Pros
They will pay you which is good, but they send paper cheques so it takes months.
Cons
I worked as a data scientist for them (minimum wage, no benefits). You might think that KGS Research has a disproportionate amount of people who are negative because call-center work is stressful, but no, I’m here as a data scientist to tell you straight that KGS Research and its bosses and supervisors are not so good even in other departments. I did remote work for the company during coronavirus (Q1-Q2 2020). My work was 10 AM to 10 PM of “live training” every day of the week, including weekends. “Live” training is when you need to be present 24/7 on-camera for various supervisors as they train you. They kept using a free trial of Zoom, so they keep recycling the 40 minutes trial (you are live with your team for 40 min, you get kicked off, you need to reconnect, etc.), it was very confusing. Only 1 of the 10 people training me (each day was a new person) ever gave me a lunch break, nobody else would. Since the training is “live on camera” the supervisors will get mad if you take a break or use the washroom. They don’t have any of their own computers in their building, it’s “Bring Your Own Computer.” This means that sensitive information where the survey results data is stored will be on most workers’ personal laptops because everybody will be downloading the files to work on locally. It seems dangerous that sensitive information such as voter’s survey information as well as their name, gender, race, salary, etc. is available to download onto your laptop. They pay with paper cheques and not direct deposits. I have worked in over a dozen jobs since the 2000’s, and I’ve never seen a company mail paper cheques, everyone does direct deposit! This means you get paid for your work several months after you had done the work. Need to go to work there? Sorry, paid parking only go check the maps if you don’t believe me. You’ll lose easily $20-40 alone on the parking unless you want to park very far away and walk there, it won’t be fun in the winter at all. Anyways, I did the “live” training for an entire month before the big boss suddenly called me and told me nonchalantly “Yeah you’re not a right fit for the position,” and when I asked him to clarify what it meant he said “You’re no longer working for me”. Yikes! Good thing I didn’t rent an apartment for a year lease, I would’ve actually moved to commute quickly to the company! Overworking a small team so much just leads to many mistakes being made all day, why not hire more people instead of making everybody work 12+ hours a day? When I worked there I honestly ran myself ragged, I would actually be in my room 12+ hours all week doing their work, eating canned food and delivered food because they wouldn’t give lunch breaks, I’d be typing frantically and eating simultaneously, taking just one restroom break a day, then after work I’d eat, shower, watch a YouTube video or two, then sleep and wake up early for the next day. It’s not a 9-5 job and you won’t be able to have a family or other commitments with this job. No benefits either for my position. I don’t like how they make everybody go to office during COVID. I expressed my concerns with my boss privately and respectfully because I had members of my family get sick from the virus and told him I wasn’t comfortable in that situation and that I didn’t wish to attend a potluck. But instead I got yelled at, and he told me it was mandatory, so I went and even brought them food to be kind. You may think that all the other Glassdoor reviewers are poor and bitter people working in the call center for KGS, but no, other departments are bad as well, and I speak as a data scientist who doesn’t have to deal with cold-calling people, the way they manage people’s data is simply atrocious and they purposely overwork you. I took all the work in a positive manner and was really happy to do the work, but because I talked to my boss privately about the potluck he really had something against me after that. One weirder thing is that the company doesn’t even do translations, they make the data scientists copy and paste the survey questions into Google Translate to translate from English to Spanish, or English to Cantonese. I’d often get yelled at for the formatting of the Cantonese questions. But how on earth am I supposed to understand that?
