UC Berkeley Employee Review

I worked at UC Berkeley full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Pension remains a big factor for people to stay. Being able to work with researchers on meaningful research makes the job seem very fulfilling. There are lots of career opportunity inside the UC system if one wants to try other things.

Cons – Pension is good but that will be cut. All the budget cuts make employees feel unsettled. Promotion is pretty hard, especially being reclassed into a different job classification. Most people end up moving between departments to move up. Some of the university systems are really not that well designed but there is no resources to do improvement. The result is a vicious cycle where inefficiencies cannot be addressed, which in term, leads to more resources being wasted.

Advice to Senior Management – The HR policies really need to be reviewed. The way the policies are designed now protects seniority too much. Employees are an organization's main asset. They need to stay competitive. I have seen too many people who intentionally introduced inefficiencies (such as extra lag time and unnecessary approvals or forms) just so that paperwork take super long to go through. That way, the expectation stays low. And that's how everyone will see the UC system - bureaucratic and slow. And those are also the ones that cannot be laid off because of seniority. I had seen management avoiding the layout of a person because that person could bump another excellent and hardworking employee. Policy like the seniority bumping can really drive the talented ones away.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company