Second Cup Barista at The Ottawa Hospital - Anonymous employee Compass Group Employee Review

1.0
Jul 28, 2015
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great customers and coworkers. There are periods of fast paced, busy work mixed in with slow, relaxed time periods. The customers are almost all regulars since the location is in a hospital. Customers are mainly all friendly and chatty. Plenty of break time. Unionized. Employees often became acquainted with other employees of The Ottawa Hospital which was excellent. The food and beverages are very tasty. Since this job is unionized, the pay is above minimum wage.

Cons

Management was unorganized and rude. They did not trust employees and were obvious about it. Overall, management lowered employee esteem and morale. They would threaten to not give you days off you requested if you did not work overtime. They did not respect seniority regarding hours that were assigned to employees. They would talk about former amployees to current employees in bad ways and even "gossip" about current employees to other current employees. Sub-par people skills and leadership skills. Schedule changes occured often as well as changes within 48 hours which is allowed in the collective agreement but extremely difficult to keep up with. There was limited training upon being hired and mandatory training courses were ignored. Training on how to use the cash was extremely limited but management expected you to be able to fluently use the system and know how to count cash and fill out the respective forms without ever properly explaining the system they used. Management had, at one point, prevented me from communicating with my union representative who was conatcted because members of management could not answer questions about the collective agreement. This specific Second Cup itself is owned by Compass Group Canada and they are responsible for management.

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Pros

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Cons

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2.0
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Pros

I worked at the John Wayne Airport American Airlines lounge, which served a strong and steady clientele, primarily composed of business travelers. Guests were generally easygoing and professional, with minimal special requests or complex requirements from their side

Cons

The operational and management side was significantly more challenging. The lounge was consistently understaffed, and managers and supervisors often had to step in and cover multiple missing roles just to keep things running. This created a high-pressure environment where tasks that should have been simple often became unnecessarily complicated. There were also strict safety procedures in place, which made sense given the airport setting, but the lack of consistent staffing and equipment issues made compliance difficult at times. In some cases, we were left relying on incomplete processes, such as temperature logs, due to broken equipment and workload pressure. Additionally, perishable goods such as dairy would sometimes sit for extended periods due to last-minute no-shows and staffing gaps, adding further stress to daily operations. Overall, while the clientele and safety structure were solid, the combination of understaffing, equipment issues, and management dynamics made it one of the most stressful and challenging work environments I have experienced.

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