Two thumbs down experience for HR contract in upstate NY.
Pros
Great opportunity as a contractor to gain exposure and have some inside knowledge on how the day to day operations work at fortune 500 companies that Yoh supports
Cons
Poor Management: they are largely absent and then wonder why operations fail to run smoother. Unprofessional Environment: I worked in HR supporting GE as the client and eventually ended up resigning partially due to the work environment. Many people were hired because they were best friends with a current employee, or even worse related to management somehow. Ultimately, this created unnecessary drama within the workplace as well as displayed favoritism. Lack of Knowledge: Management displays an alarming lack of knowledge regarding policies and procedures for the client. Given, us as contractors, are supposed to be the "subject matter experts" for the departments we support, it is shocking that management rarely knows the answer to any questions brought up by workers. Lack of Structure: Training is almost nonexistent within the HR group I worked in. Any new employees would basically be shuffled between 4 or 5 different current employees to shadow for less than a week. This would often leave new employees confused due to items being explained differently by each individual. This would then result in a group arguing over who is right. Training binders or reference binders would never be updated; this results in a non uniform work environment and multiple items being out of compliance. Hard Work Goes Unnoticed: More times than not, since you are working in a team environment, you will pick up the slack for your lazy and unmotivated coworkers. While your coworkers are updating their Facebook statuses and talking about getting wasted over the weekend, you are the one helping out when items don't make SLA. Status Matters: It doesn't matter if you have a higher education, more experience, or even an outstanding work ethic; you will never move up if you are not a good friend or relative of management. Compensation: Raises are non-existent. Negotiate wisely if you are being offered a job with them because you will be sticking to that salary for a long time coming. You will be doing the same work as someone else and they will try to low ball you for dollars less.
