A few years before the pandemic, the culture shifted to such a volatile and toxic environment that little to no one can thrive or “grow” there unlike the misleading employer brand tagline you’ll see on the HR section of the website. Don’t be fooled! The incoming president has their work cut out for them and that’s putting it lightly as the morale there is beyond damaged as many in key roles have left throughout the pandemic and are continuing to leave. The workplace community is also small, so word about how some of their best employees are being mistreated travels fast even in instances when the employees try to leave quietly. Many people who have left, planned to leave or are still there know what’s going on behind the scenes.
From no formal training program for new staff all the way up to leadership blatantly pushing out employees who have spent their entire careers dedicated to serving the mission of the institution, most if not all management has little to no interpersonal skills. If you are looking for a workplace that infuses D&I in its everyday practice, this is also not a good fit for you. While HCC leaders in theory value D&I, leadership at this institution have no clue what inclusion means and equity is not present in most areas. If you are not a middle-aged woman, you most likely will not feel valued working here.
Resources are also stretched beyond a realistic bandwidth. Instead of leadership coming together to look at how they can efficiently grow their teams to effectively sustain and grow the institution, they are costing the institution a lot of money by scheming new methods to pile on work on some of their highest performers while blindly pushing these same star employees to find better opportunities elsewhere, all with leaders not having the emotional intelligence to realize the revolving door to exit they have created. So while leaders are trying to be “creative” in finding solutions instead of having an honest conversation with vice presidents and the president, they’re causing employee churn and turnover that’s likely costing up to 2x each departing employee’s salary.
Some individuals in leadership roles are also known for bullying employees and the saddest part is that these leaders are clueless without a trace of self-awareness to realize that what they are doing is textbook workplace bullying. This includes rewriting employee job descriptions and significantly increasing workloads of hardworking employees without fully understanding the capacity that these employees serve and without offering resources to offset workloads let alone any additional compensation. The cherry on top is that the bullying leader tries to sell the dumping of menial tasks as a growth opportunity and acts as though it should be an honor for the employee to accept it, which is insulting and demeaning. Throw in some leaders that are known for gossiping about their direct reports, making age discriminatory and other negative, backhanded comments about their personality or appearance, altogether creating a hostile work environment but packaging it as "constructive criticism" and as "trying to help." I experienced this firsthand and reported it to HR only for HR to ignore it while other organizations would have taken action. Take note that this was all before the pandemic.
There is strong irony of the word “community” being in this institution’s name as it has been anything but since the pandemic began. There’s way too much to share on that topic, just know it aligns with every other bad employer example you’ve read about. I left during a time of extreme uncertainty in the workforce, when there was no end of the pandemic in sight and long before a vaccine was released. It was the best thing I have ever done for my family and my mental health and physical wellbeing. Although, it has taken some time to heal from years of mental anguish and abuse that I experienced from reporting to a classic narcissistic leader. Leaving felt like jumping off of a sinking ship. My best advice would be to not even consider stepping on it.
