Hanover Research reviews

3.6

66% would recommend to a friend

(320 total reviews)
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Wes Givens

54% approve of CEO

44% positive business outlook

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
Apr 14, 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

I made lifelong friends at Hanover. The people are bright, educated, fun, and interesting. Everyone is super friendly and loves bonding over happy hours and brunch. Unfortunately, much of the social atmosphere revolves around complaining about whatever crazy thing Hanover has you doing at the moment. Hanover also has good PTO options-- which is great because you're going to need to take some time off in order to keep your sanity.

Cons

I worked as a researcher with Hanover for a little less than a year. I was very interested in growing as a researcher, and the complex interview process led me to believe that this would be an above average workplace. Disclaimer for the “rant” that follows: I am not a disgruntled or fired employee. I left because the low pay wasn’t worth the high amount of stress that I experienced while there. Within two weeks of arriving I was able to see what a toxic work environment Hanover is. I would advise job seekers to check out the other negative Glassdoor reviews for Hanover. You’ll see that many of those opinions are replied to by our CHRO in a pretty passive-aggressive manner. This is exactly how anyone who speaks up with concerns or constructive criticism is treated while at Hanover. One of the most frustrating parts of this is that Hanover even collects employee satisfaction feedback through a (poorly designed) survey. Once those were filled out we never heard about them again! When it gets down to it, Hanover just isn’t willing to actually apply feedback to improve employee wellbeing. Something I heard a lot while there is that people don’t feel as though it’s worth it to provide an honest exit interview as criticism will only inspire the wrath of HR (and reliable sources say they WILL call up your new workplace) and probably won’t help out your ex-coworkers anyway. During meetings, the higher-ups will talk about our superior product. In reality, we are consistently rushed on our projects—and not in a “fast-paced, dynamic workplace” kind of a way. I was told by an upper manager to hurry up on a project because “it doesn’t have to be that good, it just has to LOOK good for the client”. During my time there, my research skills deteriorated. There is currently severe understaffing caused by a hiring freeze and the vast amount of people quitting. Due to this and indiscriminate sales practices, employees are constantly stressed out and trying to balance too many projects. Many have to work overtime in order to finish their assigned work, though overtime pay is NOT provided. Hanover uses promotions as a way to cajole people into working extra hard (and for free) in hopes of having a reward thrown their way. They won’t out and out demand overtime, but if you don’t complete your projects in a timely manner (which is often impossible without working “for free” after work hours), then you won’t be getting that promotion. When you factor that in, you would make much more money anywhere else, since Hanover offers bottom-line salaries but still expects overtime. Sexism is a real issue in the Hanover workplace. The vast majority of the top management are white males. They value fresh-out-of-college females for lower positions because they figure that they will put up less of a fight when it comes to being overworked and underpaid. In addition, from speaking to my fellow coworkers, there seems to be very suspicious gap between how males and females of the same position were compensated. As a woman who spoke up for fair treatment, I was treated as though I was just a “bossy” female.

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Hanover Research Response
10y
Thank you for your feedback. I am sorry to read that you did not enjoy your time at Hanover. We make it very clear throughout the interview process what the salary for each role is as well as the pace our staff are expected to work. Our clients expect high quality work in a short amount of time and this does put a lot of pressure on staff. Our annual Content satisfaction survey results were shared by email as well as through a brownbag presentation by the SVP of Content. Hanover takes our non-competition agreement seriously and on advice of our legal counsel, we will follow-up with any former employee and their new employer by mail if there appears to be a violation of that agreement. We do not call new employers or threaten former employees. This is an urban myth that seems to be circulating the research floor for some reason. In terms of sexism, Hanover recently announced our promotion list coming out of our most recent review cycle. Out of all promotion recipients, 49% were women including senior roles in the company. There are also three women on the executive team and an internal working group (Hanover's Organization of Women) focused on promoting gender equality. As the CHRO, I do my best to listen to all employee concerns and complaints whether they come to me directly, through managers or the anonymous feedback shared on Glassdoor. The challenge is that some changes do take time to implement and impact employees on the floor, but they do happen. The authors of these posts on Glassdoor are no longer in seat so they will not have the opportunity to see the changes or benefit from them. My advice to prospective Hanoverians is to speak to current staff in addition to reviewing the anonymous posts on sites like Glassdoor in order to make an informed decision about joining our organization or any other for that matter.
2.0
May 9, 2017

Read the reviews carefully

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

As many others have mentioned, there are two: 1) the people (your coworkers) are great and fun and awesome to commiserate with about working at Hanover, and 2) the free snacks and coffee. That's it.

Cons

Others have said them: the pay is extremely low. Yes, promotions occur quickly due to the six month review cycle, but you won't get a significant pay bump when you get promoted. You get ratings on every project you turn in like you're in high school again struggling to stay on the honor roll. Despite HR insisting it's not true, turnover is VERY high. I can name off the top of my head at least five other researchers who left this year. Professional development is lacking and even if there is some professional development thing you're interested in attending, you won't have time, because you're on a very tight deadline. Yes, you'll cry at your desk, as someone else mentioned. I've seen it. Projects are repetitive and you'll start to feel like a one-man research factory, again, someone's mentioned this. The point is: read the reviews carefully. They are accurate.

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Hanover Research Response
9y
Thank you for taking time to share your feedback about your time at Hanover. I am sorry that you didn't find any value in your time at Hanover. We are upfront about our salaries during the interview process. If a candidate is looking for a role that pays more than our starting salaries currently offer, our recruiting team would let them know during the initial phone screen so that they can self select out of the process. Promotions can occur within the first year of employment and salary adjustments occur at those times. Pay bumps can range from 3% upwards depending on the salary band for that role. We maintain that attrition at Hanover is low, despite perception to the contrary - 5 departures out of 200 content employees is less than 3% which is low for any industry. Our projects can get repetitive and at those times we encourage researchers to speak with their managers about switching project types or getting exposure to other team's projects. As a public forum for sharing feedback anonymously, Glassdoor allows employees to share their experiences with others. It seems only fair that employers have the right to provide their perspective or comment on the views shared but we do so without the protection of anonymity.
4.0
Nov 17, 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Many of the negative reviews on this site, particularly from the researcher side, may have something to do with the fact that this is many people's first job out of undergrad or grad school. After leaving Hanover, I have started to see it in a new light. I truly believe that it is a good company. Some specific pros are: - I worked 40 hour weeks, honestly. - I think I opened my laptop over the weekend twice. - We got extra time off for hitting team performance goals. - The people are phenomenal. It's a built in social circle for a young professional - I learned a ton about publicly available data (IPEDS, Census, etc) - There's a team of former researchers whose only job is to provide training. - I got a lot of good writing experience (completed over 30 reports) - My job here provided a nice entree into the higher education sector

Cons

Okay, there are a couple of cons. - Communication: The culture does not emphasize the communication necessary to complete high quality projects within given deadlines. Timelines are admittedly short, but setting a reasonable scope and checking in daily about progress would make a world of difference. The current practice of sending daily research updates does not work well, as many managers are too busy to read the whole email, let alone a full draft of a report. I think it would be best to institute an open door policy for management, and to require they check in with their researchers face to face or on the phone once per day. If that's too much, researchers should at least be encouraged to email their CDs any time they have a question that impacts the direction of the research. I recall being told early on that we were hired because we could work independently and didn't need to interact with management. I believe this is a bad idea to propagate. Communication always improves work product. - Pay: Not great compared to some other sectors, but given the 40 hour weeks, it's absolutely fair.

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Hanover Research Response
9y
Thank you for your feedback. I am glad to read that you saw value in your time at Hanover and developed your skills. Not all first jobs offer new graduates this opportunity. Our timelines are short - it is something we're upfront about at all stages during the interview process and while in seat. Our service model is to provide quality custom research quickly. We are working on finding ways to keep delivering this service more efficiently so that researchers can spend their time working on more complex projects. We will keep pushing forward with efforts to improve internal communication and collaboration.
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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.