registered nurse

medical assistant

research associate

pediatrician

physician

Akron Childrens

I've worked at ACH for over a year now, and I tell people I love my job still. I think the job has pros and cons, but for me personally this hospital has been one of the best ones to work for in Ohio. 

My management truly is "open door", they even reach out quarterly with anonymous surveys to gauge how employees feel, and then they post what they're doing according to those results. The company is very focused on improving retention right now, and are about to increase PTO (our PTO is both our sick and personal leave, not separate), and are giving more mental health support options soon. The insurance premiums haven't went up in years. I have spoke with senior management 1 on 1 even, regarding some of my concerns. 

The pay is one of the bad parts, however. The pay I have found to be a bit less than most of our neighboring hospitals. I could go to another hospital and be making $4-5 more per hour. However, the management and the kids keep me here. It is a comfy job honestly, for being bedside nursing. 

As a nurse assistant (they call them Nurse Techs or Patient Care Assistants) I primarily function as a sitter for 1:1 patients, mostly ones at risk of self harm, or pulling lines. When I am not sitting I can help the floor as much as I can. Floating is relatively frequent for my unit. In adult hospitals you do much more, but here your scope is more limited. If you can sit for 12 hours at a computer and keep yourself busy, this job is definitely for you. I like my job however despite these qualities.

I would go in for a PRN position if possible, as that is how you can make real money. The bonus programs if you pick up shifts (if you're PRN you just have to pick up more than one shift a week, then your in bonus) are very competitive to other hospitals, and they also do have lump sum bonuses when we are critically needing more unlicensed staff. If I pick more than my one shift a week up, I am making an extra $17 an hour on top of my base pay, and shift diff. You also get overtime if you go over 40 hours. 

Workplace culture is great, everyone I have met here has been very good overall, and even though there are some bad people here, the good outweigh the bad significantly. We all do it for the kids, and it shows in our work. I am proud to work for Children's. 

The only thing that probably could make me leave here is if I was offered a significant pay increase (like $5-9 an hour base pay extra) with similar bonus programs. If you need benefits, that is still okay, as you can work your 2 shifts to meet your hours then whatever is after that you are in bonus.

Overall my experience here has been a strong 4/5 stars!

What is the best part of working at the company?
Working with a few nice ladies. The drive to work was not far. The pay was descent. The hours were good for me. The work days went by fast. My coworkers were very helpful when I was hired. 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Being short staffed. Being left at the front desk all by yourself to answer the phones while you are trying to check a line of patients in and a line of patients out, plus respond to messages the doctor's, in the back of the office, were sending you and needed immediate response, with no help because everyone was at lunch. The front desk secretaries do a heck of a lot more work then the MA's/nurses do. The secretaries do it all but draw blood or administrate shots. But yet get paid the less. Why is that? It was a very overwhelming position. If you think being a secretary at ACH is just answering phones, making appointments, and checking patients in and out.....THINK AGAIN. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Fast pass and can be very stressful. I didn't hate it but I didn't love it either. 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
I would show up at least 20 mins to 30 mins early just so I could get settled in because once those doors  unlock you were lucky if you got caught up on anything. The phones would start ringing off the hook once 7:30 hit the clock on the dot. Having a call center was a joke because the phones still would ring off the hook you couldn't get anything done. Call center would transfer the patient to us for every little thing to get out of assisting us. Or doctors would tell the patients parents "oh just hit option 3 to go straight to the front desk so you don't have to deal with call center" What? NO! The call center is supposed to alleviate the calls to us so we can focus on bigger things since we were always short staffed. Half the time it was just parents making appointments. That's what the call center is for. Or to refill a prescription. That's what option two is for. I hope things have changed a lot for the better for the secretaries since I have been there.

I just finished working as a PSR to move onto something more in my field and hohhh boy. I worked at one of the busier primary care locations and when it comes to support and cohesion between the clerical and clinical teams, it was pretty great. Everyone communicated promptly and clearly and we were able to tackle any challenges in our path effectively. 

However, the actual influx of work being placed onto the PSR’s was insane. We’d see 120-200 patients a day, so you’d get about five families at any time approaching the desk to complete their check in. While the phones are ringing off the hook, and while families are also waiting to check out because the people working at checkout are too busy on the phone. And the Mychart appointment requests and assignments from providers would just pile up in your InBaskets. We’d come in every morning to at least 50 InBaskets to complete, and the large amount of providers meant there was at least one call off a week where you had to call every patient and reschedule. Also high provider turnover leads to spreadsheets assigned to you with hundreds of reschedules to make. 

The environment overall was incredibly noisy and doesn’t allow for any semblance of privacy because the front desk is in a corner shape and guests can see your screen. Also this location had a ball machine with bells and xylophone pieces and heavy metal balls rolling around about three feet away from the front desk which made hearing people talking difficult. 

Overall, my coworkers and office support was great, but it definitely took years off my life and makes me cringe at the mere sight of a child. 

The department I work in you were Supposed to be scheduled every other weekend but I was scheduled several times on my weekend off forcing me to work 3,4,5 weekends in a row, when other people worked M-F and got every weekend off. Manager had obvious favorites and let them leave early all the time. 

Team leads gossip about you and tell your personal business to the entire hospital. Don’t say anything you wouldn’t want paged overhead throughout the hospital to them. 

I love ACH but did not like my department. I tried several times to leave the department and unfortunately was tossed back and forth between multiple people with no responses, and I eventually left the organization. 

HR is not helpful and does not respond to any emails or phone calls. The only thing they are worried about is filling jobs with bodies. They appear to not care after you’re hired. I was told to contact the HR Partner for my department for certain things but was never told who that person was. The company is not very transparent. 

Pay is low and it’s disheartening how rude and disrespectfully we are treated by both administration and other departments. I saw myself wanting to further my career here but that has changed. 

Also the sign on bonus is a lie. I never received mine even though the position I applied for said there was to be one given to me. 

Cons: Most management (especially upper as they tend to tie lower management hands), low pay, low PTO, low availability to take PTO, excessive policies, excessive committees to make new policies, pay for parking, low morale from poor working conditions, unnecessary procedures for billing, questionable judgement/motivation/direction from decision makers, "if you don't like it here there's the door" attitude.

Can't take PTO due to low staffing, low pay and refused to be given the market analysis for pay, shifts changed on you last minute "for staffing" without consideration for childcare planning, mandatory training even if you're on vacation....

You may learn a lot of pediatrics and can do what little you can to help patients and their families, but employees are last on the priority list and the turn over and job openings show it.

And look at the generic replies to not only the negatives but even the positives.  Completely corporate without even compensation in pay or benefits for dealing with the bureaucracy of blanket policies (pick vacation a year in advance but mandatory training scheduled a month before date even if you're scheduled for vacation)


I worked in central scheduling for about 6 months. I came from a high functioning, organized call center. This place is insane. The pay is higher than most jobs you'll find. However, management is horrible. The worst I've ever seen. There is favoritism and there is disdain for employees depending on what you do and say. They stand outside the breakroom and listen to conversations. They are 100% more focused on their reputation and image than they are about bettering the environment and fixing broken policies.  Rules change at the drop of a hat with absolutely zero communication from leadership. They would rather blame their reps for mistakes and they absolutely do not defend us against backlash. 

If you are sick, good luck taking any time off. The staffing is so low from an extremely high turnover rate that they make YOU feel guilty for being sick. As a result they have sick people coming to work too nervous to take some time off.  This is also the case for doctors appointments and other pre planned things that you may need time off for. They will ignore your request until the VERY last minute and then if it is denied it's because you "didnt give enough notice". 

The actual clinical staff and doctors are amazing. I've heard other departments are not this way. HR needs to completely revamp leadership, because the leaders they have now clearly are the main complaint of this department.

I had been an employee at ACH for five years. The work/life balance is definitely a pro and I met some really great people while working at ACH. However don’t work here if you are expecting competitive pay. I worked here for five years, they raised minimum wage to $15 so I was making the same as someone new. When you discuss pay with management or HR they basically tell you that you are within your pay grade and forget about it. My department was inadequately staffed for the duration of my employment and all employees were wearing the hats of many different roles/people yet only getting compensated for the work of one person. Upper management is severely out of touch with how specific departments operate. There is an extreme lack of communication throughout the hospital system. Employees are not held accountable. You pay for parking every two weeks. The  insurance is laughable. Between taxes/parking/insurance the wage is not even livable. Even for a single person with a car payment and other living expenses you will need to consider a second job. During peak COVID nurses and physicians and were sent home to work remote while all other supporting office staff was required to come to work daily. On a conference call office staff asked our director if we would be set up to work remotely and we were told “not at this time, if one of you goes out We can get a float to cover you” it’s not very promising to be told you’re replaceable. So I quit. 

Akron Children's Hospital is an extremely well respected  and internationally recognized pediatric health care delivery system.  The hospital has been operating as a stand-along pediatric hospital since 1890 and is consistently ranked as one of the nation's largest and best stand alone pedictric health care systems.  

The physicians and medical staff are excellent.  They are caring, nurturing and helpful.  Every single doctor and nurse with whom I have worked has been fantastic.

However, Akron is a tough city to work.  The population has decreased dramatically, coinciding with the departure of most major manufacturers.  The result is an increasing impoverished patient base.  Over half our patients are Medicaid patients.  As a consequence, fundraising from grateful patients, the usual souce of charitable dollars in the health care industry, has become increasing difficult, if not impossible.  

However, there are people out there who want to support our mission.  And our job - our challenge - is to find and engage these potential donors.  It is a challenge - but very rewarding when done correctly.

Akron Children's Hospital Department of Public Safety and the Police officers that serve the hospital work every day to serve the patients, families and the medical staff, providing uniformed police visibility. Daily duties include  high visibility patrols of the interior of the hospital and the  overall jurisdiction of the campus in state of the art police cruisers.
Akron Children's Police Officers have opportunities for special units  as a K-9 Unit, Drone Unit, B.R.A.V.E Unit as well as having the opportunity be a training officer within the department.
The  4 Lieutenants are always available to help and guide any of the shift and officer with questions or concerns. It is always great to see the command staff respond with the officer(s) during critical incidents. They truly support the officers.
The Department is a big family that supports each other daily and the department culture is outstanding. Working under any of the shift Sergeants is always good and they are always willing to help answer question work with you on the reporting system and department policy.
The Police Officer positions are awesome positions in an awesome culture.

“Tell me about yourself”
 *A question from the interviewer’s perspective:  By Val Barner
One of my main strengths, I feel, is getting along with the different personality types of others; I enjoy their interaction as well as their insight. I will try to weigh their opinions, beliefs and interests without passing judgment on them. I am a fun-loving, courteous and approachable personality who strives to maintain “H O P E” in my employment relationships.
 Honesty, Optimism, Professionalism, and Enthusiasm.
I feel this “HOPE” is what drives me daily in all circumstances.
I guarantee that I will do my best to reflect myself in a manner that is appropriate to my employment and my employer, while being a “team player” with a positive work ethic. I am a humble person who believes my work reflects and aids in the success of my employers reputable future. Dedicated and reliable:  I believe I am a person with a “balanced” priority list, who considers every issue capable of being handled in an upbeat, professional manner. I have realistic views and a well-rounded personality that I feel would be an excellent asset in numerous careers. I look forward to a long-term business relationship with my employer and will always have continued  interest in the overall achievements of my employers business. 

“Val Barner”
     .

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
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