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If you’re wondering if you’re no longer a culture fit at your organisation, here’s a quick test. Would you apply for a position at a company with this job description?
We are looking for motivated, experienced candidates with three to five years’ work experience. As a company, our core value is profits over people because we love to make money – at any cost. Speaking of, your boss won’t invest in your career development, your colleagues will be in constant competition with you and, in the not-too-distant future, you’ll resign. Oh, well. Anyway, the salary is great and there’s free beer!
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We’re guessing your answer is a firm “no”. However, the truth of the matter is, while no company will dare admit they have a culture problem – certainly not least in a job ad – there are countless companies that do. The only problem is, most of the time you won’t know about it until you’re knee-deep in the toxicity and realise that the cracks in the company culture run far too deep and wide for you to stay.
While “culture” might seem like a buzzword, like “pivot” or “new normal” or the hilarious, “low-hanging fruit”, it’s actually no laughing matter – it’s crucial to creating an environment where employees actually want to turn up every day. Imagine that. According to Frances Frei and Anne Morriss at Harvard Business Review:
“Culture guides discretionary behaviour and it picks up where the employee handbook leaves off. Culture tells us how to respond to an unprecedented service request. It tells us whether to risk telling our bosses about our new ideas, and whether to surface or hide problems. Employees make hundreds of decisions on their own every day, and culture is our guide. Culture tells us what to do when the CEO isn’t in the room, which is of course most of the time.”
If you’re no longer sure if you’re no longer a culture fit at your current place of work, here are some signs to look out for:
- The mere thought of spending the next month (let alone, the next six) at your company makes you want to breathe heavily into a paper bag.
- There appear to be no opportunities for career advancement as management keeps hiring externally.
- You’d rather eat bees than spend any time with your colleagues. Your core values don’t match theirs and you always feel like you’re on the outside.
- Your workplace has become a health hazard and you’re constantly irritated, stressed and pushed to the point of physical exhaustion.
- Your manager would give David Brent a run for his money in the embarrassment stakes.
- You couldn’t list your company’s core values if your life depended on it. Come to think of it, do they even have any?
If you’re experiencing any of the above, it’s definitely time to move on, and you’re in luck. Here are four amazing tech companies, all with an exceptional culture and positions to fill. We’d recommend applying. After all, what have you got to lose? Just don’t say, “free beer”.
Klarna
Founded in Stockholm in 2005, Klarna has rapidly grown to provide payment solutions to more than 60 million consumers across 130,000 merchants in 14 countries. Describing itself as a “young, hungry, fast-moving company with corporate muscle to make things happen”, it raised more than a billion dollars in funding and is putting a substantial amount of that money where it matters: talent.
Valuing flexibility, creativity, mentorship, trust, and collaboration, Klarna has an extremely people-centric approach to business. The company has roles for all types of workers, and it believes in having those roles be not fixed, but malleable in nature. Its motto is: if you join Klarna, who knows where you’ll end up in your career?
Sound like a place you’d like to work? View Klarna’s many open roles here.
Microsoft
According to a new report, Microsoft is the number one global company with the best workplace culture. The annual ranking is based on anonymous employee ratings for 70,000 companies shared over a 12-month period from March 2021 to March 2022.
Overall, employees at Microsoft rated its company’s culture higher than any other company with more than 500 employees. Google, often touted as a trendsetter for contemporary corporate culture, finished in third place. With its excellent salaries and benefits, exciting work, and the chance to collaborate with very talented people, it’s easy to see why.
View Microsoft’s open roles on our Job Board.
Softcat
Softcat is renowned for its company culture and values. This £1billion+ IT Solutions and Service provider has won countless industry awards, and was once again named as one of the UK’s Best Workplaces by Great Place To Work. Corporate perks and rewards, pay and opportunities for training and progression are all highlighted as benefits of working for Softcat. It’s also extremely proud of the 1400+ strong team it has assembled and believes it’s one of the things that differentiates the company from its competition.
It’s currently looking for a Fast Track Engineer to join its CloudOps team; a group of highly skilled cloud engineers who work in partnership with its customers to solve complex support issues.
To discover more companies with great culture fits, browse our Job Board.
Payfit
Payfit’s business model and mission is to revolutionise HR for all companies and, to make this as real as possible, this company has made employee fulfilment its number one priority. With its core values – care for each other; always be humble; strive for excellence; and live and work with passion – it’s committed to a culture of inclusion and an environment that enables fulfilment in freedom and responsibility. The company has a strong presence in France and has been quickly growing in Germany, Spain and in the UK. With 6,500 customers in four countries, it’s one of the fastest-growing SaaS companies in Europe and also said to have one of the best cultures.
It is currently looking for a Director of Engineering. You’ll report directly to the CTO and drive some of the most strategic initiatives for scaling the business operations. If you have at least 10 years’ experience as a hands-on Software Engineer, and a proven track record for designing and building highly complex systems, plus you want to “work from anywhere” and enjoy many of its employee benefits, you can read more about the role here.
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