I first joined dialogue as a full time permanent employee and my first disappointment was receiving a computer that was way too slow for the speed expectations of my job. From the leading health startup in canada that was kinda funny tbh. About 8 months into my employment at Dialogue i received a better computer ... in the mean time i had been using my personal computer to keep up with the demands of work.
While i was a part-time employee, i had requested an hours increase about 2 months in advance which i had been told was a sufficient heads up for this type of request. I was double disappointed when i learned 2 months later that our team had an hours freeze even though we had slack channels applauding the new clients (e.g. a lot more work at service level) we were signing on WHILE also knowing that our teams were NOT able to fulfill all the admin duties and expectations with current staffing resources. That really felt like a slap in the face and i knew i was a GOOD team member. There has been a serious mistake and disconnect with adding on more work for the admin staff and not enough people to do this work. In the final months i stayed while looking for other opportunities, i was overwhelmed every time i worked.
I am giving a one star review because when the company went public the boisterous behavior(on slack, on linkedin... you name it) was SO EXTRA while we were over-worked and under staffed at service level for this said amazing product and it felt like such a PR insult and fully DISHONEST. Some of the work flows are also way too over simplified for the hands on nature of medical admin work and as someone who worked in an in-person clinic before remote-digital clinic work, some of these flows just aint cutting it and require further scrutiny! However, i am afraid that the speed expectations of the work directly conflicts with the quality of admin work your staff CAN provide to your clients, if only that's what the company actually wanted -- i digress. There is a serious problem with making space for the workers to explain what service level feels like or simply for the people who make the decisions to think TWICE before execution.
Last but not least, the insidious toxic positive culture at dialogue is so profound that i was GRATEFUL a peer vented to me one day because i had basically internalized that nothing can be bad about this company... to put it simply, that's not normal for a workplace and it says A LOT that i felt that way! Also i am not mentioning anything re: diversity because this feels like a dead end so anyway good luck with that! At first i wanted to stay at dialogue (left at 11 months) and they can thank the admin staff ALL THEY WANT but your team won't feel supported unless you provide them with material resources to do their work properly e.g. more staff, longer breaks/more frequent breaks/ more informal social events/ more time for their managers to check in etc. It really is NOT that complicated i can't believe we have the dichotomy of an amazing telemedicine app and a dysfunctional staffing/management issue.... how does that work???? Anyways, the above has been brought up in a hefty exit interview hopefully things change.
