Look for another employer
Gut am Arbeitgeber finde ich
Flexi-time, time in lieu, closeness to university (which is not taken advantage off enough regarding collaborations), very flexible regarding part-time/full-time working.
Schlecht am Arbeitgeber finde ich
Attitude and behavior from top-down. This is IMHO the root cause of most of the Know-Center's problems.
Verbesserungsvorschläge
Change management personnel, a good researcher does not automatically make a good leader. Let researchers be researchers and hire people as leaders who are willing and able to do so.
Really appreciate employees, value their contribution, also financially. Start communicating.
Arbeitsatmosphäre
Atmosphere of distrust, everyone has to fend for themselves. Failures of bosses are always blamed on employees. Yelling, bullying and making fun of subordinates is accepted behavior. This leads to an extremely high fluctuation, which makes it harder to get some work done or learn from "senior" employees, which leads to even more people leaving. In some teams most people leave after 1-2 years.
Kommunikation
The usual communication problems every larger company experiences increased by the factor of a dysfunctional/hostile culture and atmosphere. People are discouraged from working together or talking to each other. Management doesn't seem to talk much to each other & even less to the rest of the employees.
Kollegenzusammenhalt
Highly dependent on team, some are ok, some are really bad. Most people are very nice and helpful on individual basis, when you catch them alone, but overall the bad atmosphere impacts everyone negatively.
On group level: hardly there because of the high fluctuation and socializing (e.g. coffee breaks) is highly discouraged and frowned upon (waste of time). Only one kitchen for 80+ employees.
Superiors do not work (well) together, this infects the teams as well.
Work-Life-Balance
If you manage to say no to working in your free time, to not do a lot of continuing education in your free time, it is ok. But workload is too high, and you get many "surprise" extra work, when somebody leaves again. Maybe one reason why there are so many young people (early twenties) working there, they have not learned to say no yet and suffer accordingly.
Company has flexi-time and time-in-lieu (for most employees no all-in contracts) so that is fine.
Vorgesetztenverhalten
Main reason for almost all problems. People with no/bad leadership skills are responsible for other people.
No (positive) leadership at all. Instead of lifting people up, they are pushed down.
Boss regards his employees literally as underlings, as liars, leechers and underperformers. Although phrased a little bit "nicer" by him, you can feel this attitude in every interaction. Regular insults of employees or colleagues are also daily business.
Interessante Aufgaben
Depending on the area you are in, if your boss likes you, your personal interest and what projects are requested by customers, one can have very interesting tasks or rather boring ones. In general there are way too many projects per employee at the same time (more than 5), and people are expected to work on all of them at the same time and all of them must be successful. New employees are left alone with their projects and expected to succeed anyway.
Gleichberechtigung
The positive discrimination of female employees might be real (although there are way to few women there to really judge), but I don't envy the women, who were supposedly favored. They have to live with the jealousy and spite of their male counterparts.
I assume most women don't appreciate the yelling and bullying culture, so there are in general not many women there (apart from supporting departments) or they leave very soon.
Umgang mit älteren Kollegen
Undecided because there are no older colleagues. "Older" people are in their early fifties tops and are executives. Everyone in the lower ranks is in their twenties, maybe early thirties. I assume because they are more ok with the poor salaries and easier to exploit (overtime) than more experienced people.
Arbeitsbedingungen
Open space offices with all the pros & cons that come with them. No ventilation. Problems with heating/temperature, some offices are very warm, in others people freeze. No "private" places to have a chat, except hallways or outside.
Umwelt-/Sozialbewusstsein
non existent or not observed
Gehalt/Sozialleistungen
For IT people, worst salary ever heard of, only minimal wage (Kollektivvertrag). If they could, they would pay less. Apart from free coffee and fruit no further benefits.
High discrepancy between image executives want to create, "company is doing extremely well, high revenues, many projects, employees are our most valuable resource"
and willingness to share the revenues with employees. Systematically underpaying everyone and no/minimal raises.
Image
Image as very bad employer is spreading, so it will probably become more difficult to hire/keep (good) people, which makes it harder for existing employees.
Karriere/Weiterbildung
No career possible inside the company. If you were able to learn something there you can use it in another company.
Continuing education motto: Please do everything in your spare time.