Really happy employee - Barista Change Please Employee Review

The best part of the job is the trainees, who are often some of the most grounded, resilient, and insightful individuals you’ll come across. You learn just as much from them as they do from you. Also worth saying: many colleagues working away from the central Change Please management team are incredibly kind and supportive - often going above and beyond to help one another, even when the systems around them make it unnecessarily hard to do so. This, as-well as the teams you meet that work for the sites you are placed with - make the job tolerable. My manager was kind, and easy to raise concerns with - though ultimately, she had no real authority to help me with the big issues and is clearly battling the same system that I was. Not her fault at all.

Communication is non-existent. You’re often not told which trainees are attending your sessions, sometimes only finding out halfway through the week, after two or more have already come through. There’s no follow-up, no debrief, no support. You’re expected to figure things out yourself, even when safeguarding or serious support concerns arise. There is no real care for your wellbeing or safety. You’re rarely asked how you’re doing. If you raise a concern, even thoughtfully and professionally, it’s usually dismissed or reflected back as your fault. Accountability only ever seems to go downward. The HR “team” (essentially one person, as far as I could tell) is rude, reactive, and deeply unprofessional. Mental health is treated (by this one individual) as an afterthought - or worse, as something to roll eyes at. For a charity working with people experiencing homelessness and severe disadvantage, that speaks volumes. There are zero development opportunities, they don’t want you any higher in the company because the people that are already there are very comfortable. This job has the potential to be meaningful, but it’s consistently undermined by poor leadership, lack of care, and a culture of deflection. There was also a complete lack of care when it came to difficult decisions impacting staff. For example, I was informed of a significant deduction to my final salary with no conversation, and no acknowledgement of how this would impact me, financially or otherwise - I was basically blamed for the whole thing. For a charity that claims to care about social hardship, the disconnect between its mission and how it treats its own employees is deeply disappointing - people should be aware of this before applying for a position with Change Please.

Great job training program and fantastic staff!

That I couldn’t stay longer