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      Hanover Research

      Engaged Employer

      Hanover Research reviews

      3.6

      66% would recommend to a friend

      (320 total reviews)
      avatar

      Wes Givens

      54% approve of CEO

      44% positive business outlook

      Ratings by demographic groups

      Hanover Research has an employee rating of 3.6 out of 5 stars, based on 320 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Hanover Research employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Management & Consulting industry (3.6 stars).

      Reviews by job title

      320 reviews
      1.0
      Aug 2, 2016

      Look Elsewhere

      Researcher
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business Outlook

      Pros

      -As a researcher, you will learn how to work with ridiculously short timelines and insane expectations. -You will be forced to learn how to manage up and appease as many people as possible in managerial roles. -Your fellow researchers are incredibly smart and are some of the best people you will ever meet. Your co-workers will regularly talk you back from the edge and will keep you motivated.

      Cons

      - Hanover aggressively looks for researchers with masters degrees or higher, giving the impression that the research requires advanced analytical and critical thinking skills. This impression is completely false. Researchers spend the vast majority of their time doing monotonous busy-work "research" with unsophisticated methodologies and in some cases, shoddy methodology. If you are looking to do "real" education or market research that involves tools other than Excel, Word, and Google, look elsewhere. -Researchers are undervalued, overworked, and not respected. You will be asked to complete one project after another without actually thinking about the work you are doing - quantity is valued over quality. Suggestions for process improvements, new methods, etc. are regularly shot down because trying something new will interfere with the timelines and most people in management positions don't have the methodological research knowledge to even implement effective changes. You will be pushed to continue churning out the same low-brow research.You will be expected to fall in line and keep your mouth shut. Any "constructive criticism" or feedback you provide will come back to haunt you. If you want a job where you are a valued member of a team and your knowledge, skills, and suggestions are appreciated, look elsewhere. -The performance review process is completely opaque and you will be at the mercy of managers who can refuse to promote you on a whim. If you want transparency in how your career can grow in the company, look elsewhere. -Management has little to no interest in investing in researchers professional skills. Professional Development is non-existent. (please ignore the CHRO's responses about PD to other reviews- these responses are blatantly false). If you want to learn and grow professionally in your position, look elsewhere. - Finally, a word of caution about the reviews on this site: current employees are explicitly asked on a regular basis to post "honest" reviews (read: POSITIVE reviews) on Glassdoor in order to help Hanover's rating. Also, do not get the impression that the negative feedback is a result of a disgruntled, FIRED employee- Hanover rarely fires people because they can't afford to lose the talent. These negative reviews are from people who were bamboozled into joining the company or just needed a job - they left because the environment at Hanover is SO incredibly toxic. Again, look elsewhere.

      avatar
      Hanover Research Response
      9y
      Thank you for your feedback. There seems to be a discrepancy between your expectations for the role and the service Hanover provides to our clients. We do not provide academic research studies. Our clients approach us because they want quick turnaround responses to custom queries, not 3-4 month long academic studies. We are upfront about the nature of the work during the interview process so I am sorry that you felt misled in any way. Research staff who excel in the role enjoy the faster pace and that they do not work on one project for an extended period of time. To clarify, I do reach out to staff at various intervals during the year to ask them to complete Glassdoor reviews. This is purely voluntary and since companies have no control over the content posted on the site and Glassdoor guarantees anonymity of all reviews, the most any business can do to generate balanced feedback is to ask for more of it directly from staff.
      1.0
      Feb 25, 2016

      Not worth the stress

      Business development
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business Outlook

      Pros

      1. Awesome, smart, motivated coworkers - The people at Hanover are the best. I made great friends at Hanover and I am still in awe of their intelligence and drive. Former Hanoverians have gone on to do great things. 2. Opportunities to develop new skills - Hanover's research and sales activities require high volume execution. You will become experienced at what you do quickly. If you're insistent, you can bounce around and learn many valuable skills and increase your market value. 3. Steady paycheck (if you're not in sales) - Sales and research starkly differ. Sales is high risk, medium reward. Research is low risk, low reward. The salaries on Glassdoor are accurate, just be aware that sales salaries don't include commission.

      Cons

      The tragedy of Hanover is that it is full of bright, talented people who have been beaten down to believe they can't do better. It's simply not true. You are valuable, you are wanted, it's a strong job market, and you will find a better place that values your contribution and treats you like a human being. The grass really is greener on the other side if you're willing to leave the pasture (quitting Hanover substantially lowered my blood pressure, increased my base salary 40%, and reduced my work week from 70-80 hour 40-50 hours). 1. Unscrupulous, unethical leadership - It's ok to make money. It's not ok to misplace compensation agreements, forget paychecks, or pay in the wrong amount. It's ok to protect your business. It's not ok to bully ex employees and their new employers. It shouldn't be normal to see your coworkers in tears. 2. Business model -The business model is such that no matter how hard you work to please a client, Hanover will not make more money. This leads to broken hearts when employees go the extra mile for rewards that will never come. 3. Culture of Fear - Because client satisfaction doesn't lead to more revenue, Hanover uses convoluted grading systems, titles, and performance reviews to keep employees engaged and distracted from below market salaries. There is a constant threat, especially in sales, of losing your job. Those who question the culture or management decisions are shown the door.

      avatar
      Hanover Research Response
      10y
      Thank you for your feedback. You highlight many of the reasons employees choose to start their careers at Hanover - working with smart, talented coworkers, a well-developed L&D department committed to developing skills and competencies for all employees and, in addition to a steady paycheck, additional benefits like subsidized health insurance, flexible working environment and regular team perks like an additional day off for hitting a team goal. As with all high growth environments, our employees work hard to serve our clients and in a fixed cost model, this means we go above and beyond because we want to serve our clients, not because we expect them to compensate us for this work. Mistakes on paychecks happen occasionally and we always rectify it as soon as an employee brings the error to our attention. There is a big difference between an error and unethical leadership. Hanover takes our Non-Compete agreements very seriously. Our clients expect us to protect their confidential information. In turn, we expect departing employees to honor the terms of the agreement, just as those employees have the right to expect Hanover to honor the obligations we agree to. This is a responsible business practice, not bullying.
      2.0
      Oct 18, 2016

      Constructive Criticism

      Researcher
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business Outlook

      Pros

      (1) Flexibility - researchers are able to work remotely, on occasion, which is good if you're traveling, sick, or if weather is bad. (2) Independent work - a plus if you like working independently. A negative if you need to socialize. But if you're on the research side, you should not need to or even have the time to socialize. (3) Free coffee, tea, snacks (4) The new professional development initiative where researchers accrue a day every six weeks to use on online courses or other prof development ideas. (5) PTO increases by a day each year you are employed. No rollover limits. (6) Opportunity to hone research and writing skills. Hanover is like the big shiny house on the top of the hill, but once you get closer, you see all the cracks and how dilapidated it is. Management likes to point to the bright shiny things it throws at us, like happy hours, its learning and development program, more happy hours, executive office hours, and the like, but all of that is covering up the cracks. High turnover, bad work life balance - unless you choose life and end up trading work quality and performance, known culture of bad sales practices and essentially lying to clients. All the company cares about is churning out projects as fast as it can. It doesn't matter who does it, as long as it gets done.

      Cons

      (1) Flexibility - researchers are fully able to complete our work remotely, all the time. Of course, there are some researchers who may not be able to do so, or may not want to. Give us the option of being able to work telework all the time, based on performance. The privilege can always be taken away if the researcher is underperforming while remote. The CHRO will likely make a comment about company morale, the fun activities and volunteer activities that researchers do together, but none of those are good arguments. (2) Timelines - they aren't lying to you when they say timelines are short. But when they tell clients that we spend about two weeks for a project, feel free to laugh. If researchers are given the full amount of time the company quotes to clients, then perhaps deliverables would be better. This dishonesty is disheartening and obviously dishonest. Especially when clients come back with less than positive reviews, and you are caught in the crosshairs. Another item with timelines - management likes to say we can extend deadlines, but projects are pushed back so many times, the pipeline is congested, and there is hardly ever room for extensions. Instead you have to settle with sending in a shoddy but complete report or an incomplete report partly because of management's bad planning. But all the blame is on you, because you get graded on your projects, and you can't grade your CDs. (3) Open floor plans - Stop kidding yourselves with open floor plans. We don't have time to share knowledge when we're so busy trying to meet impractical deadlines. The company is once again moving about half of its workforce to yet another location, and we all hear that HR is going forward with an open floor plan, even for directors. This is one of THE clearest indication that the company just plain does not care about the research side. HR has taken comments from people in Content, but it's known that HR isn't even considering our thoughts. A mere formality to show us that they care. But you know what? That's not caring. Or, maybe HR is also just trying to assuage all the reviewers here who complain about the cubicle setting and lack of socialization with coworkers. Well, open floor plans are even worse. IMO, the ones complaining are more likely to be the underperforming researchers who have time to socialize to the extent where they prefer open floor plans. (4) Transparency - None to speak of. The company used to have a different rewards program for researchers, then all of a sudden it changed to something else. We used to have quarterly updates, we have none anymore. We used to have a Hanover newsletter, we do not any more. No explanation. Everything just disappears. Or appears. (5) Planning - also none of this. If there was, the company would not have to have moved so many times in so few years. (6) Promotion and salary increases - the CHRO says that salary adjustments are given to those with good performance reviews. This is not true. Salary adjustments are selectively given to those with good performance reviews. Salary adjustments are thrown your way when you leave. Those who stay and perform well must argue for their own raises. (7) It would help if researchers could rate their CDs and MCDs, after each project or when performance reviews come around. The current system is terrible. in order to review superiors, we have to disclose our names. Hanover believes that researchers are so childish and irresponsible that we are unable to properly review superiors under the cloak of anonymity. Even under anonymity, I have heard stories from other coworkers about being questioned whether they had penned particular reviews on Glassdoor.

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      Glassdoor has 332 Hanover Research reviews submitted anonymously by Hanover Research employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Hanover Research is right for you.