Idiosyncratic Non-profit - Anonymous employee WestEd Employee Review

Thank you for your candid feedback about your experience working at WestEd. We always appreciate hearing from our current employees, and want to thank you for the hard work you do improving educational access and quality for teachers and learners. I am glad you recognize the talented individuals who work here. It is important to recognize that the term “management” can mean several things, and it is not entirely clear from your comment what level of management within the organization you refer to. Glen and the entire Executive Team work hard to help foster a sense of trust in WestEd and across and within individual programs. It is important to remember that WestEd spans multiple states with a diverse employee population all of whom are included in the “bureaucracy” of which you write. To that end, we often have some tradeoffs for our continuous growth and increasing revenue each year. Being a Joint Powers Agency (JPA) means that we have a different set of rules that govern us, versus other similar research organizations. Some are distinct advantages. Other rules and regulations, however, may be much more complicated and insert a set of standards that may at times seem cumbersome. Though the Executive Team is working towards a more flexible approach to the work we do, certain programs have more ability to change than others based on who the funders are and where the work takes place. We appreciate your suggestion to make it easier to work across programs; this in particular is a goal for the near future. Again, thank you for your feedback and we hope that you will continue to communicate regarding your areas of concern. We encourage all employees to discuss their concerns with Glen Harvey using her open-door policy, with their manager and with Human Resources.