My first few months at Frontiers was great - at this point I would have easily given it 4/5 stars. The training was thorough, people were lovely, and the atmosphere was supportive and kind.
At the 6 month mark things just went south - I really started to question what I was actually achieving in my role. Posting Research Topics was the only way to prove yourself as being good at your job, and was known as the sole route to being included in wider projects and being considered for promotions. I felt truly embarrassed to be ‘selling’ this project to academics who had no idea what they were getting themselves in for (probably a whole load of work for free that gets them nowhere).
Myself and colleagues consistently raised our concerns but were met with a brick wall. There are countless ways to grow a journal besides sending out mass emails and desperately trying to get people to host a Research Topic. But we had no time to explore these.
Ultimately nothing ever changed - except the targets, they went up.
Confidence in upper management was completely obliterated after a million U turns and constant unnecessary pressure. Sometimes we’d be asked to do things, the instructions would be totally wrong, we’d muddle through to get the job done, and then they’d decide actually they didn’t want us to do it. This was a weekly occurrence. I am confident that I could manage internal communications better myself and I have no experience in doing so. Completely baffling.
The culture became toxic and it was a genuine nightmare to come into work. I had to detach from it to survive, and naturally started looking for other work. Such a shame as I truly believed in our mission, just not how we were going about it.
I am overall appalled by what the company are doing at the moment. They need big change. My heart goes out to all the people who were put through the stress of redundancies - although also very pleased for them that they got out.
