Human Rights First reviews

2018 was a terrible year for the organization - financially, for morale, and for reputation. Things had been relatively positive until that point - although clearly the organization was not financially stable. When times are tough, you can either motivate people and double down on your principles and values - or you can create a Darwinian system where you allow people to be disrespected, enable narcissism to be used as a management principle, and sexism concerns to go unaddressed. Employees were not (all) very treated well during a period of upheaval and layoffs. Doors were shut, heads were held down. When concerns were raised in particular about certain people in senior management, e.g. a member of the exec team's harsh and inexperienced management of staff from interns up to directors, the paraphrased message given was that being a bad manager and being mean were not disqualifying characteristics. And, if cruel management tactics delivered results, perhaps there would be a rationale. But, in a human rights organization people generally (correctly) expect to be treated with kindness and respect. I saw how harsh tactics made people freeze and become less productive.

Stuck in an ivory tower on the policy side and don't seem to get the connection from abstract human rights principles and human beings. There is an over-emphasis on the quest for the perfect policy brief that few people will read. And yet the staff feel consistently under-valued and mistreated.