receptionist

corporate receptionist

ambassador

senior receptionist

snow plow operator

Northwest Center

Typical day working as an employment consultant is different every day of the week. For example, you could be working from home looking for jobs for your clients on indeed or other sites. You could be job coaching at your client's work site. Helping them with their duties or giving suggestions to do their job better. You could also be in meetings with the funding departments (DVR and DDA) to make sure that the contract is fulfilled. 

I have learned a great deal in my time here at Northwest Center. I have learned how to job coach, be flexible and learn on the go, and new routes on how to get to different locations. I have also learned what adults with special needs go through to acquire a job in the work force.

Management at Northwest Center is amazing! They are more than willing to teach you the skills that you need to be successful in your work. They will try multiple teaching techniques until they find the one that is right for you. They are loving and supportive management that truly care about your well-being and work life balance. :)

The hardest part of this job is job development for your client. You truly have to find companies that are willing to partner with you, but your supervisors are more than willing to help you out when you get stuck.

The most enjoyable part of this job is seeing your clients be successful in the work force. It's such a wonderful reward! :)

Everyone seems stressed; and seem to be looking to blame others. Remote workers seem to have lots of leeway; hourly workers have a punitive "point" system to account for every minute and punish with verbal, written or final warning. Workplace feels unsafe. All doors have lock and key card system but reception has to let everyone in -and no one wears ID badges so half the time you don't know if who is coming in or walking around the place should be there or not. Rules/procedures change -sometimes on the daily. Continual monitoring and micromanaging. Unnecessary calls and texts when on the phone with customers or, after work hours, to "scold". Don't see their mission of disability inclusion exhibited in the workplace. It seemed like disabled co-workers were being set up to fail. The job I did didn't match the description; plus the advertised work hours were changed immediately after I started. No written SOP; procedures changed constantly -often through emails; I saw co-workers demeaned for asking questions. Co-workers talked about negatively by the manager behind their backs. Software didn't always work properly and requests to test systems prior to crucial projects were rejected; then it was the employee's "fault". All onboarding is done online prior to start date; resulting in several hours of time that is unpaid. Unclear pay policies regarding PTO and HOL pay. This place would fail all of Gallup's Q12 Employee Engagement Survey. Not recommended.

There is a great sense of camaraderie among co-workers, but largely because of managerial confusion. There are bi-weekly surveys for employees about performance and satisfaction, but 0 opportunities to review your superiors and any input given on surveys is never followed up on in a tangible way. The company prides itself on inclusion, diversity and opportunity, but has very little actual diversity in senior roles or due process for hearing new opinions. 

If your position involves any ambiguity in expected duties or performance, good luck. Management may not be clear with their expectations, follow up on questions in time, or even keep you up to date relative to the rest of your team--then act surprised when you're not on the same page.

Don't expect management or HR to have your back in the case of any conflicts. Several people were fired over my time working here because they raised questions about how they were being treated or asked for improvements in work conditions. This often happened abruptly, or with unsubstantiated claims from management. If you're working by contract for Amazon, don't forget that NWC cares more about covering themselves and keeping this contract than protecting their employees.

During my job search I interviewed at multiple social service providers but kept returning to wanting to work at Northwest Center.
As a person with disabilities I find Northwest Center to be accommodating. It is wonderful, too that Northwest Center has employees with disabilities in every department including being in leadership roles.
In my almost 2 years of being employed with Northwest Center I have advanced my career in meaningful steps while cultivating my skills, knowledge, and passion in ways best supportive of Northwest Center's mission.
My supervisor and other leadership members all have lived experiences that adds a truly human touch to their approach to leadership.
Teammates support each other and will assist each other in ways that nurtures trust and team strength building.
At Northwest Center employees are encouraged to nurture their natural abilities while being by our side when learning new concepts, duties, and tasks.
As someone who worked in a variety of other social service providing situations I am most pleased with Northwest Center. I encourage you, interested applicant, to read our history and to apply and meet our wonderful team.

The frontline staff and some members of upper management are great to work with, but the senior leadership team leaves much to be desired. With the exception of the VP, many leaders below him lack the fundamental skills necessary to effectively lead. Their approach often lacks kindness, respect, and accountability, with unrealistic expectations they don’t hold themselves to.

Senior leaders seem more focused on climbing the corporate ladder and impressing higher-ups (perhaps at Amazon) than staying true to the mission of Northwest Center. This company was founded to create a safe, supportive learning environment for children with different learning needs, but it feels like that mission has been overshadowed by a corporate mindset that prioritizes bureaucracy over people.

Instead of fostering a healthy work culture, leadership is overly concerned with trivial matters like minor tardiness or minuscule PTO discrepancies (which are already insufficient to meet employees’ needs). This misplaced focus stretches staff too thin and creates a toxic environment where turnover is inevitable.

If Northwest Center @ Amazon wants to improve, they need to invest in leaders who not only understand the corporate world but also have empathy, care about their teams, and genuinely support their employees' well-being.

This company is in some weird netherland between a non-profit and a private enterprise employing nearly 1,000 EE's. I worked in the role of a job coach/employment specialist working one on one with adult individuals with developmental disabilities of varying degrees.As a parent/advocate, I was well qualified for this task. Unfortunately, it seems the organization has lost it connection with the founding principals that it was originally based on. They have several enterprises (Value Village) and state/federal programs that supposedly fund its mission of helping promote inclusion and independence for people with development disabilities, but as an advocate for the DD community, I experienced a lot of hypocrisy and misrepresentation regarding the true nature of its mission and vision. When it all comes out in the wash, Northwest Center is just another enterprise based on profit and and exploitation in the name of community service. This is simply my "opinion" but I am also a Certified Non-Profit Professional (CNP) so I have a valid amount of credibility when it come to making this kind of evaluation.

I have worked at many different organizations both corporate and non-profit and I have really love my time at NWC. I love the mission, what the company does and the various ways that the organization reimagines funding a nonprofit. I have had the most supportive managers here and during my time, they have been encouraging of me exploring new skills, being part of projects and spearheading new learning. Although career growth can be slower (specific to my particular role), I feel challenged and encouraged by my management team to learn new skills. I know that if there is a training I want to do, I can make the ask and the team will be supportive in providing guidance. Overall, I would highly recommend NWC to anyone!

The benefits are great including 17 days of PTO, floating holidays, Student Loan contribution, Physical Wellness reimbursement and flexibility when needed.

Each day at work I was the manager, there were issues to resolve, recieving to be completed, store reorganizing to be done, money to be tracked, tills to be counted down, a store to maintain profitabe while retaining employees.
I learned how to manage for the first time in my working career. I learned how to train employees, how to budget, project future expendatures, make a schedule, do payroll, cover shifts and handle employees and customers alike in difficult situations.
I respected the management and the training I recieved. My co-workers were great and alway supportive.
The hardest part about the job was dealing with irrate customers and those who threatened my employees and myself when things did not go their way (late fees weren't removed, credit cards were charged, movies not in stock). It took time learn how to handle many different situations, however I am both a better person and a more effective communicator due to past experiences.
The best part about the job was having the management responsibility and watching the financial growth of my store.

The pay was great, started at $12/hour and got up to $14/hour by the time I quit. After I quit, it went up more  to $18/hour. Unfortunately the job was on-call, based entirely on when ships were in after going out to sea and when they were getting ready to leave. Otherwise matter how long we worked, it was a minimum pay of 2 hours per job. Also, they were very good about on-the-job injuries, putting myself through occupational rehabilitation, and the injury pay equated to all jobs worked by all employees which was really nice. Fair warning though, depending on the injury, they may not put you back to work once you're recovered so be ready to quit if they don't call you for more than a month because they won't inform you that they won't be calling you again.

I worked here for years, and I was heart broken to find that the first major change this company took when the pandemic hit in 2020 was to remove all it's employees from salary positions to hourly wages. Along with that change, they added responsibilities from multiple other positions with zero compensation increase. Following that change while everyone was struggling with the pandemic and supporting our clients, Northwest Center decided to impose a rule on making sure that we focus intently on making sure our time on the clock was 80% billable to the state. If it wasn't profitable, we were to cut those interactions with our clients. Along with that we then had to document manually every activity we do at work down to the 5 minute mark. This is not a non-profit, management only cares about increasing profits.

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