Denver Human Services Reviews

Advancement is based solely on political maneuvering. Experience, seniority and even the basic abilities to do the job are not factored into promotional opportunities. HR and management are so concerned with turnover that they will try to keep EVERYONE. Except for attendance issues, nobody is terminated. The worst thing they'll do is move the problem employee around to fail somewhere else. More likely, management will just tolerate them and let them motor along for the next few decades. Workers are required to bend over backwards to help clients who refuse to help themselves (on any level), but if that worker wants a temporary schedule change or would like to move cubicles, forget it! Security is a joke. Cars have been broken into while parked in the mandatory employee parking garage (of course there's a fee)/. The quiet understanding is the agency will do something as soon as there's a tragedy, not a minute before. Management knows the answers it has to give to higher-up (the mayor, the state etc). They also fail to act on those answers so there's culture of hypocrisy that is exhausting. They are constantly soliciting opinions and advice from the front line staff. That's a good thing until you realize they ignore the data given and do whatever they want anyway. The surveys are just a task for them to say they did, not tools for gathering information. There is no accountability. If someone does poor work on something, you're expected to clean it up. With very few exceptions, the person who did the poor work will never be told it happened, let alone coached on any level. This is government bureaucracy at its worst. Higher-ups who do nothing add levels of management underneath them to do nothing, who hire support staff to help them do nothing. Fear of responsibility, added to mandatory federal guidelines and local, arbitrary rules mean getting anything done is almost impossible. Longevity means those employees are too incompetent to get a job somewhere else. Almost anyone worth a damn realizes they want to be somewhere where their accomplishments and abilities are recognized and rewarded. 20 year veteran staff are easily the worst performers.

There is virtually a complete lack of minority representation in the highest level positions, in spite of the director being a minority (the pictures in the entry hallway of the executive staff reveal all white people, and I am one myself). Some people in the upper management follow the guiding principles, while others appear to have no hesitation to not do so (such as lying about employees in order to cover their own mistakes). This has produced a fear based culture. When people speak up to do the right thing, like other places with an unhealthy culture, it usually turns out badly for the employee. Although the director truly seems like a good person, he will not talk to people about these issues directly as those below him (including the lawyers and HR department) appear to prevent access to him. I have witnessed upper management and the HR department lie about good staff, harming their reputations, while trying to cover for themselves. Thus, until this is dealt with, the place is a really poor and emotionally unsafe place to work.