- WRI as a whole is extremely bureaucratic and pretty dysfunctional in many respects.
- Getting things approved, especially if they concern important program areas or donors, can take months. All senior staff have to sign off on many things and as a result most of them are insanely over-stretched and will not do things like respond to emails unless they know you personally. As a result, internal networking is key to getting things done - and this is next to impossible since leadership staff are located all over the country and the world.
- Work is deeply siloed across the different programs. If you are in for example Cities, you don't have many opportunities to be exposed to the work of distant programs like Forests or Climate. Within the Cities program itself, teams are also really siloed and sometimes work in duplicative and cross-purpose manner.
- Core functions including communications, RDI, and finance are both really over-stretched and deeply controlling. There is no attitude of wanting to work together to achieve shared aims - instead they act as roadblocks and contribute to a really bureaucratic culture.
- Grants and Contracts are SUPER overwhelmed at all times and getting simple payment approvals can take months, even if that means alienating your stakeholders. They don't care.
- No clear growth paths for staff, even laterally. Many staff cycle out regularly because everyone is so busy that they do not have time to invest in anyone else's career growth or opportunities. I can't imagine how much money and time is wasted re-hiring people after they leave.
- Organizational culture ranges from confusing false positivity to high-stress and unfriendly depending on what you are working on. I felt it was hard to find people who were willing to be honest and realistic about challenges and projects.
- The senior executive team is located all over the world and it is difficult to understand what many of them work on on a daily basis. Lots of nebulous retreats and strategic planning processes going on that I learned to tune out news of because it all had so little bearing on my day-to-day working life.