Micromanagement over details that make no difference to the outcome. An atmosphere where people are afraid of making mistakes rather than keen to do a good job.
This isn’t a corporate culture. It’s a system designed to wear people down.
In Senegal, there’s a lot of talk about attracting talent, recruitment and competitiveness. There’s far less talk about what happens once someone has been recruited — and that’s often where it all comes down to.
Here are a few tell-tale signs:
→ Meetings that serve to control rather than to make progress.
→ Comments on trivial details (a comma, formatting, wording) whilst the real issues remain unclear.
→ A hierarchy where people don’t dare say “I disagree”, even when it’s justified.
→ Constant stress that becomes “normal”, to the point where nobody questions it anymore.
This sort of culture isn’t apparent in a job advert. It only becomes clear after a few weeks. And that’s often when the best talent leaves — not because they lack commitment, but because they refuse to burn themselves out for an environment that doesn’t deserve it.
A company may offer good salaries, good projects and a good reputation — but if the internal culture crushes people, none of that is enough to keep them.
Corporate culture isn’t just a nice-to-have. It’s what determines, every single day, whether employees come to work full of energy or with trepidation.