Great job - Senior Policy Analyst APPRISE Employee Review

APPRISE is a great place to work, with interesting work and great colleagues. I also find the work extremely meaningful. APPRISE is a place where the management truly care about the work and your development. The management are super smart and accomplished. You will be mentored and get feedback from super smart people which helps you improve. The work is challenging and interesting and you really feel that your work is making a difference. There are real deadlines and clients who need the results so you need to be organized and meet deadlines and do a good job. If you do something wrong you will get specific feedback about improving. And there are quarterly and annual reviews. Some people don’t like this but to me it just shows that management care about you and the work and are prepared to take the time to help you improve and advance in your career. You are only expected to work 40 hours a week so you can have a good work life balance. You are also able to actually take your vacation days. At APPRISE I have a good work life balance where I can take care of myself and be healthy. I like the location of APPRISE in a beautiful town but close to major cities and major airports which are accessible by train. Working for a small business has real advantages as the management structure is really flat so I have found I can really advance and move up quickly. I am competitive so I always want to be going somewhere and in a short time, APPRISE has let me take on more responsibility and get promoted and make more money. I am thinking about going to grad school in a few years and I think having a place like APPRISE on my resume where I do impactful work is going to help me get into a top grad school as I will stand out from the crowd. But for the moment I am happy at APPRISE where I feel I do meaningful, impactful work.

You have to work in-person in the office which is good for me but sometimes hard to get up and get ready.

The external training opportunities, PTO, and health benefits are good, considering the company's size. Excluding management, colleagues are very friendly with one another and form a supportive network that offsets some difficult aspects of the work environment.

APPRISE has a problem retaining talent for more than about 2 years. During my 9 months at the company of roughly 25 people, 5 people left, many citing the difficulty and personal stress of working with upper management. As a result of this high turnover, there is often a shortage of institutional knowledge for new hires to benefit from. I was trained by an employee who had started work the previous month, and despite their best efforts, I did not feel that I was set up for success. This incomplete training was compounded by the President’s hostile attitude toward my attempts to learn from her. APPRISE strongly believes that there is such thing as a stupid question, and whenever I asked something that was considered too basic or unsubstantive, I was reprimanded and my question was not always answered. When I asked the President, whom many employees directly report to, for assistance in learning a new skill or approaching a new task, she consistently refused to provide guidance. She discouraged me from approaching coworkers with questions and reprimanded my coworkers for spending time helping me, even when they were willing and able to assist. Feedback at APPRISE comes with a shortage of carrots and an abundance of sticks. New employees are expected to learn from their mistakes by fixating on them for extended periods of time, sometimes stopping all other work to write the President a long-form email explaining an error and how they will improve in the future. The intentions behind this exercise are good, but in practice, it feels more like an activity for students in detention than one for working adults to correct a misconception. The President raised her voice at me on multiple occasions and was notorious among employees for her short temper and tendency to send unprofessional, abrasive emails when her patience ran low. I could go on about the President’s harsh behavior, micromanagement, and favoritism, but other reviews cover this in sufficient detail. APPRISE is a workplace that works for a select few, and those with thick skin, resilience, and limited contact with the President can build the foundations of a fruitful career here. However, this was not my experience. I encourage prospective applicants to read all reviews carefully and consider whether this is a culture in which they can thrive. I wish I had thought more carefully about my decision to join this company.