Great Organization, poor management - Executive Assistant Disability Rights California Employee Review

Lots of good people doing lots of good work

There were a lot of meetings

DRC is an agency committed to the advocacy of disabled individuals, uplifting and supporting their voices and hiring immensely talented staff who create amazing outcomes and results

DRC struggles with so many internal issues that talented, long term, and experienced staff do not want to remain. DRC is so siloed internally that no one really knows what is happening across the agency and what our priorities are, and management seems to thrive on this dysfunction. DRC does not pay staff of same years of experience equally across the teams and agency. There are different salary scales for different legal teams in the agency, something HR, the ED, and all managers know about but do not care to fix this massive inequity. This impacts attorneys and nonlegal advocates, denying promotional opportunities, deciding which lawyers deserve higher compensation without considering inequity in pay, and disproportionately impacting staff of color (and bilingual staff) who fill advocate positions in the agency. Those allowed access to promotional changes are subject to the whims of their management (for example Attorney 1 to Attorney 2), as favoritism seems to be the uniting principle for any advancement but it is often disguised as "budget availability". Senior management has grown with new titles and positions, while staff take on higher insurance costs and have not had raises since 2022. Long term staff have no incentive to stay as the salary tops out at 10 years and, unless someone in upper management wants to, you will not see any income growth or bonuses. HR is pretty useless with any issue brought to them