Pros
1) Opportunity for Growth: If you focus on doing your job well, management will take notice (mostly because they are always understaffed and need to develop people into different roles ASAP), and you will be able to move up in the company or learn different tasks, like test administration or a more advanced program. 2) Changes Lives: It's incredibly rewarding to see the effectiveness of the programs and the direct impact you have in your role towards helping each student achieve success. 3) Learn a lot of Useful Skills: The skills you learn transfer easily into other fields, especially if your center gives you an operations role at some point. 4) Experience in the Field: The company bridges the gap between psychology and education, so you can really get an idea of whether or not you want to go into either one more specifically somewhere down the line. 5) Great co-workers: The employees come from all backgrounds and are the best people to learn from when it comes to tips and tricks for performing your job better.
Cons
1) Pay is not Commensurate with Work: I have found this relevant to all roles. It's a mentally draining job and even when you are promoted or get a raise during the annual review process (which unfortunately is not very reliable and the HR department doesn't really care), it's not significant. 2) Some positions ask way too much: If you are promoted to be a consultant, during the summertime you are expected to get sometimes between 60-80 hours of work done in 40! That's CRAZY and you are told that you can reach out for help, but EVERYONE is too busy to help you. You are also told that overtime is available in the summertime, but it rarely gets approved (and if it does, it's only one or two hours, which just isn't enough). This creates a culture in which your manager all but says they expect you to work "off the clock". This happens in operations positions, too. Exempt employees obviously should know what they are getting into, but this is simply ridiculous to expect of non-exempt employees. 3) Understaffed: Standards for clinicians are high, but it makes it difficult to have enough support, especially in the summertime or during after school busy hours. This creates a stressful working environment for everyone, because there is simply not enough support. 4) High-turnover: This is especially true in the higher roles or managerial roles. At busier centers, it can be disastrous if you are without a Director or Associate Director. Many people at the corporate office are oblivious to how chaotic it can be when someone leaves the company and their work is passed on to someone else. They have high expectations for tasks getting done, but overlook why they aren't! Many people in the corporate office have no idea how to do the job of the people they are managing, so they ask things that are nearly impossible. 5) Horrible balance of work between job roles: Simply too much is expected of each role. There needs to be more overlap. The Director should be able to help out when operations gets swamped and basic administrative duties need to get done. Unfortunately, the Directors tend to get comfortable and ignore the needs of their employees or pass off the work to the Associate Director, who, again, has their plate full. 6) Poor Communication: This is really because everyone is too busy to communicate. That creates more work and it creates customer care issues, which everyone tries to pass off to someone else. This is simply unacceptable. 7) Inappropriate emphasis on Sales and Marketing: The company is supposed to help their clients and they seem to prioritize selling to them more. Why not focus on stream-lining processes and the sales will come more naturally? I have been in consultations where the director simply has no idea what the instruction of a student looked like and starts to push sales on the client. It comes off as insensitive. This service is a fortune for many families, so you just need to listen to their needs and be more cooperative. 8) Lack of Flexibility: The programs claim to be individualized, but they really aren't. They are wonderful and effective for many students, but others need more time or need some alterations. However, you can't EVER deviate from the program steps because they are "research validated, blah blah blah". The progress of each student should be valued above all else, and if a program step isn't working for a student, there should be some flexibility. The "by the book" approach is getting old. We aren't asking to throw the manual out the window. It's just that, occasionally bringing in something new or just integrating something different doesn't seem so absurd. 9) Too much emphasis on regular testing: Some kids/adults are just bad at test taking, for a variety of different reasons. Usually their parents know this, but the company just pushes for regular testing (for data purposes, presumably). This, again, comes off as insensitive and honestly the read you are getting on a student's abilities probably isn't accurate to begin with if they are uncomfortable with the assessment. 10) Moving people up before they are ready: This is especially true of any role where you have to interact one on one with parents. So many people feel like they have been thrown into a role or given tasks before they are ready, and the turn-over rate is high as a result. Again, management should be taking on more responsibility at times when there is under staffing, rather than trying to develop people to fill in gaps. This is just going to make those people quit, which I have seen time and time again. And then, guess what, you are back at square one.
