Pros
The overall rating here is reflective of my experience alone, and I would note that I’m one of the biggest beneficiaries of these pros. I left RHA in a much better career position than I began. There is a lot of potential to progress. Small companies usually don’t have not enough people to cover all jobs and specialisms. So there’s a load of work to do, and the pay rises or promotions that go with it if you seize that opportunity. The office is pretty modern, it’s not full of gadgets but it does have a well regarded Nespresso machine and randomly restocked free snacks and drinks. There’s easy parking, it’s close to a load of cafes, and it’s a 10-15min walk from two train stations. Additionally, the company moved pretty quickly to working from home during COVID-19, in retrospect. It wasn’t a seamless transition of support, but there were many small/medium sized companies that didn’t trust their employees to work remotely.
Cons
A lot of what I’ve written below is common in small companies, it’s not unique to RHA, and the pros of my experience outweighed these cons, but they are cons nonetheless and should be considered. There may not be direct pressure applied, in terms of “do this now” or hit X number, but you’ll find your to-do list brings pressure by itself. If you don’t find a way to prioritise, manage your time, and be open about your limitations, then it will overwhelm you eventually. Being the right fit is important, if you don’t fit in then it will be difficult. Again another symptom of small companies but I’ve chosen to include it specifically because of a lack of any HR process which will aid this. There’s nobody I’d say to avoid etc. but RHA is a mix of high staff turnover and long serving members; which highlights the flourish or perish nature. Commitment is a buzzword at RHA. All long serving staff, including myself, put a large amount of voluntary overtime in. Which has bred an expectancy. You won’t be asked to work longer but if you don’t then you won’t be considered fully committed to RHA. As much as there is opportunity, development will be entirely upon you. Small companies are often not in a great position to help people develop in a structured or supported manner, RHA is no different here.