Dogs Trust Glasgow - Anonymous employee Dogs Trust Employee Review

There are many massive downsides. The centre was often short staffed due to a high staff turnaround or being off sick. The main causes of the sickness was a very high work load on the body (due to being short staffed) and the negative atmosphere. This meant that they often finished late. Sometimes it was only 30 mins late but other days it would be an hour late. 8am to 6pm with a one hour lunch break and very physical and emotional work is not great. There is also no extra pay for staff finishing late. It used to be so bad that every month each staff member did an extra 8 hours of work for free. The dogs are very stressed in kennels and would benefit from getting out of the kennel for longer but staff are asked to focus on making the centre look clean. Sometimes a dog is only outside the kennel 20/30 minutes in a 24 hour day which is really sad. People have suggested getting volunteers to help, however even though they had hundreds of volunteer applications sitting for a few years this did not happen. I believe that a new volunteer coordinator position has now been made by dogs trust so hopefully things will change. Staff have been chosen based on their gender, based on whether they will talk about what happens internally, based or whether they are already friends. It doesn’t always matter what your skills or experiences are. A lot of the staff have had their holidays messed up. Holidays are kept track of on multiple pieces of paper which can be lost. Many staff have lost a couple days holiday and some have had to pay days back which means they have worked for free. This has made people really unhappy. Staff are also not granted holidays fairly. Some people get holidays easier than others. This only fuels the negative working environment. Due to the negative working environment a lot of staff leave. Nearly all of the staff that are still there are unhappy and looking for work but can’t leave without finding new work. Some wait till they go on mat leave and try not to come back. Some know that their circumstances will change and wait for that to happen. Unfortunately they are too scared and relieved when they find something new to tell the truth and on paper it looks as if there was a normal reason for leaving. Management can be dishonest about things occurring at the centre which results in rumours spreading. The public come to rehome dogs and canine carers look for dogs for them. Each dog has a file with requirements. There are some blanket bans on some of the publics circumstances versus the dogs needs. Staff aren't allowed to consider the experience that the public member has in order to overcome the slightly trickier situation - This can be very patronising to the member of public and also means Dogs Trust don’t rehome as many dogs as it could. It also means the dogs stay in the kennel for longer where we can’t give them everything they need so their behaviour may get worse or not improve much. When you start working for Dogs Trust you are on probation for 6 months and have fewer employee rights and less pay. Staff have been put into the position where they have not had their probation passed meaning that they are not getting paid the higher wage, they also don't get paid for sick days and have less job security. This can go on for months. When staff do a course they should be given a small cash sum for finishing it. This has not been signed off for many staff members meaning they never received their incentive, which is upsetting. Some staff have been asked to do extra days of work but this has not been passed onto head office in time which meant that the staff did not get paid at the end of the month for the work they did that month. The canine carers work very hard and because they are often short staffed have to work harder and faster than normal and often do not have their afternoon break which they are entitled to. They are not given any recognition for doing so. There is also a lot of blame that is unfairly passed. Some staff have applied for jobs in other departments without letting management know. When they have found out, bullying has occurred in private. Which is quite scary. If small mistakes happen staff are very scared to mention the mistake as the response is usually one of anger and control. This is only a tiny portion of what is happening every day at the centre. Working there is very hard to do. Most people either quit or some long termers stay because they care about the dogs they have formed relationships with. The part time staff find it easier to stay due to only being there a couple days a week.