YWCA reviews

too many women and not enough men, can be pretentious-especially management, not a lot of growth or areas to advance, very bureaucratic work environment, very inconsistent in work hours and expectations depending on location where you work, and can at times seem segregated as mainly Spanish speaking staff are at one location and mainly African American staff are at another location.

This 305(k) nonprofit organization's daily operations are spent in search of ways to maximize profit and cut costs. This is evident in all the programs...especially in the main income source: The Child Development Center. It employs hundreds of employes that are working in derelict conditions; with broken equipment, lack of supplies to perform daily tasks, illegally understaffed (child: teacher ratios), and believe it or not--blatant racial discrimination. There is a staff hierarchy Aide>Assistant>Lead Assistant>Lead Teacher; for several years, there was never a minority hired to be a Lead Teacher, despite there having been qualified applicants from abroad and within the organization. Between 2011-2012 there were 23 teachers/support staff (of about 45 employees) that were "let go" or quit abruptly from this one location; all of them, after many, many years of employment. Side note, there is also a strict food policy that, considerately, ensure the YWCA Children's Center is a peanut free environment to protect allergic children. This makes complete sense, however it sharply conflicts with the staff policy that says staff are required to "eat or act like you're eating while the children in your care are served lunch" this is to maintain accreditation standards...the handbook states you are not allowed to bring outside food into the Children's center. So in other words, you are to eat their immensely low quality, government subsidized food or pretend to, or spend your entire 30 minute break searching for a place to heat and eat your own food as several employees are on the same cut-throat mission during prime lunch hours-- simply put, not horrible, but after many years...downright annoying. There is a shared break room between all the differing departments, being a headquarters location, childcare staff are second class citizens here! Also, being Downtown Minneapolis, you have to rely on public transportation or pay for parking daily/monthly out of your meager paychecks...ranging from $120-175 a month.