LifeWorks NW reviews

There are plenty: Being encouraged to put in 10-11 hours, 5 days a week, because “that’s just how it is”; Being constantly reminded of how low your productivity is while also struggling to keep up with documentation and client needs; Procedures are either totally unclear or quickly changing with little regard for staff input; turnover is so high and constant that entire teams are unfamiliar with procedures & policies; Clients who are clearly not engaging in services are kept on caseloads for the sake of “productivity”; all-staff meetings are either used by staff to (rightfully) share grievances or by leadership to guilt trip staff into complaining less; job expectation flexibility is practically non-existent; burn out is regarded as a personal issue rather than emblematic of systematic issues with expectations; a huge lack of trauma informed care, language, and policies (both towards clients and clinicians); a lack of support with supervision… the list goes on.

There are legitimately too many to list, but here’s a summary. -It’s run like a corporation, ie hitting the numbers matters more than anything else by a long shot. -Direct care staff have no voice, and the org takes no accountability to adequately support direct care staff. -It’s not a supportive environment for learning your field/job. You’re more likely to get formally reprimanded rather than educated, which again, feels like a corporate attitude, not a community mental health attitude, and especially not the attitude of a place that hires a whole lot of people who are green in their field. -It’s a huge org, which looks nice of brochures and at funding meetings or whatever, but the reality is that it is too big to function effectively. Systems within the agency don’t communicate well, if at all. The org treats very different programs as though they work the same (eg community-based programs feel like an afterthought and like the org implements policies for them as though they’re clinic-based programs). -The org has money for company vehicles, but none of those vehicles are for the community-based direct care staff. We have to use our personal vehicles instead, including to drive clients. We only get reimbursed for mileage, not for wear and tear or regular maintenance. -Many teams are understaffed and underfunded, which means we’re overworked—both in terms of individuals trying to function as 2 or more primary roles, and being expected to get the work done outside of work hours on a weekly basis. Plus when a team blows up, other teams are expected to pick up the slack on top of their regular roles. -Turnover of direct care staff is very high, like around 1 staff every 2-3 weeks announces their last day. -All of the above impacts client care significantly. They get bounced from staff to staff because of turnover, or worse they might be kept in limbo while the org scrambles to find fresh meat; services promised take ages to happen, if at all; direct care staff are less effective than at other orgs because they’re burned out; etc.