HCT on Glassdoor: the dismal truth!

A recent perusal of the HCT reviews on GlassDoor has revealed that, of the past ten reviews left this quarter, a mighty ONE is positive about the place! A further one is neutral, whereas, for some unfathomable reason, eight former and current employees have seen fit to leave several (oops – many!) black marks on HCT’s report card. How can that possibly be?

So take a careful scrutiny of the comments below, and then see if you can detect a common recurring theme. It should not be too difficult. Even better, see if you can match each review with its Glassdoor title, as per below!

 

·         Worst Management

·         There is a War at HCT: Faculty and Staff are bleeding

·         Yikes!

·         Toxic Working Environment

·         Professional Suicide

·        Toxic beyond belief

·         Could improve

 

 

December 2023 - Cons

Lots of micromanagement of faculty (i.e., faculty punch in and out every day at a time clock, not allowed to leave campus for lunch even and no restaurants on campus!) with next to no consequences for student misconduct; makes effective teaching very challenging. Severely restricted our healthcare in the middle of the year; suddenly changed working conditions without notice/last minute (i.e., required faculty to teach on Saturdays, five weeks after the semester had started, with only 72 hours' notice); haven't given faculty a raise in 12 years. Punitive, not transparent, unpredictable, inconsiderate, exploitative (many faculty have over 250 students), and minimal if any consequences for students: poor behavior, academic dishonesty, missing of exams, etc. Not a very academic environment at all with minimal opportunities for research, guest speakers, committees, clubs, etc. Very insular with next to no collaboration with outside universities. Minimal opportunity for promotion, even after earning a PhD. No student diversity.

November 2023 - Cons

Arrogant management; not much room for independent working; too much control by the management

Advice to Management

Learn to be open, kind, and supportive. Your faculty is running your system, so you should look after their benefits concretely not by offering tiny and meaningless romantic surprise gifts to compensate skipping annual bonuses.

October 2023 - Cons

No opportunity for growth. The manager's degree needs to be rechecked as they have zero sense of operation. Insanely dumb policies were issued such as presence on Friday just to complete working hours. The weekly meeting does nothing except put more pressure on staff. Everyone is mentally disturbed by the dumbness of the higher organizational hierarchy. Please refrain from applying unless you have no other place.

Advice to Management

Please read some books to understand about basic motivators and consider staff human. We also have a family to look after.

October 2023 - Cons

If it costs your peace, then it is expensive. Don’t be taken away by the salary package. The job is like working in two full time jobs plus one part time. Academic freedom died here. Faculty are mentally drained and no hope to ease the pain they feel. You are in a race against the computer/automation of tasks inside a maze of nonstop monitoring of missed actions in the computer system. Example: Missed to take the attendance yesterday, 6:00 AM, email will be sent that you missed it. Attendance alert from students at 6:00 AM. On average 10-15 emails per day, Moderation is stressful and time consuming. 4-6 courses per term. Student class number increased to 28. Working in HCT is like earning money that you will just use for hospitalization. No humanity at all.

Advice to Management

We cannot beat the computer. It is a tool to help us, not to stress us.

October 2023 - Cons

It is one of the worst working environments in the world. I will share facts based on my experiences in HCT for the past years. 

• A military style and incompetent leader in an academic environment run HCT with no real academic experience in a large environment. He views all faculty as unfit. He has a lot of issues and doesn’t know how to deal with them.

 • The middle/upper management focuses on marketing themselves in the media at the expense of faculty time and efforts. The focus is on themselves.

 • HR is famous for releasing rules followed by several revisions. They are very slow to respond to inquiries.

 • Administration staff are popular for passing their duties to faculty.

 • You are expected to teach 15 credit hours in four days except Friday. Each class is 2 hours long for 3 credit hours. Do the math per week.

 • Students and faculty can’t leave the class even 5 minutes earlier. If you do, you will get a warning letter.

 • Too many administrative duties on faculty. Faculty consistently overloaded with work, leading to burnout and fatigue.

 • You must come to campus on Friday even if no duties or teaching are needed. Just to put in some hours.

 • Toxic working environment. Everyone fears everyone. Passing blame is a common practice. Many faculty face instances of bullying, gossip, or general negativity among colleagues. Giving warning letters is common, even for ridiculous HR rules such as not wearing a tie.

 • There is no transparency between the upper management and employees.

 • It is a highly complex working environment with many rules and procedures. Other institutions work to improve processes and procedures; HCT, on the other hand, adds processes and procedures to the existing ones.

 • Upper management decisions change very often.

 • No promotion; it is tough to get promoted. Why? To save money.

 • It has never been a salary raise.

 • Summer teaching is mandatory with no compensation, unlike other real universities in the country and worldwide.

 • Biometric sign-in is required, and you must complete 36.5 hours weekly, unlike other federally funded excellent real universities. Failing to achieve these hours will result in financial penalties.

 • The leader doesn’t care about research, only teaching.

 • Invigilate high school students taking EMSAT on Sundays is optional at this moment, with ridiculously low compensation ($80 for six hours). However, due to this very low compensation, very few are volunteering for this task. This might change and make it compulsory without payment based on circulating rumors. Anyway, it is coming.

 • The absence of private spaces or areas to concentrate leads to constant disruptions. There are no offices, just cubicles in a large area housing many faculty.

 • Faculty don’t have ergonomically designed furniture, leading to discomfort over prolonged periods.

 • Lack of transparency from management about HCT goals, expectations, or changes, leading to feelings of insecurity, confusion, and certainly.

 • Based on the latest news, more faculty are leaving than new hires are coming. They are asking us to refer friends to apply for HCT, but most faculty are not complying or encouraging friends to do so. I am sure you understand why.

 • Tickets are paid the same despite your country of origin and distance from UAE. 

In a nutshell, it is crucial for you to prioritize a healthy working environment. Working in a toxic workplace hampers your productivity and creative potential and can lead to detrimental physical and mental health consequences. Chronic stress, anxiety, and a sense of disillusionment are common repercussions of such environments like HCT. Furthermore, a toxic workplace can hinder your career progression and stifle opportunities for growth and learning. Therefore, it is imperative for you to conduct thorough research, seek feedback, and trust your instincts when evaluating potential employment opportunities in HCT. Avoiding toxic work environments will pave the way for a fulfilling and sustainable career journey. Unless you are desperate for a job, then come and join us. There are many fake positive reviews. There is absolutely nothing positive in this institution. It is not a real university as we know it; it is more of an elementary school run and operated by people who don’t understand the academic field.

Advice to Management

Hopeless to advise. He doesn’t listen. Don’t treat faculty as slaves with master’s or Ph.D. degrees.

September 2023 - Cons

Toxic environment, good educational background is a real disadvantage for promotion, nothing is about education but management, lazy, very weak ability of students etc

Advice to Management

Give some credits for your employees with proper education and experiences from real world class institutions

 September 2023 - Cons

It is a completely toxic and dysfunctional place, run by people who have no clue about education. The psycho bullying atmosphere starts at the top and others follow suit. There is no education happening here, just mercenaries collecting money and high managers enjoying bossing people around before eventually stabbing them. Admin employees are told to leave reviews on this site to make the organization look decent. You should only accept a job here if you are totally desperate and willing to do anything with no ethical compass.

Advice to Management

They will not listen, there is no point.

Glassdoor Summary: HCT has an overall rating of 3.3 out of 5, based on over 353 reviews left anonymously by employees. 51% of employees would recommend working at HCT to a friend and 39% have a positive outlook for the business. This rating has decreased by -11% over the last 12 months.

Meanwhile, the current Ratings Distribution for the Educational Empire of Evil stands as follows:

5 stars: 14%

4 stars: 15%

3 stars: 23%

2 stars: 14%

1 star:  34%

Staff Plagiarism Scandal Rocks HCT!

Yes, it's not just the students who cheat at HCT - the academic staff are at it too! The following report has been a long time coming, due to various concerns on the part of the writer, who is very close to Mission Control at HCT. Yet I feel that you will agree, it has been worth the wait!

*******

Plagiarised reports? Dodgy PhDs? Not here, boss …

The Head Honchos at HCT have been sitting on this veritable Pandora’s Box of academic malpractice for many months now, fearing that the fireworks might explode into the public domain and effectively finish off HCT’s already extremely tarnished reputation.

Well, here we go…

Last Spring, word reached the very peak of the HCT directorate that two of its academic directors had been accused of almost entirely plagiarizing several research papers published in an Iranian academic journal. Although they were initially assured that the theft represented isolated incidents (as if that makes it less reprehensible), a research fellow from one of the main universities in Teheran later contacted HCT to drop some very bad news: it was just the tip of the iceberg.

In fact, it has recently been discovered that, over the past year, half a dozen other Iranian researchers have reported their papers being extensively plagiarized and republished under Emirati names in peer-reviewed journals published in academic journals in Canada, South Africa and New Zealand. In some cases it appears that the research papers had first seen life as articles in Farsi, but were then translated into English and submitted by the shameless Emirati ‘authors’ as their own work. These authors’ links to HCT have already been proven, but their names have been protected by the fog of secrecy that regularly swirls around Central Services. Although everybody knows their names, nobody dare speak them.

According to the latest informed rumors, all but one of the shameful plagiarists have confessed to their wrongdoing, admitted their plagiarism, and then gone on to retract their papers. However, clear evidence of the above is hard for an 'outsider' to find, as all names and titles have been diluted to the point of transparency. And not one of the thieves has been made to surrender their post.

Another case involving a Middle Eastern university reveals that an article submitted by a prominent HCT director included sentences apparently lifted verbatim from a master’s dissertation submitted by a Turkish student. The same piece of research included some original material written in poor English, whereas other parts featured passages written very eloquently, almost as if they were written by a third party. The phenomenon of paying somebody else to write your academic papers is, of course, not unique to the HCT, being rife throughout the Middle East. But only HCT would wish to hush it up, rather than hang out the perpetrators to dry. Isn’t that right?

However, I have saved the best (possibly) for last. So, please tell me - just who is the VIP HCT employee who cribbed the main part of his Doctorate from a Pakistani research fellow’s work, added a few of his own observations, and then submitted it to another university as entirely his own work? Just who is this ruthless and disreputable specimen of humanity, who betrayed a former colleague? Do we have a name to match to this heinous academic crime? I believe that the whole of HCT Central Services know who this person is, but their fearful silence speaks volumes.

Or can somebody else fill in the missing parts of the jigsaw in the Comments Section below?

Exams at HCT

A day in the life of a faculty drone. Or, Alice in the educational desert Wonderland, where we voyage from the mundane to the frankly silly, and then way out yonder to the incredibly bizarre!

Exams at HCT:

As most academics worldwide understand and accept, exams are not the best way to either engage, interest or (Heaven Forbid) even assess a student. But HCT makes a fetish of exams, ranging from a 'Quiz' to a 'Mid-term' and, in their parlance, a "FWA" - a "Faculty Wide Assessment". What all this nonsense actually means is: everything in triplicate please, to a strict deadline, subject to scrutiny from an 'Assessment Specialist' -  a.k.a. someone who has no idea about your subject specialism, yet can enforce Bloom’s Hierarchy of Knowledge to almost anal precision (with the aid of a textbook).

Erm, excuse me, but most academic institutions have dispatched Bloom to the intellectual dustbin - or hadn't you noticed? But it’s hopeless. The key here is to understand that if you are a "Senior Course Leader" (with no enhancement to pay or time) you must take charge of writing exams in triplicate for every subject you teach. Each exam must be at least 80% different from the others. So go figure. … that's 27 different written tests per subject per term. Folks, it breaks people, especially when each exam comes back as some obsessive has spotted a comma out of place or a margin that is one whole millimetre out of alignment. This nonsense all begins in week 1-3, so it can last a whole semester!

And almost incredibly, it even gets worse. If you manage to get your exams past the 'Assessment Specialist' (subject to Peer and Academic Program Lead scrutiny too), then congratulations! You are now obliged to be on campus during the said exams and to mark them all. Please do not get me started on moderation either! That's a whole confusing rule-bound and process specific laden process. But I digress. So through the hurdles, deadlines, returns of work, after the endless weekends and evenings we finally get to...

Week 12: Deans of 'Academic Operations' insist on mandatory attendance at "FWA training". This is an opportunity to gather the slaves together, feed them the regulations and the updates and warn them that any transgression is a "violation" that has implications for their careers. So just watch it! These Deans of 'Academic Operations' are merely justifying their salaries to their masters. Servile and cowing they are whilst looking fearfully upwards, they now have the chance to flex their addled muscles and brains downwards. Oh joy!

The bottom line here is that over 200 rules, regulations and their many variations have to be meticulously obeyed and followed - and then justified if they are breached. Worse still, they 'update' them every Semester! What this means, I am afraid to say, is that most Faculty members will find themselves walking up and down a Hall "actively invigilating" (there are severe penalties for not being "active") for 2-6 hours a day during the "exam season" inclusive of Saturdays (without overtime) and marking all papers, moderating and submitting grade books within 72 hours. Faculty are also banned from bringing mobiles into the "FWA Zone" and subject to flogging if they breach that rule. Sorry. I told a lie. It's not the Navy in the 18^th century, it's HCT. But simply put, you'll be punished by being 're-trained', sent to more invigilation duties, or even sacked. The 'jolliness' that HCT tries to spoon over all this is laughable. One might sick up "Lashings of Ginger Beer" as it is no picnic. Some people quite literally break.

Curiously, the HCT ‘management’ has devised a system of self-audit. They recruit those sad folk who love the retarded system to be 'auditors'... just to make sure their ‘process’ is running fine. As a result, cue exam season and a flurry of stern faculty-wide emails emerge from the Dean of 'Academic Operations' every day: (pull your socks up, Faculty!) about rule breaches (Saif in Engineering, we saw you sitting down for more than FIVE minutes AND taking a cheeky pull at the free water bottle, YOU ARE WARNED!"). And of course, inevitably, there’s a “Look out! The Auditors are on campus today" (erm, is that the point of random audit?). I give up. And once again inevitably, there’s a lot of huffing and puffing and tired back slapping when we all get to the end of the ridiculous process. It's a cruelly bizarre make-believe world, and it could only exist – nay, flourish! – at HCT.

 Just to underline again, forcing students to sit examinations written strictly to Blooms is no way to develop critically thinking minds. But of course, The UAE does not want critical thinkers. Let’s face it, the government here locks up hundreds of its ‘free-thinking’ citizens every year.

It just wants Alice in Wonderland. 

Abdullatif M. Al Shamsi

So, a case for Inspector Holmes? Or just some rather old news about that swindling Shamsi fellow ... ?

Either way, a former HCT inmate provides some fine  words of wisdom regarding a possible career move to the Evil Empire.

***

After having wasted nine years of my life working for the rancid dirham, my first few words of advice for any would-be recruit to the gulags of HCT are: take extreme care! In fact, I have a simple cautionary tale for anyone who wishes to climb the greasy management pole at HCT. We are all aware of teachers who have been dismissed without notice on a mere whim, and I have personally seen the kapos get whacked - it's part of the routine at HCT.  Yet I would never have expected the Commandant to literally disappear overnight! But yes, former CEO Al Shamsi was squeezed out like an unwanted herpes scab after the Summer break last year, and, with as little fanfare as possible, a new Sturmbahnfuhrer was ushered in. The king is dead – long live the king!

Of course, for most bold, energetic and forward thinking Higher Educational Institutions, one might have expected a brief 'hand-over' period, at least a "thank you for all you have done, our CEO is now moving on, we are grateful etc.," or even a whip round from the tea boat. And yet, in this case, there was - nada, zilch, diddly squat, sweet FA. So what happened?

All of the above has been shrouded in great secrecy, deep mystery and a good dose of "we don't talk about this and neither should you unless you want to find yourself on the next flight home" so loved by HCT. Umpteen rumours abound, ranging from the Minister for Education sacking him on the spot for getting his fat fingers trapped in the proverbial, not reporting someone else's fat fingers getting caught in the same, for paying homage to Mr Wasta and facilitating nepotism, and for … well, goodness  only knows what. 

What is clear here is that, whatever exactly happened, it will forever be shielded from us mere inmates. It’s just another case of khalas, move along there, nothing to see here, stop loitering, etc. Of course, the lesson that they want everybody to learn is that they can ‘disappear’ anyone - from the lowliest janitor to the CEO - at the click of a finger. Unsurprising for this part of the world (i.e., the uncivilized part), the case makes it absolutely crystal clear that there is never any accountability, no due process or labour rights that one might expect in the West. Because when the Big Daddy wants you out, you are OUT!

In short, the above matter should serve as a salutary warning to anyone who might be wishing to chance things here. In particular, for those thinking they could forge a successful career at HCT!