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Liberty Science Center

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Liberty Science Center Reviews

2.9

35% would recommend to a friend

(109 total reviews)

Paul Hoffman

49% approve of CEO

26% positive business outlook

Liberty Science Center has an employee rating of 2.9 out of 5 stars, based on 109 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an average working experience there. The Liberty Science Center employee rating is 22% below average for employers within the Non-profit and NGO industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

109 reviews
1.0
10 Jan 2018

It looks good on paper, but run for the hills

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

If you are full time, they offer an extremely good benefits package with up to 5 weeks vacation a year for vested employees, unlimited sick hours as well. Free membership for your family and if you have guests you can get free wristbands for them as well with no limit on how many. If you are part time, the schedule is very flexible and there is always opportunity to pick up shifts on nights and weekends. If you are full time and not a part of the front line experience (90% of full time positions fall into this category) then you basically never have to interact with the public and are off on major holidays. Most of the admin staff make their own hours and don't have anyone to report to.

Cons

This is a company that doesn't care about their employees, at all. If you have ever wished that someone warned you about working here beforehand than take this as that warning, don't do it. The front line customer service staff work the hardest and make the least; they also have to work nights, weekends, every single holiday except Christmas Day and Thanksgiving Day with extended hours on all holiday weekends and are never included in any of the perks that the admin staff may receive. They are also subjected to extreme rules that admin does not have to follow. For the admin staff, there are a lot of "lifers" that will not allow any change or improvement to take place to excel the institution, which is greatly needed. Those in charge at the top levels, don't do anything but sit in their offices or at their desks all day and they make the most salary. When an idea does get past roadblock 1, 2, and 3 those at the top often veto it due to budget reasons. It's all about the bottom line and how many people they can pack into the building with no regard to safety, the guest experience or staff morale. There is often no cross departmental support and when one person does speak up they are labeled a negative person. In addition, the HR department is the biggest joke in the building and absolutely zero help with anything; they aren't even there on weekends which is when you have a large part time staff working (whom only work weekends) so they never have an opportunity to talk face to face with an HR rep and when they are advised to call during the week to set up an appointment on the phone it is often cancelled or rescheduled about 3 times. The customer service coordinators are in charge of the largest team in the organization (over 100 associates) and are given no training, support, or guidance throughout their career and most have never been a manager prior. Basically the entire place is on auto pilot with everyone crossing their fingers that nothing goes wrong while they are on shift. Almost everyone that works in the guest experience /front line area is unhappy, overworked, and stressed out. With the guest experience being the number one priority, you would think there would be more resources allotted to this. Also, raises are non-existent for part time employees and rare for full time employees. Everything is basically just way more stressful than it needs to be due to old ways of thinking. The birthday party program and camp in program are the worst of them all and I feel sorry for guests that are spending way too much for these services.

1.0
30 Nov 2019

Toxic and Unprofessional

Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

LSC can be an exciting place where you get to work with many people in helping visitors understand science concepts. It is a large facility where you can sometimes feel like you're part of something big. The staff you primarily work with are great people who care about what they do and are willing to help other coworkers create some great programs and demonstrations.

Cons

Where to start? Firstly, there is a lot of petty and unprofessional behavior that goes on regularly. There are managers who freely speak to anyone below their position as if they are stupid children who don't know anything. More often than not, the reasons are simply because of rank and position and nothing else. If you complain to HR, they always side with management and who they are friends with. The entire talent and development/HR dept. needs to be overhauled and staffed with true HR professionals. It's currently a biased mess, with a director who gets rewarded with promotions for being the heart and soul of many staff problems. She fires or makes people want to quit because of her own biases and overlooking of the truth. LSC has lost over 15 dedicated and professional staff over the past year because of her and her antics. Currently, upper management is playing musical positions and switching people into new titles because they are clueless to the real issues at LSC. The talent and development dept. is obviously the ring leaders of this staffing circus they created. Meanwhile, staff continue to quit on a regular basis. Word gets around fast that they are concerned with office gossip, not realizing they are the reasons for the gossip. No one feels secure in their job or in being able to report actual harassment and problems to HR. Everyone knows it's a kangaroo court in that office. Lies are made up about people / incidents by the director of HR to fit whatever agenda and narrative she feels (without facts) benefits her friends and management. Then there is the Marketing department that are bullies to pretty much everyone in other departments. They don't just control the message, they want to control the staff and everything they do. They are unfriendly, unprofessional and if staff don't do things their way, they make sure it doesn't get advertised and therefore fails. They always blame any issues or complaints on everyone else, but themselves. They operate on the idea that marketing should dictate what everyone does, rather than doing their job and finding ways to properly market actual science and programs the staff create. The result is a staff that doesn't care about what they're doing and they just wait to be told what to do. Great ideas and innovations are thrown out the window and idiotic watered down ideas replace them, because that's what marketing feels is easier to deal with. If marketing/media is questioned by ANYONE, that person is quickly targeted as being uncooperative and suddenly is called into HR for it. It's NEVER an issue when the marketing team is completely rude or ruins programs and events with their unprofessional antics, it's always the fault of anyone who complains about it. So, no one complains or even attempts to try to change anything, because they already know that will lead to being fired or forced into quitting by HR. As it stands right now, it is HR (Talent and Development) and Marketing that actually call all the shots on who stays and who gets shown the door at LSC. If you're not friends with those teams, you're already on the list to be booted out. The CEO seems to be OK about that.

1.0
19 May 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Guest Engagement Administration is nice to you and treat you like a friend until they find out you may succeed one of them professionally. The associates are awesome. Everyone in that building is kind and will get to know you.

Cons

Do not for a second think Guest Engagement Administration supports you. They are put in charge of you and will stop at nothing to make sure you do not get promoted over them. I was once their "Star Interpretative Associate" and now I was reduced to a "disgruntled ex-employee" fired based on unprofessionalism. I'll tell you what I was unprofessional about: I knew how to lead. I knew how to teach. I knew how to disseminate information. I supported ALL the staff, not just my department i.e. House Keeping, Security, STEM education, etc. Cross one of them and you'll cross them all. That is my warning. But if you're looking for a pit-stop job, one just for the money, it's an alright working environment. You're just sucking air to be honest. But do not expect to climb or exceed professionally -because they'll make sure that doesn't happen. They'll route you to other departments to succeed.

Viewing 1 - 3 of 109 Reviews

Glassdoor has 129 Liberty Science Center reviews submitted anonymously by Liberty Science Center employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Liberty Science Center is right for you.