Girl Scouts USA Reviews

Former Employee – worked at Girl Scouts USA

Pros – 1) Benefits: The benefits at GS are excellent compared to other non-profits. Vacation time is generous and some departments offer flexible workweek schedules.

2) Location: GSUSA HQ is situated in the heart of Manhattan, 3 blocks from the Empire State Building, walking distance from Penn Station, Grand Central Sation and the NY Public Library.

3) meaningful: Girl Scouts is almost 100 years old, the largest girl-serving organization in the country. Working on behalf of girls is valuable and satisfying.

4) Revolutionary: keeping apprised and ahead of trends in girl culture has made GS a leader in the world of youth development.

Cons – 1) Leadership: GS is currently undergoing a national restructuring, which has rendered the orgnaization an unpredictable, chaotic and stressful place to work in. The senior leadership of the national organization is made up of intelligent, competent woemn who unfortunately have few management skills nor a team-oriented demeanor, which are critical attributes in fast-changing times.

2) Culture: Working in an almost all-female environment should be an experience in empowerment, congenial collaboration and nurturing each other's successes. Instead, ironically, it is a culture of cruelty, back-stabbing, cliques and queen bees. Many staff members feel alienated, disempowered and marginalized by either the senior management team or their representatives.

Advice to Senior Management – Listen to and include staff members in decision-making and goal-setting. Take a cue from the spirit of community organizing -- several minds working together towards a common good (or common goal) will lead to stronger work plans and enable others to become invested and buy into the new plans and strategies. Be transparent and share information. Leaving people out of the loop or dismissiing their work as irrelevant/unimportant leads to disenfranchisement and a progressively negative culture. Create progrms to coach and monitor managers and senior employees who are unskilled in managing people, teamwork, etc. and dismiss thsoe who do not improve within a reasonable timeframe (eg. 6 months - not 2 years).

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Girl Scouts USA

Pros – Great job that allows you to give back to the community while earning a living. Great interaction with the community and young individuals. Kind of fun to contribute to their success, even in a small way. Worked with a variety of individuals from the community to make a difference. Great benefits include all major holidays, as well as time off between Christmas and New Year's day. Also, relatively low stress position.

Cons – Not too many. The pay is relatively low, since it is non-profit. The job, however, was pretty fun and easy.

Advice to Senior Management – Continue to develop people. Love that you promote building girls into leaders.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Girl Scouts USA

Pros – I believe that the best reasons to work for Girl Scouts of USA are that you are able to work for a very well respected and well developed organization. That is something that cannot be said for many organizations. Also, most people have a very positive image of Girl Scouts, therefore telling people you work there, most people will say "Wow! That is pretty cool." Another thing I like a lot and think is a big motivation for people to work there is that you get to be a role model for girls and young women. You can influence the community you live in by working with the children and adults in this organization.

Cons – I do not want to knock working at Girl Scouts. It is a great organization and has so many positives. However, like most non-profits there are the challenges of creating quality programming and services, and doing so on a shoe-string budget. Also, dealing with the changing and quickly developing technology and lifestyles that people in this day an age are facing is a daunting task for the Girl Scout organization. Girls have different lives than they did back in 1912 when the organization was founded. Striking a balance between delivering modern programming and services to girls and retaining the essence the Girl Scout Law and Girl Scout Promise has been difficult for some people in the organization.

Advice to Senior Management – I truly believe that the senior management of this organization is not in an enviable position. They are mandating that 1000s of councils across the country realign with each other. One of the major reasons for this is that girl membership has changed and the number of girls participating in the programs has declined. This is not the fault of the management, but it is a more of a cultural change. Realignment has been difficult for many councils because each council has been able to operate independently up until now, and there is a lot of resistance to change.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Girl Scouts USA

Pros – You know you are helping to benefit girls nationwide in their personal growth, confidance, and skills.

Cons – Communication. Whether it be overall communication from the Corporate level, or the local level from management to employee.

Advice to Senior Management – Treat everyone fairly and the rules should apply to all, not just select few.

Current Employee – been working at Girl Scouts USA full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – building girls to bellieve they are equal to men.

Cons – in membership, volunteer, program, and outreach we work countless hours and the folks in the finance dept. work monday through friday 9-5 and seem to always complain the membership is never in the office and sdont think we work very hard.

Advice to Senior Management – reward us for the job we do and pay us like you pay the finance dept.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Girl Scouts USA full-time

Pros – Zero - you would think that a pro of working for this organization would be providing meaningful programs and experiences to girls, but you don't get the chance to do that.

Cons – Extremely unprofessional and unhappy staff. Senior managers are incapable of performing job duties and no one is held accountable for anything. Its a strictly "throw it at the wall and see what sticks" type of environment. No room to grow professional or move up, no raises, no 401K or retirement. You do get a nice amount of days off - IF you can get them approved, which most likely you can't. Be prepared for things to change every single day, no plan, no organization. Don't plan on complaining to upper management about a.n.y.t.h.i.n.g. you will be handed a box of tissues and told how lucky you even are to have a job! Expectation is to work 24/7 with no compensation, you are told your job is more important then your health and your family. There is not a single line from the code of conduct that this employer adheres to. Very disappointing to see so much potential wasted.

Advice to Senior Management – None, not only are they not interested in a single thing anyone has to say, they are too lazy and incompetent to carry anything out.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Girl Scouts USA full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Mission is very worthwhile, girls are amazing, and there are many great volunteers.

Cons – * Membership ghetto. No one ever gets promoted out of membership.
* It will suck up your entire life, until you're nothing but a burned out husk. Even in the "slow" part of the year, when things are slightly less frantic.
* Very low pay, long and intense hours
*Very little respect or understanding or support for what membership folks are doing from departments/department supervisors who don't work with volunteers or members
* Utter lack of training for either staff or volunteers
* ridiculously bureaucratic and fear-driven, to the extent that, for example, the trainings and other materials that volunteers and staff desperately need will never be recreated
* extraordinarily high turn over
* constant reorganizing
* senior management doesn't trust/respect/listen to paid or volunteer staff.
* Council (and GSUSA) is constantly creating new hoops or programs or rules for volunteers sand staff members to jump through, but always changes whatever they are again right as everyone starts to adapt.
* Senior management constantly undermined the relationships between volunteers and the staff who managed those volunteers.

Advice to Senior Management – Trust your staff members, trust your volunteers, and get out of the way (let go of the micromanaging). Focus on the practical side of things, and remember that it's a membership organization! The girls and volunteers should be the FIRST priority, in reality, and not just in lipservice. Be transparent, actually listen to staff and volunteers, and for the love of god, be consistent. And "volunteer retention" is more than just numbers. It's about relationships. Volunteers have to be cultivated, supported, and thanked consistently and regularly. If your volunteer appreciation ends up pissing off ten times as many volunteers as it recognized, you're doing it wrong.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Girl Scouts USA full-time for less than a year

Pros – Become involved in many areas.

Cons – Not enough support. Expect to get work done in a 40 hour work week but work required 60 hours/week. Micromanaging supervisor who had no supervisory skills.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Girl Scouts USA full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Working for girl scouts is working to actively make a difference and change the lives of girls across the world. I have had no better job then the 3 years I work for them doing S.T.E.M. programming.

Cons – Working for such a such a large organization causes your life to be constantly under a microscope, I was accused of being a lesbian on multiple occasions and there seems to be a constant concern about about personal life and it bleeding into work.

Advice to Senior Management – Figure out your official policies and then stick with them.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Girl Scouts USA full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – 35-hour work week, casual Friday, good vacation if you're grandfathered in

Cons – Girl Scouts Western Pennsylvania is a disaster. CEO has a hand picked board and the leadership team is a joke; putting in a solid 10 hour work week tops. Management is embarrassing and HR is incompetent. It was so sad to witness the demise of an amazing mission in the hands of an uneducated, unmotivated and embarrassingly overpaid group of lazy executives. The morale of the office was that of doom and gloom and bullying from managers was the norm. The CEO is so mortifyingly stupid that her presence in any of the council's offices was a joke in itself. The development department skims donors to reach its goals and membership numbers are padded each year. As a former employee, I tried to share my concerns with both HR and my supervisors, but I was placated - with zero results- at best. GSWPA does not seek new employees outside its pool and the turnover rate was ridiculous. Stay away from this mess. The pay and the benefits - let alone the mission - do not make it worth the emotional turmoil that this insane and terribly incompetent place breeds. Practice what you preach, GS, I've never been in a less supportive, less-mentor focused place in my life.

Advice to Senior Management – Make your board accountable for something. If not for firing your lackluster CEO then at least attend special events or have a mandated yearly gift. Hire a real HR department who actually understands HR laws (read: the space women are allowed by law to breast feed their children or pump their breasts - this is the Girl Scouts, for goodness sake), look outside your current employees for open positions. GSWPA is gaining a reputation as a giant joke in the nonprofit community. The question, "What is going on there, who is running that place?"is one I've heard constantly since I've left.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company