Westat Reviews

Pros

Friendly place to work. I am allowed independence to perform my tasks, which is a big plus compared to where I worked earlier, where the owner watched your every move. In other words, I am treated like an adult and allowed to prove myself in a rational atmosphere.

Cons

Atmosphere is friendly but rigid. I wish the people were a little more open with each other. Everyone seems to be watching their back a little too much.

Advice to Senior Management

More communication please.

Pros

-There is great schedule flexibility
-Good benefits
-Friendly colleagues
-Collaboration
-Stability

Cons

-Archaic methods
-Lack of rigorous research methodology across groups
-For profit mentality gets in the way of good quality work opportunities

Advice to Senior Management

Establish a better compensation structure that rewards employees mid year and allow for a more transparent communication system regarding company management issues.

Pros

As a part-time Contractor, I have absolutely flexible schedule. I may work at any time: late nights, overnights, weekends, holidays - whenever 24/7. Any days off for personal reason - no questions asked. Vacation is unlimited, could be taken any time with 3 weeks acknowledgement.

Cons

As a part-time Contractor, I have no Health Insurance. Vacation is unpaid. Training is good, but not always enough for new employees at the beginning.

Advice to Senior Management

The company conducts a lot of different projects in diverse industries. Therefor, it is difficult to advice anything to Management.

Pros

Flexible Hours
Great Health Insurance
private office space/Cubicle
Work with academic peers and not just people with little academic background who have experience.
Management was very respectful
Work although generally boring, could be challenging when deadlines came around
wonderful coworkers
nice campus
You could look for projects within westat that you would like to work in
End of year Party was great.
Birthday celebrations were great.
Casual Atmosphere
And to mention it again, Dignifying

Cons

The Pay compared to other places of comparable work and workload was horrid. It was the job I made the least salary in, but the Benefits package was highly generous.

 It was painful to see that they consistently hired people from outside, when there were very few people not working a Westat office job (if any) with a degree less than A Bachelors degree. Yet they hired people of equal or even less competence from outside.

Pay increase was very low.

Advice to Senior Management

Increase Pay. A lot of the employees are talented, and most of the time want to stay, but the pay is a real turn-off and people end up leaving. most people I worked with, loved working there, but for the pay.

Pros

This is a great job for someone who just wants a temporary gig every other year to make a little extra cash. You do need to be detail oriented, organized, and have strong interpersonal skills for this job.

Cons

This is a very time consuming job that can be stressful at times. There is a big expectation to hit the ground running, due to the time limitations of the field work. A lot a work is expected to fit within 40 hours and often overtime is needed. Expect this job to take over your life for the 2 months of field work.

Advice to Senior Management

There is often not enough time to due the work as it should be done. Make sure that the AC has enough AAs on the team to cover their schools.

Pros

The kinds of studies that Westat wins are out of this world! There are so many different types of studies that it's fairly easy to find something interesting to do-if you know the right people.

Cons

The process for getting on projects is too informal. For the most part, I was spending a lot of time searching for my own projects and this is unnerving especially when you are getting paid peanuts and are worried how you'll buy gas and food.

Advice to Senior Management

The advancement process is not effective and kills morale and is discouraging. It's presented as if it's a secret and it's up to the employee to figure it out. This is not possible if you have a family.

Pros

It's nice to be able to work my own schedule. The training was thorough and the people are nice.

Cons

I would recommend negotiating for higher rate of pay. I know that some people, and not necessarily the top performers, have negotiated a higher hourly rate. There are constant threats from management regarding performance and numbers. This feels much more like a sales job - getting your quota - than an interviewing position.

Advice to Senior Management

Trust your interviewers. Raise your pay to industry standards . Stop threatening your workers with the possibility of being let go because they haven't been able to "convince" people to do an interview. We all know that in this economy that there are people waiting to take our job. We don't need to be reminded of this every two days.

Pros

Flexibility in work schedule and family matters. Provides opportunity to telework or flex scheduling.

Cons

Academic. Cannot advance in position without Masters Degree or Phd.

Advice to Senior Management

More diversity in senior management. Senior management is comprised of white males and white females.

Pros

Short time period for work, decent hourly, mileage compensation, good co-workers

Cons

Beyond local supervisors, management and trainers are rather unapproachable.

Advice to Senior Management

Bring some personality to your work.

Pros

I learned a lot about working in a project team. I realized that given a chance I could manage a project.

Cons

As contract workers we were left out of the loop a lot. No matter how well educated you are takes a long time to be made a permant employee, even if you are a great worker. The project manager treated contract workers like they weren't really part of the team. She fostered a "them and us" environment, that was very demoralizing. I also noticed that if a person showed too much initiative it was not well received, suggestions and questions were not well received either. Creativity was not encouraged. things were done a certain way and you were expected to do that way whether or not it was the efficient way or not.

Advice to Senior Management

Contract workers are part of the team, they are just as important in ensuring that a project is successful so make sure they know that. In addition, if contract worker shows that they are ready to learn a new job it should be encouraged and the steps should be taken to ensure that that worker is given the desired training.