Pros
- The members are the best part of this job and will be the reason you stay. It is a wonderful and unique position to walk alongside others through vulnerable times in their life. -Growth in flexible and independent work. - Extra trainings offered (If you can find the time to do them) -Benefits package -Mileage reimbursement (Most of the time) -Forced to lean on coworkers for support, building lasting relationships -Shared caseload relieved stress in high risk cases
Cons
- Unrealistic and unachievable productivity requirements. When productivity is not met you will have consequences such as a write up and eventual possible termination. Clients cancel nearly everyday, and the team gets no productivity credit for each time someone cancels or misses. The productivity expectations for workers in the field are completely unrealistic and destroyed people who were passionate about the actual position. When you address productivity concerns with management you are left with no support and despite asking for assistance you will continue to be expected to independently meet an unachievable goal. Productivity is only measured off of “billable time” and a LARGE portion of your job responsibilities are not “billable.” The team was encouraged by an individual in management to “always bill for an hour” even if you weren’t with someone for an hour, leading to an environment where workers were encouraged to falsify their times and documentation in order to meet productivity. - No support from management. Issues that arose were never dealt with accordingly and there were several experiences of repeatedly approaching management with the same issues and never being met with support. Management is not present and often does not follow up on what they say they will do. The overall attitude from management makes workers feel unheard and unvalued. Decisions were almost always made solely by management without asking team for input or ideas. Individuals’ mistakes were often addressed in front of everyone, making the team feel bad and targeted. The environment was more corrective than supportive. - You take the job of multiple people as one person and are expected to keep up with a fast paced and overwhelming caseload with a disproportionate amount of responsibilities. There are no safety nets for support, meaning if an employee calls off or quits the rest of the team is scrambling without the help. Employees feel guilty to use PTO knowing the position it puts the rest of the team in to be missing even one person. Staff’s unavoidable and expected limited availability is a disservice to the clients we are serving. There are not enough staff and not enough support for the caseload given to the team. - MANY of the clients on our team were assessed to need a higher level of care than the team was able to provide, but management would hang on to them because we needed the numbers. Management had no consistency or guidelines to who they chose to discharge. Teams were expected to continue meeting with clients who (sexually, verbally, physically) harassed their workers and threatened their safety directly, while other clients would be discharged quickly for minuscule issues. - No payment or compensation for crisis management after hours and on weekends, including the time being on a rotating schedule for the 24/7 crisis line. - The team is expected to have case notes in by the end of day for a caseload that typically consists of 3-5 people a day. The slow days are not restful because employees are anxious about not meeting productivity. The busy days are not helpful to the slow days because then you fall behind in schedule and are typically behind for 3-5 days if you miss a beat. The structure of the program is set up for staff burnout and failure. You are expected to be okay missing your break and work overtime.