Transform Rural India Foundation Reviews

Likes

This organization is a breeding ground for toxic favoritism, with a culture that thrives on connections rather than competence. If you happen to be in someone's good books, you essentially don’t have to work. The institution runs on blatant nepotism, with favoritism institutionalized across all levels. Every team is riddled with personal alliances, particularly husband-wife duos, who manipulate the system to their advantage. In Uttar Pradesh, for instance, the HR head is the wife of someone who is notorious for having the most complaints filed against him. This individual shamelessly threatens employees, saying, *"Your job is in my hands,"* creating a culture of fear and submission. Key positions are held by husband-wife teams, with power concentrated in their hands, leaving little room for accountability. The Managing Director plays favorites, promoting select individuals while assigning them oversight over others. This creates a hostile environment where promotions and scrutiny are weaponized to maintain control. The promise of a “non-hierarchical” structure is nothing but a facade. The hierarchy is glaringly obvious, even in trivial matters like vehicle allocations. Senior staff get luxury Innovas, juniors settle for hatchbacks, and associates are often left to travel by bus. Associates, despite their critical role on the ground, are excluded from any meaningful decision-making processes. Leadership remains disconnected, conducting only superficial field visits. The Managing Director, Anish, has no real understanding of the ground realities, as he never engages with associate practitioners, the backbone of the organization. The culture and climate within the organization are dire. The toxic favoritism not only demoralizes employees but also creates an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty. Employees are perpetually scared—scared of losing their jobs, scared of retaliation, and scared for their future. Complaints are swept under the rug, and no effort is made to address the deep-rooted issues plaguing the workplace. To make matters worse, there’s no genuine attempt to build a supportive or inclusive environment. Any semblance of celebration or team-building is non-existent. Employees are forced to spend out of pocket for personal milestones like birthdays, as the organization refuses to invest in its people. Leadership is entirely absent when it comes to employee welfare, focusing only on securing funding and impressing external stakeholders. This institution is a prime example of everything wrong with organizational culture—favoritism, nepotism, exploitation, and a complete disregard for employee well-being. The facade they present to funders and the outside world is nothing but a well-crafted lie, hiding a decaying, toxic core. It’s not just an organization; it’s a systematic failure, built on fear, favoritism, and falsehoods....Read More

Dislikes

The organization operates on a foundation of false promises, particularly in its claims of fostering a non-hierarchical culture. This so-called "non-hierarchy" is a sham; the hierarchy is blatantly evident, even on their official platforms. Worse, by denying the existence of a hierarchy, they’ve unofficially handed power to their favorites, enabling them to make decisions that are not only unethical but also inhumane and discriminatory, particularly against gender-inclusive practices. Transparency, which they tout as a core value, is non-existent. Communication within the organization is abysmal; no one communicates openly, and critical issues are swept under the rug. The Human Resources department is shockingly mediocre, staffed with individuals who lack merit but excel at favoritism. Meritocracy is dead, as hiring decisions are based on personal preferences rather than competence or qualifications. The management’s expertise lies not in fostering growth or a healthy work culture but in faking it to corporate social responsibility (CSR) donors and funding agencies. They masterfully create an illusion of productivity and innovation while doing absolutely nothing of value within the organization itself. Their entire approach hinges on securing funds, as they believe funding alone equals organizational growth. Employee welfare is utterly neglected. Forget about fun activities or celebrations—even on your birthday, you’re expected to spend your own money. Festive occasions are ignored entirely, as the organization refuses to allocate any budget for team-building or morale-boosting activities. Incentives or benefits beyond work? Non-existent. The salary structure is another area rife with discrimination. There’s a deliberate policy of suppressing wages for talented employees while inflating paychecks for their favorites. This blatant exploitation and mismanagement reveal an organization not just flawed but fundamentally corrupt. It’s a place where mediocrity is rewarded, innovation is stifled, and the facade of integrity is all that keeps it afloat....Read More

Work Details

Work days: Monday to Saturday (Strict Timings)

Likes

TRI approach overlay idealistic and disconnected from the practical realities of development work. Transforming rural communities requires more than just passion and adventure it demand clear strategies, accountability and measurable result. The claim of a non-hierarchical, delibrative decision-making process may sound appealing, but in practice, such systems often leads to confusion, inefficiency and power struggles. Lofty ideals like "community-first sprit" and "absolute transparency" are meaning less without concrete mechanisms to ensure they translate into actionable impact. Professionals are not drawn by vague promises of independence or 'good packages'. they seek clarity, structure and tangible outcomes. The vision of TRI risks promoting chaos and frustration rather than delivering real changes....Read More

Dislikes

I would not recommend this organisation as a workplace. Leadership are full of biases, favouritism and mismanagement.

Work Details

Work days: Monday to Saturday (Strict Timings)

Work related travel: This job involves Travel Within Country.

Likes

Organisation has established itself as a nationally recognised NGO, successfully getting substantial funds from CSR initiatives and international donor organisations.

Dislikes

HR, Administration and internal work culture are still in the early stage of development, with a pressing need for improvement. The first and second tire of leadership (including Managing Directors, Directors and Associate Directors) exhibit a somewhat narrow-minded approach. The leadership displays significant bias, favouritism andmismanagement of Donor funds. I would not recommended this organisation as a workplace....Read More

Work Details

Work days: Monday to Friday (Strict Timings)

Work related travel: This job involves Travel Within Country.

Likes

If I have to tell you honestly, then it is nothing. There is a weird hostility that goes in the environment where we try to fake of being very transparent, being very non-hierarchical, being very positive and having a lot of human approach, but those are all just to show to the world and Make people feel that organisers or say the founders are nice, but just below their nose with their own signature orders are passed for employees to fire. They do not agree to any of the demands which people who are close to the two MD are making, and I was one of the victim of such an incident where I was , made to resign forcefully just because I disagree with certain points which were professionally wrong and jokes were made on those things and I was also threatened to be removed from job continuously just because I was a woman with strong opinion. The joke is that they talk about woman and do , fake gender trainings for all their employee, but their employees are very anti-women which Is visible in the process they follow, and specially, since I have worked in UP, I have seen how casteist and sexist jokes are made by their state lead and he laughs on them as if no one is going to report that to anyone. In fact, his own wife is HR there so reporting does not make any sense as he gets to know all the information which I have already experience twice when I had applied for leave through HR and then it came to, the notice of the reporting manager even though it was confidential. Their lack of professionalism is visible. Whenever you share something, they quickly gossip about it and the gossip is happening in every state very openly and it happens if you are playing politics and you have immunity of the two MD ....Read More

Dislikes

I will list down the dislikes, first is there leave policy? What a joke when you take a leave on Friday and then take a leave on Monday? You have to actually give away four days of your leave and that’s very cruel and no organisation follows such thing. Next is the transfer policy where they pick people from one place and throw people at another place without considering their family or their consent, and the state leads openly says that there is no guarantee that you will continue in the organisation. If you do not shift to that location, and he purposely gives you a hard location as he wants to enjoy authority and autonomy while he should not at all be involved in that process, but his own wife is HR, so they both decide who will go where, and who will do what dictating a whole authority in the organisation. Organisation does not have any future plan, but just that they want to copy government data and they are into government so deeply that they find it very fascinating to work with government and they just keep copying their data and fool the government employees as well at the same time, they fool their Investors or rather funders because they are giving fake data and without any scope of any scrutiny. They so that we have done this capacity building and that capacity building in reality. There work is limited to buttering the government employees and just using the ground caste for mobilising the crowd. I also want to highlight how my own experience changed over the time. As when I got there. First, I felt there is no work or less work, but gradually I realise that whenever there is work, it is always passed on from one people to another and the culture is of no ownership instead of, having task divided the people there on ground play a lot of politics and worst is the senior leadership who practice openly favourite and support their own people. Would highly recommend not to join such a organisation where you will feel like you have come to a jail and so toxic people that you will start hating working and being in social sector because they are not doing anything that social sector does rather they are doing just buttering the government employees and And you have to also do that with no dignity and have to lose all self-respect to continuously keep the government employees happy. All they do from state level where one person is buttering senior I officer to other IAS officers at state level to district level fellows and managers who are buttering district collect and DM....Read More

Work Details

Work days: Monday to Saturday (Strict Timings)

Work related travel: This job involves Travel Within City, Travel Within Country.

Likes

The good thing about the company is that they simply copy government data and present it as their own work. They consistently replicate models from other organizations and claim them as original. The people working there are mostly below average, and talented individuals rarely join. Even if they do, they tend to leave within six months due to the lack of opportunities for growth and improvement. If you’re someone who’s good at clerical tasks, has no career ambitions, and are lucky enough to get a decent posting that suits your job role, they essentially pay you to copy government data and schemes....Read More

Dislikes

The company is run by sycophants of the MDs, who are either from PMRDF or Pradhan, and they are biased towards these groups. The associate directors treat the company like their personal business, enjoying immunity from the MDs, who are blinded by constant flattery and exaggerated reports of work. In reality, these directors are middle-aged individuals who lack the wisdom or energy to understand the world, running the company as their personal property by transferring employees to undesirable locations to force them to quit. Women are treated inhumanely, not considered for growth, yet the company still hires more women to appease their funders. The funders, in turn, are also blind, providing large sums of money, which is primarily spent on marketing the work that is actually done by the government. There is no real plan or strategy to implement any meaningful projects; instead, endless meetings are held, discussing values and culture in what is actually a toxic work environment. There is no support for employees, no promotion or growth unless you're close to the MD. People come for the salary but remain stuck at the same level for 3-4 years with only inflation-adjusted 5% raises. The company lacks a proper promotion or transfer policy, moving employees around arbitrarily without considering professionalism or family circumstances. For example, women are transferred to unsafe locations without considering the demands of the job or travel requirements. The organization has no coherent culture, strategy, or framework, yet it continues to hire consultants to create fancy reports. They even hired a foreign communications director to project an image of being a high-level NGO, but in reality, none of the leadership has any real intellect, and the associate directors dictate the company based on their own rules, standards, and moods, making it feel like a privately-run entity. The worst part is that an employee attempted suicide, and another died by suicide, but the company suppressed the news and threatened employees not to speak about it, claiming it wasn’t related to the organization. However, the first employee attempted suicide after being repeatedly denied leave by someone leading operations in Uttar Pradesh, who runs the company like his personal property, constantly jeopardizing job security. This person also forced two women to quit—one who was two months pregnant and about to apply for maternity leave, and another who disagreed with his working style and unreasonable demands for working outside office hours. He even brought his wife into the organization. Another team lead in the government vertical operates through personal flattery of bureaucrats, forcing employees to perform clerical tasks in government offices. There is no strategy in the government vertical, just constant appeasement of bureaucrats. I urge everyone to consider multiple factors before joining this organization. The funders have no idea that the work being presented as the company’s own is actually the government's, and large amounts of money are being wasted....Read More

Work Details

Work days: Monday to Friday (Strict Timings)

Work related travel: This job involves Travel Within Country, Travel Within City.

Likes

Nothing is good with this organisation. I accidentally joined this organisation but very soon I realised that TRIF is not a place for true development professionals and I left the organisation.

Dislikes

TRIF running by two ex PRADANs Anish and Anirban who have good salesman skills to convince funders, but actually they increase TRIF corpus from funders money, not a single result seen is the field which is actually done by TRIF. they just tried to capture NRLM and Panchayat successful models and showcase these models with different lenses highlighted women leadership, community engagement in documents and making fool to Govt. and funders. in every workshops/meetings they parroting dialogs to some rural women and told them to speak in meetings but nothing is happening in actual. TRIF organisation in hijacked by some associate directors who always tried to manipulate the things and to save their position in organisation they always try that no other staff can stay here. Join TRIF is worst decision of my carrier. senior manager always told the new employees that TRIF is flat organisation but actually TRIF follow top to bottom approach....Read More

Work Details

Work days: Monday to Friday (Strict Timings)

Work related travel: This job involves Travel Within Country.

Likes

People who leave are their best employees and they leave because their integrity and professionalism, these guys are wasting money of their funders and specially taking money for women and treating women like garbage, good place to work for men and no women should join this place.

Dislikes

I can go on and on about the worst ever culture and leadership I’ve been part of, they made me relocate giving a salary change of some 10% hike, but in reality you’ve to spend your own money for everything. They make you travel in bus and force to get bike to travel like sales job from here and there. Worst part is leadership, their Associate Directors and old employees like Ex-PRADAN are running the organization like this family business, no policy for performance so they just promote and support their favorite people. The company is full of insecure leadership at even state level, they don’t want people to come ahead and the organization keep promoting them as thought leaders but they just copy and paste different theories from other sources. I worked both in UP and MP, in UP they’ve a state lead who has no professional approach and talks to you threatening like do the job or seek new opportunity. His words, “If you don’t do it then be ready to see new opportunities”, even for leave he says I only take leave in Muharram and never, denying leave like it’s his personal property. Their government engagement is based on letter and giving clerical support, they just copy paste government data and show we did it to funders. Women are treated like shit, no sensitivity for gender needs, I was humiliated so often and words which were so unprofessional echo in my ears. Forced to transfer so many times, they also kept humiliating me for my identity. Very toxic place, people who are nice leave as soon as they get better opportunities. People who are sweet forget to speak here, very undemocratic place to work as they take decision and force you to follow it or you’ll have to leave. Their previous lead kept the fabric well but he was forced to national team and since then there is no lead or no conversation. They force you to travel to lucknow and do useless meetings, when asked for support from government lead then told that they do different work, personal staff members of bureaucrats using Bill and Melinda Gates Fund and their work and imapct is zero. In no CLF there’s any book and employees just and click pictures with government staff to show that they are working but it’s just fake marketing. In human way of conversation with youth and new employees as if all of us are subscribed to their personal and political views. Like lead glorifying Hamas terrorists and justifying violence. Same culture in MP also, I left UP because of toxic culture and same was there in MP. Here also my position was changed frequently and transferred randomly. Funding was taken back and they couldn't acquire new funds....Read More

Work Details

Work days: Monday to Saturday (Strict Timings)

Work related travel: This job involves Travel Within City, Travel Within Country.

Likes

As looking to the work culture, independent to work as a team with freedom of take risks and make mistakes and learn with the mistakes.

Dislikes

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