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Humane World for Animals

Engaged Employer

Humane World for Animals reviews

3.5

49% would recommend to a friend

(218 total reviews)
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Kitty Block

57% approve of CEO

40% positive business outlook

Humane World for Animals has an employee rating of 3.5 out of 5 stars, based on 218 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Humane World for Animals employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Nonprofit & NGO industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

218 reviews
1.0
Nov 4, 2015

Sexist, confused and old-fashioned management

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

They do great work for animals and many employees are a joy to work with --dedicated, kind, super smart, funny.

Cons

Management is a confused mess. Employees work very long hours with high stress and low pay, and little help from management. Constant drama and infighting. HSUS is run by a small group of rich straight white men who do not like women. Their leadership webpage is encouraging, with lots of female faces, but when you work at HSUS you learn that any females in management are ignored or even harassed. High turnover. The CEO makes over $300,000 but can't stand to hire even a cheap temp position to help with the constant overtime hours. Work doesn't get done, managers have so many people reporting to them they have no idea what's going on, and leadership (all white men) want nothing to do with employee feedback. The internal employee moral surveys get worse every year. Women are not promoted, not invited to meetings, laughed at, and worse...HSUS has a robust history of sexual harassment lawsuits. Perhaps the best way to sum it up: Female employees are expected to attend company functions to talk to donors. This involves weekend and evening work, of course. They have to pay for their own meal. Not making that up. An employee is expected to give up a Friday or Saturday night to schmooze donors (including donors with a history of rape accusations, sexual harassment, etc) and then pay HSUS for the meal. Management has zero interest or ability in handling gender or race diversity or equality issues, pay equity, sexual harassment, massive overtime, or projects not getting done. Leadership will often demand more work of employees already maxed out, and employees know it's best to just agree. But the work never gets done, and that's bad for the cause. Lots of employee complaining and frustrations which makes it hard to stay positive. If you can survive a couple of years it will look good on your resume but I recommend starting the job with low expectations. And if you're female--be careful!

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Humane World for Animals Response
10y
Thank you for your posting. You mention a number of topics in this post, some of which can be addressed here. • The HSUS has a workforce primarily comprised of women and the demographics of our staff managers are fairly consistent with that breakout--about 75% female and 25% male. Over the past four years, nearly 80% of all staff promotions were for females, and 67% of those promoted to a Vice President or Senior Vice President level position were females. We believe that’s a pretty good track record. The level and scope of a manager’s authority and decision-making at The HSUS is contingent upon the individual’s role, accountability, and performance. It is not based on gender. • Our all-volunteer Board of Directors is currently made up of 29 members, almost evenly split between men and women (15 and 14, respectively). The immediate past Chair of the Board, and the current Vice Chair, are both women. These volunteer Directors are the individuals who set policy for the organization, and oversee the performance and compensation of executives and officers. • We are a mission-based organization, with a fast-paced campaigning style of work, and that is not necessarily for everyone. We have some jobs—which given the nature of their role—do have responsibilities that require those in them to work outside the normal business hours, i.e. evenings and weekends. Our fundraising; outreach and engagement; legislative and grassroots; rescue and response; direct animal care; and campaigns and advocacy-related roles often can be called upon to support events and activities during these off hours. We appreciate the time and efforts given by the staff in these positions and, when possible provide flex time and/or time-off to allow them the opportunity to balance their work requirements with time to refresh and rejuvenate. We also provide other benefits such as paid pet sitting for employees who are required to travel for work. In addition, many staff are able to telecommute some days during the workweek, dependent on the type of work they perform, and this provides a break from the expectation of them being in the office every day. • As an organization that is funded by donor dollars, we are committed to ensuring that we are using these funds in the most prudent and fiscally responsible way. Whether or not we fill a position, hire a temporary, require an employee to pay to voluntarily attend an event at which he/she is not required to work, or make any other spending decisions, we make them giving consideration to the impact they may have on our staff, as well as on our budget and our overall operations. Like all non-profit organizations, we often have to make hard decisions about how our spending is allocated, with finite resources and an unlimited number of worthy projects and positions to fund. • Our full-year turnover rate for 2015 is not yet available. Last year’s (2014) turnover rate was 13.9%, which was a decrease of 2% from 2013’s rate. This was below the non-profit trend for 2014 of 15%. Finally, you mention a number of issues related to harassment, equality, equity and diversity. Our employee handbook covers these in several of our HSUS policies (EEO Policy; Policy Against Sexual and Other Kinds of Harassment) and provides a complaint process. You are encouraged to contact the Human Resources department regarding these and any other concerns you may have.
2.0
Oct 30, 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Great mission! - Many colleagues are really smart and wonderful people to work with - Decent benefits including paid family medical leave and bringing dogs to work - You'll have the chance to learn and do a lot and get good experience (unfortunately because you will be doing at least 2 or 3 people's jobs for the price of one).

Cons

- The organization has major communication, financial, and management problems. No one knows which end is up and the bureaucracy and dysfunction cause major problems. - The staff are overworked and made to feel completely replaceable. - There are very valid concerns of female staff that a male leadership volunteer with a history of sexual harassment and rape charges had extensive contact with our staff and no one has ever been notified or warned to stay away from him. This, and many other internal concerns, makes me fear that the organization is one scandal away from oblivion - The organization does a company employee survey but does not take action on the results to resolve the issues that employees make very clear every few years.

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Humane World for Animals Response
10y
Thanks for your post. A few things are worth mentioning in response. First and perhaps most important, is that this organization takes seriously the complaints and concerns raised by employees so you are encouraged to contact the Human Resources department regarding your comments regarding “a male leadership volunteer.” We are interested in getting feedback from our employees and are continuously seeking to improve in areas such as Communications, Standard Operating Procedures, Supervisors, and Training and Orientation. In addition, we know our employees have positive views about our work, innovation, ethics and personal pride. For the areas identified as needing improvement, work is being done at the department and organization levels to address those specific areas. We have and continue to invest in management training for our existing and new managers, and have begun offering some technical skill training programs for staff, which have been well received. We have established a new market-based salary structure and have invested funds in providing special salary adjustments outside of our annual merit process to staff whose compensation was significantly below the market, a process that is continuing through 2016. We are revamping our recruitment process to ensure improvements in the quality of our hiring, particularly related to our hiring for managers, and we are working to establish career ladders to provide clear paths for employees related to their professional growth and development. And, finally, we have utilized outside consultants on a variety of initiatives. Most recently we have had an assessment completed for our Communications department, and we have had outside support in a review of our management structure and operations, which resulted in several recommendations. These have resulted in recent organizational structure changes, as well as the re-establishment of a COO role for the organization and several new positions to build our capacity on internal management.
2.0
Oct 7, 2015

Shattered dreams

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Having dogs in the workplace is an amazing benefit, as well as telecommuting options. Seeing the video and photos from rescues and deployments that The HSUS is involved with is inspiring and can keep you motivated to work through the stress and difficult times.

Cons

There are huge egos within the organization that make the majority of the decisions. Whether or not they are based on research or just a gut feeling, these loud voices are those that get to steer the main direction of this massive organization. There are too many programs and directions the organization is also trying to go into that they are a mile wide and an inch deep. You are actually hurting some programs by setting them up with big goals and no support. Their heart may be in the right place, but they would accomplish more by focusing on less.

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Humane World for Animals Response
10y
It’s hard to know from your post whether your comments are related to a situation you were personally confronted with or you had heard about it through others. Maybe it’s both. It might be helpful to reach out to your direct supervisor and/or the senior executive for your department to speak about these concerns. Sometimes managers can be distracted with their issues and day-to-day challenges and may not realize how their actions and responses are perceived, or what information to convey to their staff regarding operational decisions and priorities. That lack of clear communication can create misperceptions and frustrations for employees about work expectations, similar to what you have described. You mention telecommuting as a benefit, so if you were physically out of the office full-time or part-time, it may have also been difficult to have cohesion and the face-to-face contact with your manager and colleagues. Also, because we have managers with varying levels of responsibility, as well as in their experience and skills, every manager may not be as seasoned at delegating and pushing down accountability to others. For those reasons, we are working to improve the abilities of our managers through training and are also establishing more focused recruitment processes to ensure we make quality hires for all of our positions, particularly those with staff management responsibilities. We also are always working to refine our strategies and priorities, which is not a static process, but changes based on the external landscape. We frequently use research, such as polling and focus groups, to help steer our campaigns and programs and strategic agenda for animal protection. We appreciate your thoughts in this post and understand the importance of engaging and listening to our employees. Thanks for reinforcing that need.
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