American Institutes for Research Reviews

Pros

- Collegiate atmosphere
- Collaborative/project-based work
- Quality work (as opposed to bigger firms)
- Cross-discipline work (Workforce, Education, Healthcare, etc.)
- Respect and trust among novice employees
- Support for professional research (at least within the Workforce group)

Cons

- Slow organization
- Not very innovative
- Say they value work/life balance, but not always (depends on project manager)
- Pay is lower than bigger firms (Booze, Deloite, etc.)

Advice to Senior Management

- Implement some of the innovative HR stuff you promote in resaearch
- Utilize the organizational psychology experts you have to enhance your own internal HR processes
- Really demonstrate you value work/life balance

Pros

Great colleagues and benefit packages (reimbursement for commute to and from work, full salary during maternity leave).

Cons

A lot of work. Staffed to multiple (READ: More than 6) at any given time. Must be able to multi-task!

Pros

The company has a lot of nice people, which is makes it a relaxed environment to work in. The company is also located in a great location

Cons

Can get stuck on projects for a long time. There is little to no ability for job growth. The company is basically a glass ceiling.

Advice to Senior Management

There needs to be a way for people to move up within the company, which there isn't. This isn't a place anyone can work for a long time.

Pros

The research projects are engaging, valuable, and interesting.

Cons

I worked for a manager who demeaned and criticized her employees in front of the client. She was astonishingly abusive and unprofessional. Several of us complained to HR, but HR seemed to be under pressure to stand behind the manager because she brought in big projects. Her department became a revolving door for new employees who worked for as short a period as possible. We tried to stay for three years so as not to harm our work histories. However,most of us couldn't stick it out for more than a year. It was that bad! I personally knew five people who were traumatized by the whole experience and were upset even after they left because they knew they would never get a good letter of recommendation from the manager.

Advice to Senior Management

Managers have to be good people as well as fine researchers and project managers. It's not wise to protect abusive managers, and it certainly is not fair or humane.

Pros

You have your own office. You can close the door if you have noisy neighbors.

Cons

- Rampant favoritism in the Health Program. Promotion is not merit-based.
- Most members of senior leadership of the Health Program lack experience in quantitative policy research and are uninformed about current health policy issues. One senior manager (who is not a native speaker of English) has a shaky grasp of the English grammar and often wrote emails that didn't make sense at all. Another senior manager has no research experience to speak off, but she was repeated proposed as project director simply because all she did was to name-drop powerful people she claimed she knew.
- Senior leadership lacks professionalism in their treatment of junior and mid-level staff.
- Very tedious work. It is doubtful whether AIR's works have any policy consequences at all.
- Senior leadership refuses to invest in staff's job training, even on skill sets that are central to the staff's works.
- There is a lack of collegiality. People are reluctant to chat with you even if you reach out, unless you have the same charge codes with them.

Advice to Senior Management

1. You can't attract or keep competent new staff unless your senior leadership is knowledgeable, courteous, and inspiring.
2. You can't stay competitive if you charge high hourly rates for works that can easily be done by someone without an advanced degree.

Pros

This is a dynamic, fast-growing social science research company offering exciting work in many positions. AIR has gone from about 1000 employees in 2006 to over 1500 in 2011 through a process of expansions, mergers and reorganizations. New opportunities for collaborations continually present themselves.

Cons

The pace of work is very fast and expectations are high. Many colleagues feel the need to continue work in the evenings and through weekends, and eventually burn out.

Advice to Senior Management

I would like to encourage management to follow up on the analysis of the internal work environment survey. It identified several organizational aspects worth improving.

Pros

Not all divisions are completely bad. But some are so insular that they treat the rest of AIR as competitors. Best to worst: HSD, EHDW, Education, International ... Health.

Cons

Complete disregard for fairness, respect, or valuing of employees. Very inconsistent with stated mission. Work is less and less challenging as AIR chooses to partner for proposals with better-equipped companies who then provide the real value. The internal staff suffers from stagnation. Indifferent work is rewarded as well as anything.

Advice to Senior Management

Consider treating employees as potentially valuable assets to be nourished, promoted, encouraged, and perhaps kept long enough to create a true in-house team that contains the institutional knowledge and capabilities advertised.

Pros

Opportunity to work on projects that could make the world better. Good support for families.

Cons

No career support, little opportunity to grow, constant pressure to bill to clients. Long terms prospects limited by inability to change.

Advice to Senior Management

David Myers is still fairly new, may have opportunity to prove himself. Suggest he hold upper management of each division accountable for staff satisfaction and business development.

Pros

*Flexible hours and schedules
*Many nice colleagues
*Some clients are amazing and smart

Cons

*Mediocrity reigns
*No training
*Work is tedious (employees with years of experience are sometimes stuffing envelopes)
*People in the hallways look miserable.
*They will not pay for you to attend a conference or training class.
*As another poster stated, people are told when they will be promoted. This happens long before performance meetings, so it's based on who senior management likes and not on performance.
*You will probably never get a promotion.

Advice to Senior Management

Create a career track
Get rid of ineffective managers
Pay more
Get a real HR department
Vary contracts

Pros

Prestigious office location, and the firm is very flexible in allowing telecommuting.

Cons

Communication from senior management is very weak, and there definitely is a culture of "insiders" and "outsiders." The firm spends lots of money and time shuffling people around offices; this seems like time and money poorly spent.

Managing projects there is like hurding cats. Very gossipy, backstabbling environment. The organization is an impersonal revolving door.

Advice to Senior Management

Changes in management culture and expectations are poorly communicated. The lack of transparency at the organization demoralizes staff.