Vantaggi
I enjoyed my time working at TransLink. I was an employee for nearly two years, serving in two different senior roles. The people in my division (communications, marketing, and public affairs) were extremely skilled, knowledgeable, and fun to work alongside. I made many friends during my time at TransLink and hope those friendships will endure because they are wonderful people. There were certainly times when the work was stressful, but I came from a high-stress environment with similar tight deadlines, so that didn’t bother me too much. I also found the subject matter interesting and ever-changing, which meant I was never bored.
Svantaggi
I do think some divisions at TransLink can be overly bureaucratic, which means decision-making can be painfully slow. There is also a strange dynamic at TransLink where some office employees are unionized while others are not. Unfortunately, I felt that some people in unionized roles took advantage and would take a very long time to get even the simplest task done, not because the task takes long, but out of principle or as a weird flex. It's not uncommon to have to wait two weeks for your colleague to complete a simple task that takes only two minutes, which can be frustrating and leads to a weird dynamic amongst the team, and causes some resentment internally. I also think there are a lot of meetings at TransLink, which can make it challenging to actually get any work done. It’s not uncommon for people to block white space in their calendars just so they can focus on work for an hour or two each day and not get pulled into unnecessary meetings. This is a problem that management is aware of and they are working on finding a solution. Another common frustration is that HR takes forever to fill positions (again, too bureaucratic) which leads to pressure on the remaining employees to pick up the slack while their team is short-staffed. It’s not uncommon for positions to remain vacant for several months, due to how long it takes HR to approve positions, post them online, conduct interviews, tender an offer, etc. I was actually shocked at how long they take, to be honest, and I think they miss out on hiring some talented employees as a result of their bureaucratic HR processes.