One of the most stressful parts of the job search is evaluating whether or not a certain company would be a good place to work.  Questions you ask yourself could be: How do I pick a good place to work? How do I know if I will like working in a certain company?

An article in the Society for Human Resource Management magazine looked at data from the Effective Workplace Index which identified characteristics of high performing versus low performing organizations.  The index compared how employees behave in high performing environments versus how employees behave in low performing environments. Some of the items in the index may be of interest to you as you research a company to find a good place to work.

For example, the data shows that in high performing organizations, 77% of employees want to stay versus 30% of employees who want to stay at a low performing company.

Another example is that 55% of people in high performing companies indicate that they are engaged in their jobs versus only 17% in low performing workplaces.

How would you use this information to your advantage as you consider where would be a good place to work?  Here is one way.

During the job interview, most recruiters and hiring managers, give job candidates an opportunity to ask questions about the company.  Consider formulating questions that would help you get a sense of whether or not it is a high or low functioning environment based on how people in that company feel about their satisfaction or their engagement.

Here are a couple questions you could ask:

Question 1: What is the employee turnover like in this position? 

This will help you understand if people are staying with the company or not.  If you hear that people get promoted from this position into other roles, that could be a good sign that this is a good place to work.  If you sense that they are posting this job all the time, you might think that people don’t want to stay.

Question 2: What are some of the things that leaders in this company do to make sure employees are engaged with their work?
  If you get a response that the company conducts employee engagement surveys or that managers coach employees to meet company objectives, while taking employee career goals in mind, you may think they are doing more to engage employees.  If you hear nothing about these types of activities, then you might think that engagement is not a priority for them.

Choosing the right place to work is just as important to job applicants as finding the right employee is to companies.  It you don’t hear the responses you expect, it doesn’t mean that you won’t enjoy working there or it won’t be a good fit for you, it just means you have more information to make a better, more informed decision about this company as a potential place to work.

Ask the questions that will get you the information that you care about as you evaluate whether or not an organization would be a good place for you or not. It’s better to learn more up front, instead of finding out after you start working.

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