Overall, a disappointing, dispiriting experience—except for the relationships with work colleagues
Gut am Arbeitgeber finde ich
I enjoyed working and making friends with some of my colleagues, who are nice, cool people I will never forget. The work environment was not that stuffy, the hierarchy was not that strict, and most superiors were quite approachable, which was also nice.
Schlecht am Arbeitgeber finde ich
Bad pay. The work is not really rewarding, not in a meaning-giving way, nor in terms of salary. Though it is said we are doing something "good" for society, I truly did not feel that was the case. I often felt like what we were doing was even somewhat shady and hypocritical. At the end of the day, it's just another company exploiting you for profit, far from one of the best or most ethical companies, and with a bad pay and boring, meaningless tasks/routine as the cherry on top. (The tasks were very automatic, monotonous, and often frustrating.) The communication was often unclear, and sadly also very condescending. Some superiors really need to improve how they relate to and learn how to treat their team members well.
Verbesserungsvorschläge
With the cost of living rising, a lot of the employees will soon not be able to afford working for Statista, at least not if they want to move out of a WG to live on their own, or have children, save money, etc.
What do the employees get back from the company, truly? A lot of other jobs offer somewhat-flexible work hours, which are likely to be even more flexible. That and the international atmosphere is not a lot and certainly not enough to keep people from leaving as soon as they can. (If that's Statista's goal, though, congrats.) Most of the people who stay long at the editorial dep. seem to do so because they are exhausted and have resigned themselves to the situation. Quite sad.
PAY PEOPLE BETTER. Actually listen to your employees. Talk to them at eye-level. Be more honest, stop with the nonsense excuses and failed attempts at "meaning-making." (It is a pretty meaningless, low-reward job, let's face it.) And the work is so specific that when you lose a researcher, it will take months/years to train someone else to get to that same level. They will take all their knowledge (useless or not) with them. Is that not reason enough to pay+treat them better and with more respect?
Kommunikation
There were two monthly meetings to inform employees about the state of things, key performance indicators, etc. One was company-wide, the other one was within the department. It's nice enough but things changed quite fast and the meetings just felt like info-dumps. Another complaint I had is that something that would be said in one meeting would be just dropped without notice within weeks—not that great at follow-through.
Kollegenzusammenhalt
Overall, the workers in the department where I worked got along well.
Work-Life-Balance
I would say the work for most people in the editorial department is considerably low stakes, which, if used to one's advantage, is a pro for work-life balance.
Vorgesetztenverhalten
I had a very bad experience with my superior for at least half a year before I left. It might've had many causes, but none of them change the fact that I feel my superior was unprepared for that task. Being a manager/superior in the internal hierarchy is not just communicating quarterly goals and planning a few yearly team events. Yes, we are all adults, but the relationship between superior-employee is inherently tilted towards the superior, no matter how much one might want to ignore that is the case. That means a lot of responsibility and interpersonal understanding that I do not feel my immediate superior fully understood. They might have been trying their best, and I believe they were, but it was sadly not enough. I would say the company should prepare their employees better to take up these positions, but I am not sure there are many people within the company who fully understand the manager role themselves.
More generally, the communication from superiors is often trying to be within the "cool" realm but ends up still sounding passive-aggressive and condescending.
Interessante Aufgaben
Maybe it's the right job with the right kind of tasks for some people, but definitely not for me. I found the tasks to be very repetitive and monotonous, and worse: devoid of meaning.
Additionally, though one is told one has the freedom to research the topics one's interested in within one's industry/region, it ends up not being much of a freedom at all, because the content format is so constrained.
Gleichberechtigung
I feel there was some bias, sometimes even unconscious, against women and foreigners from non-Western countries. But seeing as I can't really prove that, I'll leave that as an open-ended comment.
Umgang mit älteren Kollegen
I didn't have many (or any) colleagues who were much older than me, which I assume is because it's an entry-level-ish job with terrible pay.
Arbeitsbedingungen
The working conditions were fine except for a few things. I'd say the two most recent worst ones would be the senseless "back to the office at all costs" demand and the terrible pay.
Umwelt-/Sozialbewusstsein
Just a run-of-the-mill, small corporate "environmental/social awareness". Nothing to write home about.
Gehalt/Sozialleistungen
It's disgraceful that Statista pays its editorial staff so little, considering they generate a considerable amount, if not most of the company's website traffic and revenue. Even worse, many of us were acutely aware that employees in other departments made more money than we did. They might explain it however they want to, but the truth is there's no good reason to explain this discrepancy—at least no reason that would make Statista look good. To me, Statista seems to be clearly taking advantage of highly qualified and educated people who for one reason or another cannot easily find work somewhere else. When employees rightfully complain about the salaries— it's the most common complaint among employees—, the answer has one time been that they should "stop complaning", and more often it's a carrot being dangled in front of their eyes. A pay raise is coming, they say... and then the next word is often either "but", "when", or "if". That day seldom comes and when it comes, the pay raise is often very small considering Hamburg's cost of living expenses, and even more so considering the current crisis.
PS: free cereal and fizzy drinks should not count as benefits. Seriously.
Image
Often when I told people that I worked at Statista, they didn't know what it was or what it did. Other times they did, but could not really understand it. Very few times the comments I heard were truly positive. In fact, I have had quite the opposite experience: while applying to jobs and trying to go work in a different, hard-to-get field, I was asked "Why Statista?" by one interviewer. What they said and how they said it made it very clear that the question was not meant in a positive way: It truly confused them that I had "chosen" to work for a company like Statista. The truth is: If you are in need of a job, if you have bills to pay and nothing else is working out, by all means, take this job. But be aware that it comes with its many cons, one of which is: Statista is not really taken seriously by a lot of companies/institutions/people in many similar and different fields.
Karriere/Weiterbildung
Career chances: pretty much none, from what I could tell. You can call it "expert track" or whatever all you want, it still does not make it a career path. The employees can't all become team leads, nor would they all want to, and being an "expert" or whatever does not mean or change much. It's time to come up with something else, better paid, and less dumb. (Beware that you do not learn a lot of transferable skills, quite the opposite—so that is another thing to consider.)
Similarly, feel free to call the one or other course offered "continuing education" but the truth is that, as interesting as some of them might be, they are not that.
Arbeitsatmosphäre
Arbeitgeber-Kommentar
Dear former colleague,
thank you for taking the time to give us your feedback in detail. We are, of course, sad to hear that you were unhappy at Statista and to see that you gave negative reviews across almost all categories. Your rating reads as if you have been frustrated for quite some time and we would have gladly tried to find a solution with you while you were still part of our team. Especially on the topic of your tasks and the variety of your assignments, we are sure that we would have found a way to expand your scope of responsibilities.
Concerning your salary, we can understand your dissatisfaction - however, we are already in the process of increasing the salary levels. We are aware that you would have liked to have these changes sooner, but we ask for your understanding that substantial salary increases - especially in times like these - require a lot of planning and calculation and cannot be implemented on the fly.
We are constantly trying to improve as an employer and will definitely take your feedback as an opportunity to question ourselves further and identify development potential. If you would like to discuss this in more detail, you can of course contact us via jobs@statista.com at any time.
We are very sorry that you are no longer part of our team, but of course we wish you nothing but the best for your future!
Best regards
Imke
Team Talent Acquisition