When you’re interviewing for a new job or simply see your workplace shifting to a different culture, there are red flags to be on the lookout for. When it comes to acceptable workplace practices, you need to have hard and fast rules that you stick to in order to keep from finding yourself in a workplace situation you hate.
Here are some red flags you need to be on the lookout for at any potential (or current) place of employment.
Work-Life Balance
Finding a healthy work-life balance is tough even in a job you love. Often, employers want you to give your all when you’re at work, and many jobs transitioning to work-from-home for the pandemic has made it that much harder to draw the line between home and work life.
That being said, it’s critical that you draw that line distinctly and let your employer know that you’ll only be working during work hours.
Managers that expect you to work long hours with no promise of overtime pay, insist you work nights and weekends, and generally encourage a culture of “crunch” are managers you want to avoid. These behaviors show a lack of respect for your time and for your well-being. You don’t want to work for people who don’t respect you as a person.
Reasonable Expectations
This one plays into a similar vein as work-life balance, but it earns its own mention. You want to work for people who have realistic expectations for their employees. If you’re expected to do the job of two people after a coworker leaves, but you’re not given a raise to represent this increase in responsibility, then this is a place you don’t want to work for.
There is something soul-crushing about working for a manager who expects you to be able to handle a team’s worth of work by yourself. You’re always wishing you could do more, comparing yourself to others, when you’re actually being squeezed by a penny-pinching manager who just doesn’t want to hire a full team.
Promotions
Ask around any given office: when was the last time you got a promotion? If the majority of people in an office haven’t even gotten raises in over a year, this is probably not a place you want to work.
As you get older, you can’t keep making the same amount of money. Inflation alone will eventually catch up to you, not to mention your increasing cost of living as you age. If a workplace isn’t willing to promote you, it’s not a place you should be working.
