nursing assistant

certified medication aide

licensed practical nurse

cook

director of nursing

Primrose Retirement Communities

Working as a PCA in this assisted living facility has been one of the most frustrating experiences of my career. The residents are wonderful and deserve the highest quality of care, but poor leadership and disorganization make that almost impossible to deliver.

The Director of Nursing rarely answers the phone, doesn’t return messages, and is often unavailable when staff or residents need support. Leadership is inconsistent and lacks accountability. There’s no clear direction, and decisions seem to be made on a whim. Communication is poor, staff concerns are ignored, and scheduling problems are constant.

What’s even more concerning is the lack of adherence to facility policies and procedures. Rules are applied inconsistently, and certain staff members are held to different standards than others. This not only creates confusion and resentment among employees, but it also raises serious concerns about resident safety and compliance with regulations.

Training is minimal, short-staffing is chronic, and turnover remains high because management fails to support or value the care team. Instead of promoting teamwork and professionalism, the environment feels stressful, disorganized, and dismissive.

This facility could truly be a great place if leadership cared about staff, enforced policies consistently, and took accountability for their role in daily operations. Unfortunately, until that changes, I would not recommend working here to anyone seeking a stable or respectful work environment.

They make you approve your own pay at the end of a pay period when that's HR's responsibility and job to approve employees pay and paper work not the employees.You are not told you will be working in the kitchen as kitchen staff for the residents while also doing residents cares as a nursing assistant that's considered cross contamination at other places. Health Insurance is not taken at alot of places. Hours are all over the place for working hours.If you don't do their online employee stuff on time they will not let you work. They say they have a high turn over rate these issues are why. The nursing assistants should not be working in the kitchen they need to hire more kitchen staff to do that role. The nursing assistant should and only be focused on residents cares so there is not any cross contamination going on. They won't order uniform shirts and waste money doing so unless they know you are going to stay even if you don't they want you to return the shirt back to them but mostly you provide your own uniform scrubs. They won't get you a badge which you need to clear out residents pedants with while you do cares but if their pendants go off for more then 20 minutes at a time corporate gets a notification and calls the building asking why it's taken so long,and if you don't have your badge to clear out the pedant because they will not order one for you unless they know you will also stay that's sort of on them not you as an employee so if they try to come back on you for that their more at fault for not getting you your badge to be able to do so. 

My first year was near perfect, easy and enjoyable with some of the most family-like staffing until mid-2024 when new managerial staff was introduced. 
Long-hour shifts or none at all. 
The job was consistent, monotonous while maintaining a little bit of something different everyday, most tasks are incredibly easy when you and the staff are genuinely working together but there’s no guarantee that you’ll get the help you need for the day. 

 As time came and went on and people come and go, the facility changed too— the environment, the routine, the way you were treated and so forth. 
The residents always appreciate kind staff, they’ll always be kind to you if you’re kind to them. Feeding and serving residents was the best part of my job, along with their families they were always supportive of the staff and how hard they work. 

Working with a disability, Primrose Retirement Community was a perfect environment starting out but as time progressed no longer held the same strengths, values and teamwork it once did in the environment provided to smaller staff. 


Working at Primrose assisted living feels like being part of a close-knit family. Every day, I have the privilege of preparing meals for our residents as if they were my own loved ones. The relationships here are deeply personal; I get to know not just the residents but also my fellow team members, who quickly become an extension of my family. If ever I need assistance, I simply ask, and everyone is incredibly supportive. They offer a fantastic benefits package and provide guidance through every step of the process. 

I can't emphasize enough how rewarding it is to work in such a caring environment. A typical day for me begins with arriving at the facility and preparing breakfast by turning on the ovens and grills, cooking items like sausage and bacon to ensure our residents start their day with warmth. After breakfast, I continue my preparation for the day's soup and start planning for lunch and dinner. During lunchtime, I’m fortunate to have wonderful teammates who assist me in fulfilling our residents’ meal orders. It's truly a joy to be a part of their daily lives and help create moments of comfort through food.

I am disappointed. As a facility that claims to be the “best in the area”, it puts things into perspective. I understand that you will (in some cases) never like your job, or your managers, but this is next level. I got my CNA license, and started work at primrose shortly afterwards. I’ve been there just over a year and I am now a casual employee. The management has only one goal in mind- money. The amount of people that live there and the amount that they pay is absolutely disgusting. Not to mention, the employees they have are over worked and under compensated. Starting out with no experience, you can expect 10-12$/hr. If/when you are med trained, you only get a .50/1$ raise. I’ve been there a year and I’m not even making the starting pay of other local facilities. Managment won’t pay more because they are cheap. They refuse to acknowledge that people would rather work at a place that has poor ethics and standards for more money than at a place that provides “the best care around”. I feel like I have nothing to say but poor comments on the management. The employees in kitchen and care staff I absolutely adored, but management can not be given the same appreciation. I only stayed for the residents, and they are multiplying faster than they can hire. If you’re up for a challenge, mandations, and a feeling of no appreciation from management, than this is the place for you. 

I loved the Executive Director at my location, but dealing with home office completely ruined my experience working there. I loved the residents and my coworkers very much and they were all so upset when I left. I absolutely hated to leave, but my mental health just couldn't handle it anymore. I constantly felt like I was walking on egg shells and being talked about negatively even though I was giving them my all and more. Home office didn't care about how personable I was and how I was quickly filling up the community because I wasn't being overly obnoxious to leads and referrals like they wanted me to be. It felt awful to be so excited after getting multiple deposits in one day, but still never being good enough for corporate. I worked so incredibly hard for that company and even though I was loved and appreciated by the residents, resident familes/friends, and staff, they wanted me to have a "car salesman like" mentality and that just isn't in me to treat people like that just to get move ins and referrals, especially when I was already getting a great amount of move ins anyway. Multiple people left there because of how home office handled things as well, I wasn't the only one. If it weren't for home office, I would rate Primrose 5 stars, no questions asked, but with how much you have to deal with them in that position and how much they affect your every day work experience, a 2 star rating is generous. 

The staff here all genuinely take pride in the care we provide each resident. We all take pride in this facility, after all we spend a lot of time in the place we work. So we want it to be a happy and a fun place to work. We all work well with each other overall. Sure there might be an occasional disagreement, but in the end we truly like each other and take care of each other. When a staff person has something, like a medical issue arise, everyone else pitches in to cover shifts. You never know when it will be you, so we treat each other how we want to be treated. You will see this to be true in each department. I feel the workload is quite a bit less than a nursing home or hospital because we don't use lifts. The residents have to be able to walk or transfer to a w/c. The shifts are busy, but you actually have time to talk to the residents and get your work completed. Each shift has other duties, like laundry and cleaning to complete. The time flies by. The management do try to do appreciation things for us like have food brought in or buy everyone Latte's. They take turns helping in the dining room, which is nice. Not every place does that. It REALLY is a great place to work!!!!

Overall, my experience was mixed. There were some genuinely good individuals in leadership and past management who made a positive impact, and  that was appreciated during my time there.

However, staffing and support were ongoing challenges due to the new leadership (ED and DON). Employees often felt overwhelmed by workload and short staffing, especially on certain shifts where support was limited. Night shift in particular was frequently understaffed, sometimes with only one aide responsible for a large workload, which made it difficult to maintain the level of care that was expected.

Dayshift did have slightly more support at times through float staff, but it was still challenging being the only CNA and expected to be in multiple places at once.

Another concern during my time there was that staff often did not feel seen, heard, or cared about. There was a consistent feeling that employee well-being was not always prioritized, which affected morale and overall job satisfaction. The job itself is hard enough. 

The job itself could be meaningful depending on the team, but improvements in staffing, communication, and employee support would have made a significant difference for both staff and residents.

I didn’t stay for long but my typical day was to hope and pray I didn’t make any mistakes with people on the line. I received little to no hands on training. When you start, you have to watch hours of videos and learn how to take care of people. However, the management throws you somewhere even if you didn’t apply to that position. I applied for resident aid, the lowest job level, and was sent to the memory care. I did not apply for memory care and they did not tell me I would be working memory care. I asked the manager to change me to what I applied for and she declined. Most if not all the employees don’t like training people, which is understandable. However with people on the line Primrose needs hands on trainers. My work experience comes from the memory care so I cannot say if assisted living is good. Everything else was standard. You dress people, change them if needed, help them shower, wipe, get up, sit down, move, walk, brush teeth, feed, mental exercises, anything someone would need to live. The hardest part is changing people only because most people think it’s gross- but it is the job. I loved the people and coworkers besides the manager

I loved my residents they made the job rewarding. I did enjoy working with a select few coworkers. A majority of my coworkers can be intimidating, disrespectful and even bully other coworkers. There is so much drama on day shift and night shift it creates a very toxic work environment. Coworkers don’t work as a team, they bad mouth each other, and have even talked disrespectfully about the residents at the nurse’s station. 
Management does not protect their good employees, some say they don’t even protect their residents because they do not staff accordingly!!! 
People call in repeatedly, no call no shows happen often, yet those people get to keep their jobs. No one gets written up, Primrose doesn’t follow their own attendance policy. Sadly, they’re losing a lot of good employees due to this. 
The work balance is ok when you have the CORRECT amount of staff. Without that, you’re stuck doing multiple jobs while trying to do your own. It is exhausting. Often you don’t even get your 15 minute breaks, let alone your 30 minute for lunch. 

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Nursing assistant 4 salaries reported	$17.61 per hour
Certified medication aide 2 salaries reported	$19.25 per hour
Licensed practical nurse 3 salaries reported	$28.00 per hour
Cook 1 salary reported	$15.50 per hour
Director of nursing 1 salary reported	$33.50 per hour

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