Pros
Eastridge failed me culturally. There was little to no opportunity for growth and development. I was there for about 2.5 years. Not once was I “matched” in the mentor program. My advice would be to allocate financial resources to this program to incentivize participation. SmartGoals were a joke. We never looked at that. It was simply an administrative task. My department was far too busy and far too understaffed for our volumes to do anything besides answer emails. I once raised to an executive (my boss was out on leave) that I was burnt out. She immediately responded, “I don’t see why you’re burnt out. I don’t see many emails in the inbox.” I’ve never been so hurt by such insensitive remarks. My advice would be to offer training and EAP/mental health services to address burn out. Or she could’ve encouraged me to use PTO. Regardless her response was very poor and insensitive. I was the only person on my team coming into the office during covid for mail-related compliance tasks. When I raised non-compliance and that the volumes were far too much for me to handle alone, the executive gave ideas to alleviate the workload, but never actually did anything. This exemplifies a lack of support. I asked HR numerous times if I could shadow the LOA process for learning purposes – that never happened. When I inquired about promotional opportunities, my manager had me complete a business promotion proposal – I did it. Was I promoted? No. An exec said to me in a meeting verbatim “a promotion is well deserved.” Was I promoted? No. This same exec said “this is the best benefits team ive ever had.” And that the “data and billing reconciliation looked so clean.” That was because I implemented an audit report to terminate benefits and collect missed premiums. I recouped thousands upon thousands of dollars. This same exec told me that this audit report I was doing was a terrible idea initially. I raised the promotion comment and proposal to HR and all they could say was “a promotion was well deserved, what did the executive mean by that, did they mean in another dept?” Nothing happened as a result. This does not align with integrity. Furthermore, I asked for a raise. After deliberation, the raise I was given was nominal so I asked for a formal compensation review. HR partnered with the executive and provided me with a compensation report for a position lower than mine (lesser duties, lesser experience, lower title). The report was for a title so low that I’ve never in my life heard of a company that has this position. How is this an example of integrity especially given all my acknowledged KSAs? I remember hearing an exec quote how the founder would say “pay the people right.” Eastridge fell very short of that.
Cons
Take the appropriate measures to avoid class action lawsuits. I felt so unappreciated that I stopped caring. Word of advice, never push a high performing employee to not care. My manager would use her own personal money to send me coffee money and recognized me a few times. While it was admirable, it was clear that Eastridge did not have any financial rewards/recognition for my dept (which is why my manager used her own personal money). We never did any employee appreciation activities. Prior to joining Eastridge, I heard tons of stories regarding mobility so I was ecstatic to join. But I guess that’s only the workforce management side that has opportunities for upward mobility. There’s more I can say but I’ll leave it at this.
