Large Volume of Work for Non-Competitive Compensation
Pros
It is rewarding to help individuals who have physical and mental disabilities. With this company, we are taken on small retreats for team building throughout the year.
Cons
With inflation, rising gas prices and the housing crisis, leadership appears to be completely out of touch in terms of providing competitive compensation to their employees. Apparently they have been promising for years that we will have a raise and have not delivered. The State workers have it even worse as they have the same exact job with even less support. The work is not difficult, but it continues to increase in volume due to the high turnover. Counselors are burning out. Even though the stagnant compensation has resulted in a pay cut due to the current market, employees who wish to stay true to the mission of helping people with disabilities have suddenly had to reconsider their future with the company (because they simply cannot afford their basic needs). The only perk of staying has been due to the perk of telework, which was promised would be the new future. I felt blatantly disrespected when they took that away with no explanation and expected me to be back in the office with only three days notice. People with families had to scramble to find daycare and people who were doing a great job working from home are now confronted with $300 expense in gas and just overall disruption to their lives. None of this was necessary as all the employers were doing a great job working from home. As a VR Counselor, I am finding that I sometimes I find my clients better jobs than my own (in terms of compensation)! The company also seems to be antiquated when it comes to efficiency. We use an extremely old and incomplete "medical record" in addition to physical files for client information. It seems as though the higher ups are completely out of touch with VR Counselors jobs and never ask for input on how to make things more efficient... they simply roll out new directives that counselors are pressured to learn in short periods of time with very little guidance. It always feels as if there is a lot at stake if we don't carry it out correctly too. They usually have a training months later and it is rarely helpful. VR Counselors have to track every little point of data manually where this could easily be done if they built the software for it. The mounting amount of tasks never seems to end and they rarely take tasks away even though many of the tasks are obsolete. In addition, for a company that works to help people with disabilities find work accommodations, the employees face great difficulty in getting accommodations themselves. We have to go through great lengths to get any accommodations we need especially if the disability is not visible.
