own input will influence the whole.

What makes me think though that the reviews are representative is because in my last job there were reviews saying how toxic the environment is and after joining I realised why they were saying this. 

But I agree some times it's difficult to assess ahead. I guess it also depends on the department. If it is a very big company then it doesn't mean that every department is bad.

True about the positive attitude. The thing is it takes energy to be positive when the environment is bad and then I feel drained out.