Harbor Behavioral Health

Harbor has a number of real strengths as a workplace for therapists. They offer both in person and fully remote opportunities. You do design your own schedule although there are some parameters, such as a requirement that you have at least 10 hours weekly after 3:00 p.m., although for teletherapists that rule is not adhered to as strongly. Harbor is unionized which makes it a much better work environment than any other community mental Health setting where I have been before. In addition, the insurance is absolutely phenomenal. Not only is it really cheap, like less than $100 a month, but I have never had insurance that pays for so much of my health care needs in my entire life. The insurance is a huge incentive. All of that being said, there are some real cons to working at harbor. They're the same cons to working in community mental health in general. If you want a lunch break you must work an additional hour each day which ends up being 45 hours weekly, or 44 if you work four 10 hour days. The front desk, other clinicians, and case managers, can put clients into your schedule at any time. Even if you mark your schedule busy or mark that you are able to accept new clients you will find new clients in your schedule fairly frequently. This causes some difficulty in serving existing clients well. If you want time to plan for sessions or documentation you will have to really work hard to try to create that time for yourself. At one point management was encouraging tele clinicians to log in on Sundays to send client reminders as you were provided with no time to do so during the week. The client cancellation rate is about the national average. There is support with supervision if you are pursuing a higher licensure. There is access to a database of free ceu trainings. Harbor is inclusive to people of multiple nationalities, faith, genders, and sexualities, and the vast majority of clinicians and case managers here are very open and respectful. 

Harbor was once an amazing employer with very high retention rates.  Since new leadership took over in 2014, it has evolved into a very punitive and toxic workplace that pushes policies such as the Six Sigma and Lean Methodology which has largely become irrelevant with the exception of the manufacturing industries.  They hold no place in the behavioral and mental health industry where employees carry large caseloads with low pay.  Harbor has continued to allow lower level managers to create toxic work environments at many of its locations with little to no oversight.  The managers have very little experience leading others and those who do, practice authoritarian management styles which drive turnover.  Corporate leadership has virtually no involvement with the majority of locations and has very little grasp of the reality that employees deal with on a daily basis.  How can they expect their mission and vision to hold true when the individuals they place in leadership positions fail to treat the people they supervise with dignity and respect?  Yet in turn, they expect employees to deliver unrealistic services with no support.  The PTO and sick leave policy is also very punitive.  You must use two days of PTO before accessing any EARNED sick time.  Therefore, sick time is generally inaccessible.  PTO is expected to be used for all healthcare appts.  Thus it leaves few hours for actual leave.

Harbor has terrible turnover in most “entry” (bachelors) positions because you’re overworked and underpaid. I worked for them for 3 years. Slowly during my time, they seemed to care less and less about their employees and their wellbeing and more about money. Honestly, after their Promedica affiliation is when things seemed to go south, but that could be coincidental. I worked 2 different positions and loved my coworkers at both - there is a general sense of collaboration and they, aside from how I worked with my clients, were my favorite part of my employment. There are also some people that really, really love their job and do it well. They still don’t get paid much, however. After 3 years there, my pregnancy ended up with complications and I had to go on bedrest for a couple weeks. My daughter was then born 3 months early. After I ran through my FMLA, my daughter had just come home and I requested an unpaid leave of absence to stay with my 4 lb infant. This request was denied. I had stuck around Harbor because I liked the population I worked with and my coworkers, but this just really reaffirmed that this was not a company that cared about it’s employees. My position was not a popular one - it was rather difficult and had a very high turnover rate - but I loved it.

What is the best part of working at the company?
The clients and most of the staff.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Lack of training, support and lack of hob knowledge from supervisors and upper management. Rude and condescending Clinical Director to most of the staff. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Among most of the case managers, nurses, doctors, therapists, medical assistants and secretaries the environment was phenomenal! It was the leaders/supervisors/upper management that lacked the ability to do their jobs properly that ruined it for me. 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
I mostly made my own schedule, minus needing to do 3 needs assessment weekly, this adding to an already large caseload. I met with clients, found out their needs and support them to the best of my abilities and training to attain their goals towards better mental health and overall well-being. With rarely any support or proper communication from other case managers and management. I work for a new company that knows how to support staff and train them for success daily. I would never go back to Harbor unless they learned the way the company I’m at now does things to make work life one of the best parts of employees overall well-being too.

Typical day: assist clients with medications, answer never-ending phone calls, constantly make calls to fill beds for residential treatment, deal with clients' concerns and changes in medications/treatments, deal with under-qualified staff who tended to belittle clients and air their own personal issues instead of focusing on client issues, deal with client-client or client-staff issues, deal with other issues as they arose daily.
Learned: gained a better understanding of drug addiction and its relationship to mental health issues.
Management: direct management was underappreciated by upper management and constantly had difficulty getting upper management to understand the nuances of residential treatment and the need to better staff the facility to meet work demands. Upper management was only concerned with the bottom line and had little regard for stress experienced by staff due short-staffing and to the demands of the job.
Workplace culture: petty, belittling, lack of teamwork and common courtesy at times.
Hardest part of the job: watching clients leave before completion of treatment knowing that they were not ready to leave yet.
Most enjoyable part of job: being a part of a client's successful completion of the program.

Pay: Terrible. Really quite embarrassing and do not expect a raise. Only Upper Management are entitled to raises. 

Upper Management: don’t have a clue about mental health and caring for patients. They stick together and your concerns may be heard but will always be ignored. Work load continues to increase, billable units keep increasing in expectation.  You work and they play.

Department managers: these people do not know what they’re doing. How they obtain these positions is beyond me. Don’t expect any help from them. They are not there to help you . This department is a bunch of ladder climbers willing to do ANYTHING to get into upper management.

Co workers: many are great.BUT this company has taken its toll on many of their employees. The employees are run down / beat down. So many fantastic employees have left due to numerous issues. This is a place that cares for mentally ill. Yet the work environment here cause depression, anxiety, stress, fear, exhaustion etc in its very own employees. The turn over rate is at an all time high in all departments. Working here is literally causing people to be physically and mentally ill from the stress. It’s really sad.

Harbor is by far the worst place I have ever worked. The organization only cares about money and I does not care one bit about the mentally ill clients it is supposed to care for. Targets, units and billable hours are the only focus, and management chase numbers aggressively each month. You are told to get your targets no matter what, even if unethical practices are needed to be used. I was unable to use the little vacation time I had accrued because I still had to make my monthly targets regardless. I was totally overworked, burnt out and unappreciated. I now have been put off the whole field, I will never work again in the mental health or social work field again. I was expected to still reply to work calls and emails on my days off or after work hours, and still worse I was expected to take work calls and emails regarding clients on my FMLA leave after having my baby.
I would advise all to stay away, there are no redeeming qualities as the wages were low compared to its rivals, hardly any paid vacation and sick time and the benefits were awful.

During my employment Harbor grew from 40 or so employees to over 360 employees: From a budget of around $1 million, to over $26 million. Harbor is a leader in the community and the industry. It played in major role in integrating primary and behavioral health services in the region. It's goal of being the employer, provider and partner of choice was realized in a significant way. My 30 years of working at Harbor were rewarding and appreciated. The organization's workforce is made up of many of the best in the field who are totally committed to serving their clients/patients. Harbor offers opportunity to advance to many of it's talented workers. I appreciated the opportunity to learn, work as a team with many skilled professionals, and see an organization continue to grow throughout my employment time.

Severe lack of leadership. Management does not care about staff and provides zero leadership, zero assistance. NO training, you'll be dropped in a position that has nothing to do with your job description and be expected to perform with NO training. Outdated and irrelevant training videos are emailed from HR and Managers expect you to listen or watch on your own time, not on the clock. You will be "thrown under the bus" at any moment by management to save their own skin or image. Skipping lunch and breaks is encouraged by management. You'll be asked to clock out but keep working off the clock and or come in early but don't clock in till regular time. You'll be asked to take work home but not given any "comp time" to make up for it. High turn over because of poor management. Some other staff are kind and helpful but they are overworked and can't help because their workload is outragious also.  HR is not helpful, complaints or concerns will be ignored.  Public interactions are unpredictable and sometimes dangerous. Highly stressful environment.

Harbor is a wonderful place to work.  I enjoy interacting with children and helping them both with their academics and behaviors.  The pay could be much better as well as the benefits.  On a typical day I interact with children K-6th grade that have been removed from Toledo Public Schools due to their behavioral issues.  I move from classroom to classroom and assist in helping them change their behaviors.  I respond to crisis situations in hope of de-escalating students so they can return to their classroom and get education.  Co-workers are fantastic, very helpful and willing to go out of their way for you.  The hardest part of the job is at times dealing with the stressful situations when is child is out of control.  At times we have to put our hands on students and physically restrain them until they are calm.  The most enjoyable part of the job is interacting and helping children out on a daily basis.

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