patient care technician

physical therapist

occupational therapist

registered nurse

registered nurse ii

Shirley-Ryan-Ability-Lab

The environment often felt chaotic and unorganized, which made it difficult to feel supported or successful long-term. I believe this contributes to employee burnout and turnover. When employees are expected to carry several responsibilities at once, the compensation, staffing, training, and leadership support should reflect that.
Another concern is that when I shared honest feedback during my exit interview, I did not feel my experience was fully acknowledged. Some of my concerns felt minimized or countered rather than received as real feedback from an employee’s perspective. This added to the feeling that employee concerns may not always be taken seriously.
Advice to Management:
Focus more on employee retention, realistic workload expectations, fair compensation, better staffing, stronger training, and more consistent communication. Employees who are expected to wear multiple hats should feel supported, valued, and paid accordingly. Honest employee feedback should also be listened to without being dismissed or sugarcoated.

My favorite thing about working at SRAL were my allied heath co-workers and physicians.  You will never find a more passionate, dedicated group of people. I have never felt as respected by colleagues than I did there.  

The problem, and it is a huge one, are the organizational barriers.  They continue to use Cerner/ Power Chart which does not have auto-save, smart phrases or the ability to have more than one screen open at a time.  It is a system of tons of drop downs, bubbles, an insane amount of tabs that have to be addressed, limited information pulls through, etc.  Additionally no two people necessarily document the same way making it extremely difficult to do a decent chart review which was concerning as it could lead to medical mistakes.

Personally, I believe it is the density of the organizational barriers that makes the job inefficient and leads to quick burn out.  In my 3 years there, most of the administrative staff left within 6 months.  As a result most of the administrative responsibilities fell on the therapists.  It does not make for a healthy environment which in turn stresses middle management as  they are mostly helpless in assisting their  staff.  

As with most health care institutions, senior management and HR are NOT helpful.  They will feign concern, make no substantive changes and gaslight employees to make them believe they are being unrealistic and difficult even when staff therapists offer pragmatic and realistic solutions to concerns and difficulties with the job.  

What is the best part of working at the company?
it’s a beautiful facility, amazing location, dynamic views while you’re working, the actual work is not hard

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
The management and supervisors included in particular the food service department. Absolutely horrible, absolutely unprofessional, completely unorganized it’s just toxic environment

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Absolutely toxic so unprofessional, no teamwork, literally no one wants to do their jobs, and management just allows it, training is a absolute joke no standard operating procedures for almost nothing in particularly the food service

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
12 hour shifts of people just  yelling cussing trying to get work done. It’s like a nightmare.
Clock in run reports set up PDAs for the day with tickets, update patient diet report, correct mistakes on reports from the following day. Service inpatient orders make the trays deliver them make sure they’re compliance with the diet order. You do this for three meal periods. You also have to do any work that the PDAs don’t want to do per managers request

Management in the housekeeping department is TERRIBLE! Supervisors/ shift leaders are not helpful at all. Working in a hospital is very demanding and you need the support of your shift leaders; however, the shift leaders I have worked with had very poor attitudes towards their peers. Supervisors come and check your work towards the middle of your shift. They are not always kind with the feedback they will give you. Also, in my time being at Shirley Ryan, there was a lot of gossip and drama between coworkers, making the working environment hostile and uncomfortable. Shirley Ryan is NOT a union and will have you perform tasks that are sometimes unreasonable. Shirley Ryan also has a very strict attendance policy. You are allowed five ( I believe) infractions towards your attendance before you are fired regardless of the situation. Overall, I would not recommend this job to anyone.

They will say just about anything to get you in the door and under contract with them. However, once it comes to fulfilling those promises management will say it's out of the scope of the department. They seem like they want to improve, but suggestions go unheard.

Shirley Ryan AbilityLab offers valuable hands-on experience and the opportunity to work with a diverse patient population. The staff is generally supportive, and there are many opportunities to learn and develop clinical skills, especially for those interested in healthcare careers. The mission of helping patients regain independence is rewarding and makes the work meaningful.

However, staffing levels can sometimes be challenging, which may lead to heavy workloads and a fast-paced environment. Communication between departments and management could also be improved at times. Work-life balance can be difficult depending on the unit and staffing needs.

Overall, it is a solid workplace for gaining experience and growing professionally, but there are areas that could be improved to better support employees.

Overall SRAL is an great place to begin your career as nurse, and if you decide to stay its also have room to advance. The team work is good, and this spine floor you can learn a little more compared to other floors. However, its a little more physical & less critical thinking and nursings skills can get lost. My biggest dislike is that nursing care gets pushed back for therapy. Yes therapy is important, however, If the patients didn't need nursing care then they will be in outpatient & that's what the facility fail to realize. SRAL is nice place to work, big on educating, and will give you that confidence you need as a new grad.

If you work in the housekeeping department here you might as well be desperate and just don’t feel like looking for another job. If you enjoy the managers being messy and telling all of your business this is the job for you cause working here it’s just messy from the housekeeping managers down to the workers it’s just a messy and hostile work environment. I started working there when they first transitioned to the new building it was a nice job until they started hiring these no experience messy managers and they couldn’t keep a manager at all so they started to hire the housekeepers for managers with no experience and just made it worse  to work there.

If there’s one thing Shirley Ryan can do extremely well, it’s marketing. Their sleek website and beautiful facilities will lure you in. But amongst the therapist community in the Chicagoland area, Shirley Ryan is known for their high turnover rate and lowballing employee salaries. 

It’s hard to retain therapists when they could be making more money elsewhere while spending less time on repetitive, ancillary documentation. Mentorship and learning opportunities can be limited due to facilities being chronically understaffed and (again) a high turnover rate.

What is the best part of working at the company?
Nothing really! No value for good employee in the Food and Nutrition Department.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Overworked, no respect, Director plays favoritism( food and Nutrition department)

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Hostile/ stressful in kitchen. Director pays not attention to staff/ very very partial and favors people who are not right. No importantance given to patient compalins for food.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Nothing exciting. Fill in for those who are not at work- so u have to end up doing stuff or double work.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Patient care technician 153 salaries reported	$22.20 per hour
Physical therapist 87 salaries reported	$98,946 per year
Occupational therapist 88 salaries reported	$91,776 per year
Registered nurse 50 salaries reported	$43.32 per hour
Registered nurse ii 64 salaries reported	$44.61 per hour

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