I am currently applying for jobs, and one of the companies to which I am applying has a reputation for having a bad workplace (e.g. long hours, politics). But that's not all teams. The compensation package is good, the work life balance is not. Should I insist on work hour boundaries after I get hired (like in the following question)? Or should I not bother at all? workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/106760/…

(Currently, this is subjective IMO, hence why I am not asking on the actual The Workplace SE site.)

I guess I could always ask during the interview... workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/12386/…

@zmike It's a tricky one - in my experience any info you garner at the interview/application stage about how strictly work hours/boundaries are observed is pretty worthless. I've always found the best approach is to be "on it" from day one as it's very hard to un-set a precedent. If the company is one where they (ugh) consider a normal work day to be slacking then it's never going to work - and then the only solution is to get something else and don't look back

The only real way of getting semi-reliable info is from things like Glassdoor - but only then if there's a pattern emerging and they're from roles representative of your own

@zmike If work/life balance is important to you, don't go to a company with poor balance and expect that you can change things. Just have confidence in yourself that you can find a company that meets your needs.

@zmike I doubt you'll win out against an established company culture. If the culture doesn't value work/life balance, it simply doesn't value it

@zmike it can also depend where your info is coming from. I've worked at places people complain about but never had the issues they describe. It's not unusual for ex employees to bad mouth the places they left. Some people seem to have something bad to say about every single place they ever walked in.

@Kilisi it's from multiple current and former employees that I know (e.g. people I know from university, relatives of friends, etc.). It's not just from online reviews. But you are right, I've also heard that the work-life balance is highly team dependent, and that some have a good work-life balance.

@JoeStrazzere Hehe, I like that theory.

It's probably simpler though. Workplace interaction levels just plummeted in a matter of weeks and they have yet to fully recover. We got some WFH and "how do I handle the pandemic" questions to slightly make up for it but the overall level of interaction at work is just way lower.

Leading to much less drama and much less input for us.

IIRC a workplace advice blog I follow mentioned a very similar effect.

@zmike Somewhat subjective but provided you word it well I'd say it's answerable. It ties into those questions you ask but it's distinct. "Can I insist on a healthy work-life balance before accepting an offer?"would be an example.

Reason it should be a question is that it's a complex topic and answer.

It risks coming across as overly rigid. Even if it's sensible to not want 80 hour weeks, you might run across companies who occasionally have a 45-hour week and think you might balk at that and drop you from consideration.

So you'd want to be more subtle than that.

Interesting topic though.