American Diabetes Association Reviews

Pros

* Benefits ~ having medical coverage day 1 of being hired is a plus. Seemingly endless vacation time, personal time, and paid holidays are great!

*Co-Workers ~ we all work together towards the common goal and get along very well. Any grievances one has, all have.

* Scheduling ~ management is pretty fair when it comes to requesting time off. Monday- Friday work week only. Pretty flexible.

* Dress Code ~ fairly laid back but not ridiculous. Able to wear jeans year round, only requesting to dress up if interacting with the public which is extremely rare in the Call Center.

*Incentives ~ when you do a great job, you WILL be recognized for it. By your peers and even the management team. Gift cards, incentive point=$, and birthday decorations are small gestures that make a BIG difference.

Cons

I f you think that working in the Call Center that you will really "make a difference" and "save lives", think again. You are now on the "front line" to take bullets from angry callers for other departments. We all fell for that spiel when we were hired, just to figure out that we're the "low men on the totem pole" that handle ever other departments' mistakes. As with most customer service positions, prepare to be cursed out and yelled at for things you have no control over. The majority of the information that you learn in training, does not prepare you for the calls you will receive. 85% of my calls are complaints or transfers, 10% donation calls and 5% are diabetes information calls.

Some managers are great at what they do some others are not. Thankfully, the current managing director will be replaced. She did not believe in speaking to her employees or even being present. When she was present, she was clueless as to what was going on. Hopefully a more approachable and personable personality will take her spot.

Simple requests (not even demands) are not taken into consideration nevertheless thought of from other departments. Examples include; adding a number to the appropriate group to help with constituent complaints that would result in FIRST CALL RESOLUTION instead of endless transferring. If the workers in this department are actually heard and taken seriously, the association could expect a much better approval rating.

The call center is changing. They say that they are looking for people who are compassionate and with great personality but constant monitoring and nitpicking is destroying the bit of personalities that we have left.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to the people who you feel are "low-level" employees. At the end of the day, we RUN the show and have the power. The more dissatisfied WE are, the more upset constituents will be which will lead to less donations. Show some respect for the workers that handle your CALLS and your MONEY. (The 4th Floor)

Pros

Good benefits, appear to care about employees, strong tie to the mission

Cons

Allow for insubordinate behavior from your staff and do not support Directors
Human Resource department is HORRIBLE and poorly trained
Management is MIA and then tries to hold you accountable for things they never trained you on...

Advice to Senior Management

Follow better procedures when you fire or lay off. Keep paper trails and hire...for God's sake more experienced HR professionals!!!!!!!

Pros

commitment to helping the community

Cons

work life balance is not always executed

Advice to Senior Management

value good employees

Pros

Vacation days, salary, benefits package

Cons

High turnover, unable to grow in the company

Pros

Great Flexibility and time off

Cons

Management was not competent as managers ( great in their previous jobs but after promoted to manage others, no training was supplied). I felt that pay was inconsistent within the department. Salaries were dicussed and people that started around the same time had vastly different pay. Mine was higher than some and I felt they were taken advantage of.

Advice to Senior Management

Train your EDs, put into place an office survey so that there is accountability for the way that staff is treated.

Pros

The employees for the most part work toward the common mission

Cons

Need to better recognize all employees

Advice to Senior Management

Hold all people in management accountable for the work

Pros

You get a sense of fulfillment. Life work balance. The ability to telecommute and a flexible schedule.

Cons

Salary is not up ta par with other non-profit organizations

Pros

American diabetes Association does provide health Insurance benefits from day one. Also, it’s a check if you really need one.

Cons

There is a reason why American Diabetes Association is always hiring for their customer service department, it’s because they have a hard time getting people to stay there. The customer service department consists of all the front line employees who actually talk to the constituents. Yet, surprisingly they are the least valued and respected department in the entire company.

Be prepared to have to raise your hand to go to the restroom, an upper management team that treats everyone as though they are doing them a favor by letting them work there, unqualified upper management, inconsistent information during training, having to bring in a doctors excuse whenever you call in sick (yes, even with the flu), being treated like you are in some type of boot camp while you are in training, with constant ridiculous role playing, test, ridicule, mentors who yell at you while you are taking calls to hurry up and get the caller off the phone or you’ll get “IN TROUBLE”; and did I mention inconsistent information, the list really goes on and on.

All of this while receiving very little pay. The moral of the department is the worst I have ever seen in any call center. Almost everyone always seems depressed and rarely ever even looks up to hello to each other.

If you want to work there because you think you can help make a difference think again. Very few people there actually care about diabetes and the callers. They are more concerned with call metrics and getting as many calls answered and callers off the phone as quickly as possible and they want you to be a robot and read what is on the script. If you have half a brain you will be miserable there.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop wasting donations training new people every month when all you have to do is treat the people you have like adults and with respect.

Pros

The vacation package is generous. Currently it doesn't carry over year-over-year so be sure to use it all!

Cons

Morale was so low among non-management as lack of strong direction, job security and communication are poor. Watch your step and watch your back.

Advice to Senior Management

Pay attention to what lower level employees are saying instead of sweeping glaring issues under the rug. Good employees are leaving at an alarming rate.

Pros

Benefits at ADA are wonderful. The learning tools and training are good as well.

Cons

ADA has very little potential for growth in the field offices. There are hard lines drawn for fundraisers and very little support from Directors and above. The organization is more about the money raised than the work that is done in the community. Funds are not going to local areas and it makes it embarrassing to ask for sponsorships or donation when a person cannot honestly say that money is serving within their own community. High turnover, job dissatisfaction, poor community presence make ADA a bad combination for most offices.

Advice to Senior Management

Upper management needs to spend some time in their field offices to understand the difficulties faced and work with teams to solve reputation problems and high turnover rates.