Orange Grove Center reviews

Advice for new employees or prospective employees: Very little room for meaningful promotions. Funding is provided by private donors, client families, and state/federal programs. In principle, there is no motivation to continuously increase performance. Pay will remain the same for several years, and when there is an increase, it will be minuscule. Meanwhile, departments heads will generally vote for a pay increase for themselves nearly every year (kinda sounds like Congress, huh?). Administrative offices for all departments are mostly staffed with people that search for the quickest route to rid any real or perceived problem. Advice for new, existing, long-time, and prospective employees: If you're in a program with multiple staff people and a situation arises, you'll automatically be guilty-by-default if you're the last one to be called-in to talk about it... Happened to me 2 or 3 times over the few years of my employment. You have to be smart enough to prove your innocence, as well as ballsy enough to call out your bosses on being wrong - even going as far as to state your case, why they're accusations are wrong, and how easily they'll be caught with their pants down should you decide to make it a legal matter. DO NOT agree to meet about an issue in which your are accused with only the members in charge of that department (coordinators, department heads, etc.). ALWAYS request a 3rd party from HR or another administrative department to be present at the meeting. Should you decide to work here, go by the book on everything from interaction with clients to vehicle checks every single time you get behind the wheel to drive an Orange Grove car. Gauge your immediate supervisor's attitude as soon as you can - many team leads are hot-headed and arrogant, or they just overwhelmingly dislike their job. Be especially wary of team leads that make an attempt to keep the administrative office of your department disconnected. This usually means something is going on that is downright dishonest, illegal, or wrong. These team leads are your supervisor, and hold zero authority on being your "boss." Team leads have the authority to issue write-ups, which are further subjected to claims of legitimacy from their boss(es). Usually a team leads boss will under-cut a team lead whenever possible (see "quickest route to rid any real or perceived problem" above). Orange Grove Center has to rely on smoke-and-mirrors and balking a lot in order to keep things running smoothly due to the fact that most departments' head offices have 4 or 5 decision-makers for hundreds of employees and clients in their department. Most of the issues you will face on a day-to-day basis are from overzealous supervisors, fellow staff members eager to score points with upper management, and upper-management staff that are quick to jump to conclusions, simply because it's the easiest route to take. I would suggest that all non-supervisory staff and DSPs organize and create common standards to be met. The amount of pre-hire qualifying and specialized training required equates to several weeks before any new-hire will be working on-site. Each non-supervisory employee should feel safe in knowing their standards will be met and their voices heard if an ensuing strike were to occur. Several hundred employees couldn't be replaced within a month, let a lone a few hours. Overall assessment: People are quick to throw others under the bus in their department because of the pay. I haven't worked at OGC for quite a while (several years), but I'd be SHOCKED if pay for a standard DSP outside of the main center is $9.50/hr or better at this point. When I started in 2009, it was $9.00/hr, and I received two raises to put pay around $9.25/hr. That's $0.25/hr over at least 3 years. The staff members that have been there for any amount of time, especially in the same residential setting, like to see open spots on the schedule and take the overtime. The more new people OGC hires, the less hours existing staff gets to work, which equals less money in their paychecks. Many employees rely on weekly overtime as a part of their budget, so make sure you're in a setting with people that are genuinely hurting to get more staff. If you're in management, as I was for a year, expect your pay to remain at $12-13/hr until DSP pay gets in that range. Benefits packages are selected by price each year, so OGC will go with the insurance broker that gets the lowest price - worker's comp and employee health benefits are bare-bones. Expect to change carriers nearly every year. Health benefits are also expensive (would've been as high as $115 per paycheck for me in my early 20s) - spend an extra $30/month and purchase private health coverage. As for worker's comp, be sure to cover all of your bases if you end up injured and expect to miss work... This means, always make sure your personal items aren't involved (i.e., if your cellphone or laptop is out and a client throws it at you and injures you, OGC will likely shut down your claim to worker's comp since those items don't belong to the client. Always wear covered-toe shoes and keep them on if you work in a residential setting. Generally, any injury claimed that can loosely be affiliated with your choice of improper footwear will likely get your claim shut down). Invest in a backpack or briefcase that you can keep put away when your personal items are not in use. Other than that, if you choose to take a position here, keep your eyes peeled and watch yourself!

Very bad management and they don’t appreciate the loyal staff they have