Human Rights First reviews about "management"

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.

Needs better management. Over work for little pay.

Absolutely atrocious senior management. They don’t seem to care that staff are working every single Saturday and Sunday and constantly staying late or logging on early just to keep up. Meanwhile, senior leadership gets holiday breaks and takes vacations while the rest of us can’t realistically use time off because the workload is so overwhelming. When they fire employees, they just expect everyone else to absorb the cases with no support. They keep talking about funding cuts, yet senior leadership is making $200k+ salaries and they even created another senior leadership position. It’s a horrible place to work. People should seriously consider other organizations instead.

Absolutely atrocious senior management. They don’t seem to care that staff are working every single Saturday and Sunday and constantly staying late or logging on early just to keep up. Meanwhile, senior leadership gets holiday breaks and takes vacations while the rest of us can’t realistically use time off because the workload is so overwhelming. When they fire employees, they just expect everyone else to absorb the cases with no support. They keep talking about funding cuts, yet senior leadership is making $200k+ salaries and they even created another senior leadership position. It’s a horrible place to work. People should seriously consider other organizations instead.

management struggles to lead, treat staff as valuable

In spite of the fact that most employees are deeply committed to HRF's mission, this remains the worst place I have ever worked. Managers across the board are either ineffective (think: brilliant lawyers but not great managers) or abusive. The person I worked under belittled me, gossiped about me in the office, yelled at me and others (on one occasion, a volunteer sobbed because of this person's actions), and otherwise acted unprofessionally on a daily basis. They have since been promoted, and remain at HRF. It's shocking and sad that such a well-meaning organization continues to advance people that are toxic to work culture, and whose overall lack of management skill contributes to high turnover and the loss of good, driven employees. It's more shocking that repeated staff feedback on this issue has gone unheeded.

Enormous disconnect between executive leadership and staff The organization feels a little directionless -- priorities feel as if they shift dramatically with little communication, and there is almost no transparency on how resources are allocated to programs throughout the organization Difficult to advance -- promotions were largely only offered to those already in senior management roles