Salaries are way below market average. Like way below, unless you’re a golden child hand selected by HR, DO NOT expect to get paid market value, or get more than a 3% cost of living raise increase when raises come about - then they try to tie that into merritt, that’s a cost of living increase.
Another con is the level of drama some departments have. We don’t care if you think you’re great, just do your job, stop gossiping in your directors office all-day, I’ve never seen such behavior.. In my department, we have a saying, ‘HR is crooked,’ it’s true, you can’t go to them with any issues. None. Or they label you. Then they talk badly about you. That is severely disappointing, but I guess it kinda aligns with the former HR directors thinking.
Another con is the medical insurance, I know I mentioned above, just reiterating it here. Know this before you start. If you plan on going to the doctor or have a pre-existing condition, be prepared for a big bill, for example: $300+. Monthly prescriptions are also expensive, too. Also, if you work in the call center you or are part time, you will not have the option to any health insurance / or a train pass as mentioned above. So be prepared to pay for your own daily parking at $16+ per day. Or you could buy your own, which is an option, or you could park and walk 10 minutes - the best I found was $9 a day.
Another con is the PTO, you start with two weeks at Aspira, but at ACTIVE, you could negotiate more. Directors get unlimited PTO, and they don’t hesitate to use it. My director was off a lot.
The work and the product. The problem here is that when we broke off with ACTIVE we kept all of these ACTIVE people. We kept the mindset of ACTIVE, read their reviews - they are not a good company to work with / for. The product, I see the other reviews speaking to it, but our development team needs help! We’ve launched products that are not fully fleshed out, or products that don’t work for clients, that hurts everyone - you need to get it right. Get yourselves aligned and push through PCR’s better. Fixes shouldn’t take more than a couple of weeks to repair, and they certainly shouldn’t take months to years.
Also, pay your TAM’s more. They work so hard for your clients, but they certainly don’t get paid for it with an average salary of $45K.
The work, either you are not busy or you are too busy - there really isn’t a good inbetween. For my department, even at ACTIVE, we’ve been busy as I’ve ever been in my career- and we’re constantly being asked to take on more work. Leadership has lied, for over 7+ months they’ve been saying that we will cut back your teams work, lies, it’s never happened and they keep giving us more and expect perfection.
Furthermore, some of these reviews seem ‘so shiny’ they don’t feel real... If you really talk to people, it’s NOT the worst place they’ve worked, but at Aspira, they definitely have a lot of issues and it certainly isn’t the best. Personally, I hope they align the directors, fix the issues, or I don’t see this company lasting long. And if you ask for the fiances from anyone other than the CEO, you can get an honest answer. The company is not increasing in revenue - FRTIB, the call center on 23, is known as a big revenue driver, and currently is helping keep us afloat. That is sad, these contracts bring in a lot of money, but your worker bees don’t see it (Specifcally TAMS) - I’m curious as to where it’s all going; because we’re also not giving it back to clients services for our clients we’re just trying to win more, and we certainly not investing in product upgrades - we’re just treading water.
Also, when you have ‘Quarterly Connect Meetings’ and fail to address the finances of the company, the true metrics, and only talk about the negatives, even go so far as to call people / departments out in front of the entire company - you should be prepared to have people not be happy with you or how you are managing the company. Also, specifically after that meeting, nobody felt inspired, and rumors swirled about the stability of the company. A couple months later, layoffs started to happen.
To surmise: Aspira isn’t the worst company, there are good people who work hard, but as with every company there are some not so good people - and through them, we’re consistently allowing bad behaviors to continue and be rewarded. The company is not doing too great, (YoY) finances are flat, and pay is below market average; also, working downtown also isn’t the safest. Lastly, after you worked your rear off you’ll only get a 3% (cost of living) ‘bonus,’ but then you hear about certain individuals getting 12% bonus’ and it takes the wind out of your sails.