Institute For Humane Studies reviews

Not for profit. Mission is honorable but there’s no good way to measure individual contributions to the team. As a result, as others have mentioned in detail, politicking can seem like an unofficial measuring stick. The problem is not unique to IHS and is inherent in most non-profits (and other businesses too), but you should be aware of what non-profit work entails. Aside from a few bad examples of undue and unearned influence, the politicking usually doesn’t cause many problems as far as organizational decision making goes, just petty decisions like who attends a meeting that’s a waste of time anyway. Constant changes, as mentioned, by others. The new CEO started at about the same time I did and I really liked the direction she took the organization. I didn’t agree with every decision or the way she (more so the Exec Dir & COO) went about enacting them, but on the whole her vision is solid and she’s worth following. Others clearly disagree which raises a related concern but drastic change always has a cost. Young and idealistic staff: even some folks in their 30’s seem to fit this bill but ideological non-profits attract young, idealistic staff. There’s some literature on this issue (within ideological non profits) and they explain the issue far better than I can, but the result often is a large group of disgruntled 20-somethings who cannot fathom that leadership would make a drastic change to something they’ve worked so hard on. Staff often take these changes as a personal insult to their work and work ethic and fail to see how one CEO or director is simply correcting the mistake of her/his predecessors. Communication breakdowns exacerbate these issues but the IHS staff are passionate and id imagine IHS will always rely on a handful of young idealists to succeed. Based on the recent reviews from my former colleagues, though, it looks like a lot of the children (maybe all of them?) have left IHS recently - it looks to be a better environment now. Dwarfed by other organizations and the little sister in partnerships. Academics are in hot demand and IHS has been outspent and outcompeted the last decade.

Constant structural flux and non-stop changes in the organization's focus leave employees in a perpetual state of trying to figure out exactly what their own jobs entail. Adjustments implemented by leadership usually seem reasonable on the surface. However, staff frequently perceive these decisions as rushed and ill-considered, since staff are not always sufficiently consulted ahead of time and are often left confused or scrambling as a result of the latest organizational changes. It is common for employees to change supervisors multiple times, even over the course of their first several months working of working at IHS. There are also constant meetings. Virtually all employees (mid-level mangers in particular) have the majority of their calendar filled with internal meetings of questionable value. This makes it hard to get any real work done and leaves many employees feeling stretched thin and stressed. The structure of the organization is also inordinately complex. Fragmentary/niche departments and complicated chains of command can make it daunting to find your place at IHS. Not only is it hard to learn who does what, but seemingly everyone is a "stakeholder" in every decision and they can become territorial, making it onerous to decide on almost everything. Plus, there is often a lack of goodwill and trust between departments, resulting in gossip and backstabbing behind the scenes. (Note that within departments cohesion is generally better and even between departments many folks come across as friendly.) Attrition is comparatively high, even by Washington D.C. standards. The strongest talent, especially at the entry level through middle management, tends either to get frustrated or receive a substantially better offer from elsewhere, so they decide to leave before long. (Of course, there are exceptions; some excellent folks manage to stick it out.) In other cases, talented staff are shown the door because changes in structure render them redundant or irrelevant. This results in concern about job security, causing even the strongest employees to watch for the writing on the wall.