Pros
Genuinely can’t think of any.
Cons
Working here has been the most stressful and challenging period of my life. Excessive workload pressures, poor management support, and a workplace culture has had a significant negative impact on all staff.
The caseload expectation is unclear and completely unmanageable. While there is clear criteria for who the service will and won’t take, upper management will take inappropriate referrals, regardless. If you raise concerns about whether this client is in the right place, management will put this back on you by questioning your ability to work with the clients and your commitment to mental health. They operate by guilt-tripping and making you question whether you’re good enough for the role, while you are primarily concerned about client safety.
Management will take all referrals, no matter how inappropriate or the stress it puts on staff, to up their numbers of people using the service. This allows more funding and contracts from commissioners, at the expense of staff and service users. Management will often hire their personal friends into open management positions, creating a culture where you cannot discuss concerns.
All management are operational, with very little to no experience of mental health work. They genuinely have no idea of the work practitioners do or their needs. An example of this is that staff calendars are closely monitored, and even protected time for writing notes or completing admin is questioned. There is little recognition that documentation, safeguarding tasks, and emotional decompression are essential parts of the role. Instead, there is constant pressure to appear fully occupied with back-to-back appointments, which contributes significantly to stress and burnout.
This high and complex caseload, combined with a pressure to be fully booked, means that it is essentially impossible to fit the workload into the 37.5 hours. I have never seen anyone take a lunch break, with all staff eating at their laptops. In terms of overtime, staff will work hours after their shift. The company will not compensate this time but expect the work to be done.
As you can imagine, staff wellbeing is extremely poor. Staff members breaking down in tears, in the office is normal, occurring around once a week. The turnover within the service is extremely high. Within the MHSW team, there has been an entire team of 7 turnover in 10 months, with new hires constantly coming in and subsequently leaving within 6 months. There has been no investigation into this by management.
There are also often frequent, major changes to the role, with no notice or training. Staff are expected to adapt immediately, even when the changes are significant and impact day-to-day practice.
The company operate on a sink-or-swim style of training. Training is extremely limited for the complexity of the role. New staff will shadow 1-3 wellbeing sessions by other practitioners, and then be expected to independently manage their own caseload just 2 weeks into the role.
I have seen great, successful and compassionate practitioners crumble under the immense pressure of this company. I can’t emphasise enough for people to not work here.