Pros
The overarching aims of the charity are good and important, and impact reports show that there is real impact to the work we do. The model of working with the community in local centres means that an IU centre can be a really important part of the young peoples' lives. The young people and families we work with are genuinely wonderful. You can build positive relationships and feel that you are able to have an impact. In centres you get to work with some excellent, passionate, and hardworking staff. The skills and experience you gain from this role can be transferrable into other jobs and careers.
Cons
The wellbeing of Education Workers in general across the charity is low. Working days are long (9:30-6 with an enforced one hour unpaid lunch break). Staff are consistently expected to work outside of these hours, for example by starting early for workshops, and working through unpaid lunch on trips. Most working weeks involve unpaid work, which can make you feel that your time is not valued. There is no TOIL policy, only a 'discretionary day' scheme (a few extra days of annual leave at Christmas) which is unfit for purpose for delivery staff who consistently work overtime. Staff workload is high, with limited structures in place to alleviate workload. Centre staff juggle multiple programmes alongside heavy admin and an extremely busy delivery schedule. Teams are small, and one person being away (due to sickness, annual leave, or an unfilled position, which happens frequently) makes the workload even more unmanageable. Centres desperately need more staff, but SLT has no plans to do this, regardless of staff consistently raising this as an enormous issue. I have found there to be an attitude of toxic positivity at IU, where saying something negative about the organisation or your working conditions is frowned upon. There is a culture of 'just get on with it' and 'this is just the way we do things here'. SLT frequently cite the organisational values which often do not feel reflected in the way that delivery staff are treated. The graduate scheme is really not a scheme at all - it is a graduate job with limited opportunities for progression and development. You are trained for five weeks (in London, which is very inconvenient if you don't live/work in London) and then set off on the job, rather than in a graduate scheme-style programme of training and development. This can be very frustrating, as you can feel that you aren't developing or growing.
