Cogstate Reviews

When you first start you think it's a great place to work. Then you realize that people who are not qualified are put in senior level positions, causing a downstream effect of negativity and lack of knowledge overall. You have to pay for parking, which is not reimbursed. Insurance was not that great, and company management is terrible. There were employee relationships that to say the least, were very inappropriate. Certain people were treated better than others, and overall it felt like you were just a body in the building. Some people don't pull their weight, and you end up doing your job as well as theirs.

While the overall mission of Cogstate is great, the work environment itself is horrible. The environment is very cliquey and favoritism is largely the only thing that matters in every department. No matter how hard you work, if you haven’t properly sucked up to your manager, your work and opinions are largely meaningless. If you ask for better or more challenging work your request is either outright ignored or you’ll be given false promises of change. If you suggest process improvements those will either be ignored until it blows up in the department’s face or your suggestions will be given to the managers favorite to work on, allowing them to get the praise and credit for the idea. Your qualifications, skill and dedication means little – it’s all about favoritism. People who make constant mistakes, even big ones, and slack on their work can get promoted, their mistakes brushed off, all because they’re a manager favorite. Ironically, mental health suffers greatly at this company (despite being based on brain health). Turnover is incredibly high. I’ve watched numerous coworkers fall into deep depressions and in my time there I had seen more than my share of nervous breakdowns. Each department runs on as few employees as physically possible, leaving many over worked, extremely stressed and largely underpaid. The lack of growth and the feeling of powerlessness for most leaves employees in a terrible mind state. People at Cogstate are not above bullying. I saw several cases of people in higher positions bullying their subordinates and when reported to HR, nothing was done. Nothing short of a physical altercation will warrant any sort of action by HR, all complaints are “listened to”, but nothing is done about it. I recall one instance where someone was bullying their subordinate to the point where there almost was a physical altercation, and HR’s solution was to just move the subordinate’s desk. As you can imagine, this did little to help the situation and the subordinate eventually quit. To top everything off, the company does not have it’s own parking lot, making the employees have to pay for their own parking. The cheapest parking in the area costs about $100 per month. This has been less of an issue during COVID with employees working from home, but should everyone start going back into the office again that’s a cost employees will have to start paying again.