Pros
One of the major factors that attracted me to Community Science in the first place was the company’s commitment to build healthy, just and equitable communities and the company’s values and their approach to connecting research and practice. I was looking for a company that aligned with my values and my passion as well as a company where I could grow professionally. My two years of experience thus far with the company has proven that it is nothing but that (and so much more). The company’s leadership stays true to their values and approaches and takes on projects and contracts that align very well with the company’s goals and values. I really respect, value, and very much appreciate it because it is challenging to balance the passion and the business-side of things. Looking back at my experience with Community Science so far, there are reasons why the company has worked for me and hope that it will continuously do so. Here are some of those reasons: • Working on multiple projects that align very well with my passion. These projects may be similar or very different in the content areas, but the projects have a common theme – social justice and equity. It is tremendously exciting and inspiring to be working on projects that I am passionate about. • Working on multiple projects with opportunities to grow professionally. I work on multiple projects. And as I mentioned earlier, these projects may have a very different focus or may require very different set of technical skills. Working on multiple projects and playing various roles provide me with the opportunities to broaden my experience and develop my skills. • Supportive and friendly staff. Having a great support system among staff has been a huge plus working at Community Science. The staff respects each other and works very well together. If I have a lingering issue that I need to air out, I know I can talk to others about it and that they will problem solve with me or at the least listen to me. • Supportive and encouraging senior leadership. The senior leadership has a strong commitment to groom the junior staff professionally. In my two years at Community Science, I worked with several project directors that have very different skill sets, very different leadership and management styles, and very different communications styles. They have all been very supportive and have given me diverse roles and responsibilities so that I can grow in this field. • Competitive salary and benefits. Although the work inherently asks for long work hours, sometimes working into the evenings or over weekends, the company offers many ways to compensate for that. First, they offer two telecommuting days per week for their employees, which is a real perk. The hours are pretty flexible – for example, if you need to take care of personal business, visit the doctor, or others, as long as you are clear about when you will be available and not, the company is very understanding of that and tries to accommodate your needs. They also invest in your professional development – for example, the company will pay for travel and registration for you to attend a conference as part of your learning plan.
Cons
Although I really enjoy working at Community Science, there are two major issues that I struggle with. I recognize that some are things that come with the job and I need to work through it to be better at what I do. First of all, the work is very demanding. The work hours and workloads fluctuate from time to time, based on projects, and based on deadlines, but typically you’ll be working a lot more than 40 hours. This is inevitable because you are expected to meet your annual 90% billable percentage goal (this, by the way, was very confusing as a newbie and took a long time for me to figure out how this works). This means that you want to bill about 40 hours per week, which means that you will be working more than 40 hours per week (unless you are super productive and can work strictly on billable project tasks during your regular work hours). Working more than 40 hours a week means that you may be working some evenings and some weekends. This has worked for me so far, but I imagine that I would need to learn how to juggle between family demands and work demands in the future. And because of the billable percentage system we work under, it is challenging to allocate time to socialize with other staff (if you do, then it is taking away from their time as well as my own time, which means that we would have to work longer to compensate for the lost hours), catch up on readings for my projects (sometimes I feel the need to do some readings to get myself more comfortable with the project content area -- which are not always billable and this gets really challenging because I have to do this on top of the billable work), or complete tasks on my learning plan (as part of my professional development, I am required to develop a learning plan and implement it, but these, again, are hours that I have to work on top of the billable work). Because I have not worked at a company that uses a billable hours system other than Community Science, I do not know if these are issues that come with the job, or issues that are due to how the system is designed and implemented at Community Science. I try my best to meet what is expected of me but it is an ongoing question whether this type of lifestyle will be sustainable for me in the long-run. I know people that have successfully balanced their work and life in this field and at Community Science, so I am sure it can be done. At the same time though, I feel that it would be reassuring to know whether Community Science would be willing to embrace and work with the individual differences (such as different life situations or family demands) so that every staff has a chance to be successful in the field and in the company.
