A Frustrating Work Environment With Many Improvement Opportunities - Anonymous employee Universal Service Administrative Company Employee Review

The biggest issues facing USAC are its leadership team and its inability to effectively set and maintain a direction for the organization. The vast majority of people in management (and senior leadership) are woefully unequipped to lead. Most of the management staff are individuals that have been working at USAC for 10+ years (see pros for why this is a problem), were promoted based on time in seat, not on performance, and never developed (and have no interest in developing) the skills necessary to manage staff or make tough decisions. In addition, these same managers are not receptive to new ideas or changes from people brought in to help them and always take the "that's not how we do things here" approach. This attitude is most notable in the largest program, Schools and Libraries, where they are actively hostile to the rest of the organization, despite requiring the most help to improve and having the weakest leadership group. The close-minded attitude trickles down from the senior leadership team's inability to make choices (simple or tough), support and reinforce those choices, and install a culture of accountability within the organization. The current CEO is an objectively smart individual, but struggles to set a clear direction for the organization and suffers from an inability to make a decision and commit to it for more than a few weeks, often leading to contradictory instruction. Unfortunately, the opportunity to change this was squandered by the new CEO with ineffective new hires to the leadership team. The new CEO surrounded themselves with "yes men" colleagues from their time in government together and placed them in positions they do not have the skill sets to be successful in. In addition to ineffective management, the company structure is very siloed and has no guidance on the comprehensive responsibilities for each department. The lack of corporate guidance allows each department to continue being siloed and promotes department leadership's "that's not our responsibility" attitude.