Girl Scouts USA Reviews

Current Employee – been working at Girl Scouts USA full-time for more than a year

Pros – Very flexible schedule, rewarding job, great staff members.

Cons – Low pay in relation to job expectations.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Girl Scouts USA

Pros – GSU is a wonderful place to work if you care about the lives of young girls. As an employee of GSU you provide life changing experiences for girls that will make them leaders of tomorrow. GSU not only teach leadership skills, but other educational programs. It is a very rewarding place to work.

Cons – The only "con" working at GSU is that you work a lot of evenings and weekends, beside your regular day shift.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Girl Scouts USA full-time

Pros – The mission statement and the volunteers.

Cons – Internally do not live or focus on mission statement, focused merely on member goals.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Girl Scouts USA full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Most non-management staff members are great. The girls that are served. Depending on the manager there may be some freedom for decisions and actions.

Cons – Very political and buddy-buddy. Male staff members are not made to feel very welcome. Lot's of water cooler gossip.

Advice to Senior Management – Put the right people in the right jobs and trust them to do the job.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Girl Scouts USA full-time for more than a year

Pros – Passionate, hard working staff and long-term volunteer base give credence to the cause. Supportive working enviornment and room for self-direction.

Cons – Organizational issues and un-focused management detract from a supportive working environment. Process-driven work practices are sluggish to change; and declining membership without a strong and effective response plan have resulted in high turnover.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Girl Scouts USA part-time for more than 3 years

Pros – within each department there is a sense of commoditary

Cons – Lost count of how many times p/t staff was let go because "lack program funding" then due to "restructuring of the organization" p/t staff is asked back but to reduced hours and let go again a few months later

Advice to Senior Management – Get your program budgets in order and hire accordingly...especially with your part-time staff

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Girl Scouts USA full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – building girls to bellieve they are equal to men.

Cons – in membership, volunteer, program, and outreach we work countless hours and the folks in the finance dept. work monday through friday 9-5 and seem to always complain the membership is never in the office and sdont think we work very hard.

Advice to Senior Management – reward us for the job we do and pay us like you pay the finance dept.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Girl Scouts USA full-time

Pros – Zero - you would think that a pro of working for this organization would be providing meaningful programs and experiences to girls, but you don't get the chance to do that.

Cons – Extremely unprofessional and unhappy staff. Senior managers are incapable of performing job duties and no one is held accountable for anything. Its a strictly "throw it at the wall and see what sticks" type of environment. No room to grow professional or move up, no raises, no 401K or retirement. You do get a nice amount of days off - IF you can get them approved, which most likely you can't. Be prepared for things to change every single day, no plan, no organization. Don't plan on complaining to upper management about a.n.y.t.h.i.n.g. you will be handed a box of tissues and told how lucky you even are to have a job! Expectation is to work 24/7 with no compensation, you are told your job is more important then your health and your family. There is not a single line from the code of conduct that this employer adheres to. Very disappointing to see so much potential wasted.

Advice to Senior Management – None, not only are they not interested in a single thing anyone has to say, they are too lazy and incompetent to carry anything out.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Girl Scouts USA full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – 35-hour work week, casual Friday, good vacation if you're grandfathered in

Cons – Girl Scouts Western Pennsylvania is a disaster. CEO has a hand picked board and the leadership team is a joke; putting in a solid 10 hour work week tops. Management is embarrassing and HR is incompetent. It was so sad to witness the demise of an amazing mission in the hands of an uneducated, unmotivated and embarrassingly overpaid group of lazy executives. The morale of the office was that of doom and gloom and bullying from managers was the norm. The CEO is so mortifyingly stupid that her presence in any of the council's offices was a joke in itself. The development department skims donors to reach its goals and membership numbers are padded each year. As a former employee, I tried to share my concerns with both HR and my supervisors, but I was placated - with zero results- at best. GSWPA does not seek new employees outside its pool and the turnover rate was ridiculous. Stay away from this mess. The pay and the benefits - let alone the mission - do not make it worth the emotional turmoil that this insane and terribly incompetent place breeds. Practice what you preach, GS, I've never been in a less supportive, less-mentor focused place in my life.

Advice to Senior Management – Make your board accountable for something. If not for firing your lackluster CEO then at least attend special events or have a mandated yearly gift. Hire a real HR department who actually understands HR laws (read: the space women are allowed by law to breast feed their children or pump their breasts - this is the Girl Scouts, for goodness sake), look outside your current employees for open positions. GSWPA is gaining a reputation as a giant joke in the nonprofit community. The question, "What is going on there, who is running that place?"is one I've heard constantly since I've left.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Girl Scouts USA full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Mission is very worthwhile, girls are amazing, and there are many great volunteers.

Cons – * Membership ghetto. No one ever gets promoted out of membership.
* It will suck up your entire life, until you're nothing but a burned out husk. Even in the "slow" part of the year, when things are slightly less frantic.
* Very low pay, long and intense hours
*Very little respect or understanding or support for what membership folks are doing from departments/department supervisors who don't work with volunteers or members
* Utter lack of training for either staff or volunteers
* ridiculously bureaucratic and fear-driven, to the extent that, for example, the trainings and other materials that volunteers and staff desperately need will never be recreated
* extraordinarily high turn over
* constant reorganizing
* senior management doesn't trust/respect/listen to paid or volunteer staff.
* Council (and GSUSA) is constantly creating new hoops or programs or rules for volunteers sand staff members to jump through, but always changes whatever they are again right as everyone starts to adapt.
* Senior management constantly undermined the relationships between volunteers and the staff who managed those volunteers.

Advice to Senior Management – Trust your staff members, trust your volunteers, and get out of the way (let go of the micromanaging). Focus on the practical side of things, and remember that it's a membership organization! The girls and volunteers should be the FIRST priority, in reality, and not just in lipservice. Be transparent, actually listen to staff and volunteers, and for the love of god, be consistent. And "volunteer retention" is more than just numbers. It's about relationships. Volunteers have to be cultivated, supported, and thanked consistently and regularly. If your volunteer appreciation ends up pissing off ten times as many volunteers as it recognized, you're doing it wrong.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company