YMCA Reviews

I worked at YMCA as an intern for less than a year

Pros – - Knowledgeable and supportive staff
- Room for personal growth
- Non-profit atmosphere is genuine and caring
- Fun
- Allowed everyone to have input in policies and processes

Cons – - Communication between departments was not always the best
- Internal cliques

Advice to Senior Management – Implement the suggestions put forth by team members

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

I have been working at YMCA as a contractor for less than a year

Pros – co-workers are friendly. My supervisor is really patient and nice.

Cons – Really really busy, and some customers are rude.

I worked at YMCA as a contractor for less than a year

Pros – - Great people
- Supportive culture
- Work-life balance
- Free access to facilities as an employee (gym, select change rooms etc.)

Cons – - Long-term employees can be set in their ways
- Need to push for change

Advice to Senior Management – Be supportive and LISTEN to the people that want change and want to move this organization forward. You cannot be set in your old ways.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at YMCA full-time for more than a year

Pros – YMCA Sudbury lives and breathes it's core values: caring, excellence, honesty, respect, and responsibility. The organization has an excellent reputation in the community and so it's easy to take pride in working for this company.

YMCA, in this era of contractual employees, does its best to hire people full-time, especially if they have successfully completed their contract.

YMCA strongly believes in professional development and many opportunities are available throughout the year.

There are occasions to interact with many executives, whether it's the local CEO or General Manager or the President and CEO at the National Level which helps with feeling connected to the organization and provides a better understanding of the corporate agenda.

Cons – As with any non-profit/charitable organization, employees are often expected to do more with less.

Advice to Senior Management – When there is feedback to provide, management's doors are always open so no need to express anything here.

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

I worked at YMCA full-time for more than a year

Pros – Front line staff and volunteers (membership, personal trainers, facility, fitness and aquatic instructors) were great to work with: friendly, knowledgeable, committed to own, and others' learning and development. They try really hard to embrace organizational values of Acceptance, Caring, Health, Respect and Responsibility in their day to day work with members and potential members.

Cons – Total lack of onboarding process for new employees, and non-existent expectations or performance reviews provided. An attempt at creating measurement standards was started, but then upper management did not have the know-how or make time to sustain the plan. Upon asking for a 3 month probationary review from my manager, I was told "You're okay. The first 3 months is just to see if you're an idiot or not". Over a year later, and still no formal goal-setting or review ever provided, but lots of verbal insults in private meetings about myself, and other staff / volunteers.
Full time staff are allowed 12 paid sick days per year, but unspoken reality is if a person actually took sick days it was a little virtual black mark against the person.
A totally autocratic organizational structure where 1 person makes all the decisions, and has stated "If I had my way I would just do it all myself". This leaves a feeling of never being able to do a job well enough to whichever non-descript project objective is in place at that moment.
Lack of role definition and communication between departments; if you question a process or propose a new way of doing something more efficiently a response is received such as "that's not how we do it at the Y", or "staff just have to learn to suck it up".

Advice to Senior Management – Read, understand and fully embrace your Mission and Values. Encourage communications between departments instead of silo'ing people from each other. Invest in leadership and management training for senior staff and hold them accountable to those behaviours and practices.

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

I have been working at YMCA

Pros – A sense of belonging to a team that works together

Cons – Members will notice you when you work out

I worked at YMCA part-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Overall good training, and support. The amount of work is fair. Good place to gain work experience.

Cons – Because the company is non-profit pay is low and also typically not a lot of opportunities to advance to different positions.

Advice to Senior Management – Increase pay,

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I worked at YMCA as a contractor for less than a year

Pros – Opportunity to be outdoors.
Get to work with children playing games and teaching outdoor skills.
Watersports.

Cons – Management was frustrating and unhelpful.

Advice to Senior Management – Be more fun with employees, and more forgiving. The camps should be a fun and safe environment for everyone.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at YMCA as a contractor for less than a year

Pros – -outdoors, which means lots of sun, swim time and nature. It also helps maintain a healthy lifestyle as there's lots of running and walking up and down ski hills (at the Kelso Conservation location)
-great staff
-a lot of fun
-doesn't feel like a job

Cons – -low pay
-hard to communicate with people working at corporate

Advice to Senior Management – Communicate more!

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at YMCA full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – - appreciation of life/work balance includes flexible work hours to accomodate family needs
- great opportunity to grow, learn, develop and move to other positions within the organization
- as a charity has a great mission that they focus on strongly, they pay attention to being efficient and the staff to their jobs to the best of their ability, not a lot of lazy folks here

Cons – - charity work means that there is always more to do than there is time to do it, it can get stressful here with lots of opportunities to pursue

Advice to Senior Management – - find a way to thank/recognize employees hard work publicly

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