Pros
4 weeks vacation...one of the only reasons I'm still here. Line staff that genuinely care about Community mental Health.
Cons
Over about the last two years, there has been EXTREME pressure coming down from management (who, I feel, have NO IDEA what the realities of the work that line staff do) to focus on BILLING and PRODUCTIVITY from staff. This has been to the point where it is increasingly likely to have people fired for not making the cut. While this line of work ahs always been demanding, in previous years though billing and productivity were always stressed as important, I feel as if you were an employee who was trying their best and caring for their clients, you were given a chance to catch up. Nowadays, it's very clear that this part of our job is being micromanaged and that upper management is trying to put rules in place to have consequences for people that are not meeting these requirements. The problem with this is that it is UNREALISTIC to complete our job tasks in the time given. We are not staff who are hanging around all day doing nothing. Client care is important to all of us and we make sure to meet our client's needs. Unfortunately, the way our offices and jobs are setup with many meetings, much administrative paperwork that can't be billed for, non user-friendly computer systems, and too much responsibility being put on line staff for things that are not billable, such as OMA's, the increasing amount of random forms required by either PC or DMH, and understanding of dense MEMO's from random EHIM, HR, or other upper level departments, it is nearly impossible to keep up. It is well known that NEARLY ALL therapists and case managers take work home (whilst understanding there is an unspoken rule that they can't really openly express how often this needs to happen) to complete billing. Maybe if PC were more flexible with us to allow us telecommute days or other benefits, we could all be open about how to best get all the work done, but I feel like that use middle level management to shield themselves from the realities of the troubles that line staff face and they just put pressure on management to have us line staff either "figure out a way" to do it on our own, or get fired, or get so stressed out that staff leave.