Spring Health is a tech company first and foremost. In company-wide meetings, CEO April Koh would triumphantly state that she wants her company to become synonymous with mental health. When people think of therapy I want them to think of us, "like uber", she'd brag. What's lost in that attitude is that mental health and wellness is not a zero-sum game, and it never should be. By having company-growth, and not the wellness of your employees or your members, as your number one priority you're susceptible to following the rules and traditions of corporate America which have for so long been a leading conflict in the lives of so many workers. In my 3 years at the company I worked under 3 different managers and briefly under none at all. While my managers themselves were lovely, I saw less and less of them the longer I worked there. Their time being filled with an endless amount of meetings between their bosses and their underlings. The managers themselves seemed to be paid to pass along information from one circle to the next rather than to actually put pen to paper for effective change. Despite raising my voice on several occasions for the need to reform some of our work flows, there were significant tasks that were monotonous, arduous, and superfluous and impeded my team's ability to give vulnerable members the care they deserve. The burnout of myself and my teammates was regularly ignored in favor of never missing an interaction with a member. A year and a half into my full-time position my team was suddenly told that we would be required to work holidays moving forward. When I voiced my concern, I was told that other companies offer 365 coverage and so we had to too. I suggested that Spring Health break the mold and stand up for the health and well-being of their own employees instead, but my suggestion never made it past middle management. Perhaps company growth is more important than your employees having a healthy work-life balance. I was one of the first 10 people on the team, which is now 75+, and when I asked for a raise to reflect my significant contributions and my costs of living in NYC as a remote worker, I was denied. Although I've been with this company and this team since 2020, and have maintained excellent relationships with all of my coworkers, consistently knocked out my weekly KPIs, built out the work flow that much of the team still utilizes, trained more than half of the people on my team, worked holidays and overtime, and never missed a single day of work without advanced notice, I was fired for using my work computer for personal reasons in the privacy of my own home. I was hired to this position mid lockdown and have been utilizing my computer the same way for the past 3 years and it has never been an issue that's been noticed or more importantly impeded my work in any way. As a full time graduate student continuing my education in the mental health field while balancing this position, I've been required to use my computer for personal means. Perhaps if Spring Health had given me a raise that was reflective of the level of work and commitment that I gave to them, I could have bought myself a personal computer, but alas. I was given no warning, there was no conversation, I was just fired. In traditional tech company fashion I was logged out of every platform instantly following my firing and wasn't even given the opportunity to ask my managers for a reference or to say good bye to any of my teammates who I had worked with for 3 years. Imagine claiming to be a company that pioneers mental health and wellness while simultaneously firing one of your top performing employees without so much as a conversation. Mental health and wellness requires empathy and perspective. Providers are asked to approach each client with a curiosity to understand the fullness of their human experience. Spring Health has neither empathy nor curiosity. They're a tech company looking only at their potential for growth and how quickly they can get there from point A to point B. You know, "like uber".
