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Development Alternatives (India)

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Development Alternatives (India) Reviews

2.6

40% would recommend to a friend

(77 total reviews)

48% positive business outlook

Development Alternatives (India) has an employee rating of 2.6 out of 5 stars, based on 77 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an average working experience there. The Development Alternatives (India) employee rating is 30% below average for employers within the Non-profit and NGO industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

77 reviews
2.0
15 Feb 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

As a fresher, this was a great place to learn. An organisation which was on its peak in the 2000s and managed to get some amazing infrastructure on ground. There are projects in almost every area and a lot to learn from the communities they work in. Some senior management staff and employees are kind hearted and have high morals, as opposed to the rest of the organisation and HR.

Cons

They pride themselves on their culture in 'theory' or what they used to have, but honestly, it is very negative, dishonest, lacks trust, detrimental competition between teams and lacks empathy. The projects are not designed to achieve long term impact or success, rather to appeal to funders and donors. The work and research is very mediocre - primarily due to under-paid staff who are not motivated to perform to their highest ability, rather they are scared/threatened into working. Performance reviews are highly detrimental and negative, biased and subjective. The process looks like it is 'ideal' (something the HR proudly boasts) but there are so many biases included in the process that it looks like a pointless, stressful exercise. Performance reviews should reflective and helpful rather than scary and demotivating. There is a huge disconnect between the 'Delhi' team and 'field' teams. Ideas are cooked up in Delhi and sometimes forced down the field teams without taking into account how difficult the field conditions are. And finally, the morals and values of senior management are highly questionable. The way a few harassment cases were handled and sidelined shows how little the senior management cares about its employees and organisation's culture. Proven harassment cases were not discussed with the staff (rather told that the particular person left due to family reasons), guilty individuals have been re-hired in different positions (as consultants or on other locations) and there has been no discussion around sexual harassment apart from customary emails from HR.

1.0
1 Nov 2018

So wish had never joined

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Middle management is the only next best thing after the support ground staff in the organisation.

Cons

As expected in bullets : 1. Senior management all are 3 monkeys of Gandhi in the other way round. They don't see , hear and speak the TRUTH. 2. Arrogant HR department. 3. Flirtatious Admin department. 4. IT department cold , arrogant , selfish ...... people - ALL 5. Chairman - dependent fellow 6. Staff not treated as humans. 7. Horrible time management and moreover fund management. 8. Policies only on paper and all work according to themselves. 9. All best and genuine people have left - some honest people getting crushed and taken advantage of as rest in a comfort zone and ruthless. Can carry on and on as it's an never ending list.

2.0
14 Dec 2018

Would suggest background check on your bosses before you join

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Old organisation with several projects and better infrastructure than most NGOs in India, easy to grasp a lot of key concepts about the development sector easily, great office building and canteen

Cons

Terrible working hours, most of the seniors are extremely ignorant and unprofessional, the senior management has a very old-school style of extracting as much work through keeping employees scared

Viewing 1 - 3 of 77 Reviews

Glassdoor has 94 Development Alternatives (India) reviews submitted anonymously by Development Alternatives (India) employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Development Alternatives (India) is right for you.