Great environment and people terrible pay - Anonymous employee Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden Employee Review

great work environment, very supportive boss

low wages, not a lot of opportunity for growth

Mostly great coworkers and supportive team- there are great people at the garden who love what they do and look out for each other. I met great people who became friends at work and outside work. On the whole, it’s a largely accepting environment and a beautiful place to work. Depending on your supervisor, there is flexibility in scheduling and time-off.

No one can afford to work here (except for leadership positions). Management and leadership are living in outdated bubbles. The people who actually welcome guests, foster community relationships and education, set event spaces, design and plant the spaces (often in unsafe conditions) are overworked and underpaid. Terrible communication that often falls to hourly workers. Management goes on weird power trips and takes out personal frustration on staff. The Garden spent thousands of dollars union busting when staff asked for cost of living increases and safer working conditions. They rely on being a nonprofit to hide their focus on “driving up revenue” routinely. I’ve saw a dozen plus coworkers leave during my only two years there. It is widely known and talked about amongst staff how bad turnover is. HR is ineffective and does not listen or rectify staff concerns. Not a safe work environment- sexual harassment was common and nothing was done about it. At the end of my time there, I did not feel safe at work. They do not care about their workers and will burn you out until you quit- then they’ll make your remaining coworkers do your job with no pay increase or promotion. They drag their feet on everything and make decisions that their workers end up paying for (physically and mentally).