employer cover photo
employer logo
employer logo

Annenberg Foundation

Is this your company?

Worried About Prestige, Not Growth - Senior Guest Services Associate Annenberg Foundation Employee Review

2.0
26 May 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The Annenberg Foundation has a relatively small staff, making it easier to get to know everyone involved. Regular visitors from the general public and educated, thoughtful clientele. Space for Photography puts on great shows, great benefits for full-time employees

Cons

The Foundation is simply too concerned with prestige over growth and changing ideas. A high emphasis is placed on management, leaving many of the lower employees to be taken advantage of, ignored, or bullied. The pay rate for floor staff and interns is "competitive," meaning they pay exactly what others pay but with the additional negative of being located from any convenient locations in Los Angeles. The Space for Photography has lost 24 members since June 2013, an incredible amount of turnover for a division that only has 12 employees or so at any given time. There is extremely limited room for job growth, and the management has admitted that to past employees before. Few people move forward within the company, wages stagnate the longer you work there, and the increasing excesses of Foundation spending outweigh the growth within its own doors. While requiring basic customer service reps to do everything from Photoshop to photography to account management - all well beyond typically docent and retail work - without scaling compensation for those jobs, the company spent more than $2.3 million on a private event rental company in 2013 alone, according to its public tax records. The foundation preaches a concept of "One Annenberg" while leaving a huge divide in how it treats management and the "upstairs" staff and the floor staff and interns in the Foundation and the Space for Photography.

Explore other reviews about Annenberg Foundation

5.0
30 June 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The staff are wonderful and the foundation does think creatively about how to ensure everyone feels enthusiastic about working at Annenberg. Benefits are spectacular, especially for those in a mid-career position. Wonderful healthcare, retirement and family leave policies.

Cons

Limited growth opportunities. Many positions to easily feel stuck in. No clear ladder to career growth within the foundation.

1.0
25 Nov 2023
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

I really appreciate the workplace culture between lower-level staff and how welcoming most employees are. There are many fun events in the office that allow for people to bond over some free food. The office building offers many amenities.

Cons

In my role in my department, there were no clear standards of how to succeed, which is very anxiety-inducing. There are no performance reviews here. I was verbally disrespected in public and they tried to keep me from speaking to HR about my qualms. This led to the point of resigning on the spot. My mental health instantly improved when I resigned. Some departments are better than others, but the administration and operations team needs some heavy revamping. I have done everything I could to make my supervisors happy, but they repeatedly made me feel small and unprotected. I was on the receiving end of so much abrasiveness, simply because I held the lowest role on the totem pole. Unless you have "director" or “manager" in your title, they will chew you up and spit you out. They believe and enforce a bigoted hierarchy and will disrespect you if you don't read their minds and give them what they want. If you respect yourself, do NOT work with the admin team. However, some other departments are great and I would recommend considering them, but do your research.

4
See reviews by: Helpful|Rating|Date|All