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Workplace Options

Don't waste your time applying here unless you are willing to tolerate dealing with 1) horrible management 2) high health insurance costs 3) unprofessionalism 3) being locked down to a headset 4) no breaks 5) uneccessary micro-management 6) immature supervisors 7) lack of confidentiality 8) significant lack of resources to effectively do your job 9) instability 10) additional job tiltles without increased pay 11) and a VERY high turn-over rate!

Supervisors do not have common sense or effective management skills but this is overlooked as one of the main factors that causes employees to be unhappy. I have seen so many GOOD employees quit or be terminated for reasons that could have been resolved with effective management techniques. Favortisim is evident at this workplace, if you kiss up...you move up.

I would not recommend this workplace to anyone I know. The most enjoyable part of this job was when I clocked out to go home for the day (although I usually left with a huge headache that would go away as soon as I left the building).

Tax season was horrible!!!! This company is very unorganized and not open to change for the better. Team Lead lacks common sense and has NO work experience in finances, taxes, or management- all things needed for the finace/tax department to be successfully managed! Financial consultants are giving tax advice over the phone (with NO background/training in taxes at all). Tax consultants were forced to give callers financial advice (budgeting, credit counseling, identity theft, etc.) and they had NO background/training in this area. TAXES and FINANCES are VERY different but again management does not step up to alleviate this issue. Instead, they find other irrelevent things to do and complain about.

Instead of considering the military service members who should be receiving the BEST service ever, this company is too worried about portraying a stellar workplace/service in attempt to retain this government contract. They cover up the true mess that lies beneath!

Beware that once the truth is evident, I am sure this contract will not be renewed! Unfortunately this means layoffs for current employees. Once again, Don't waste your time!!!!

I work as a Financial Counselor and Tax Consultant for MilitaryOneSource which is owned by Workplace Options. I am in the Finance/Tax Department and basically help military service members with their tax and finance questions/issues/concerns via telephonic consultations. The normal day to day job responsibilities relative to the pay is actual quite fair. We attempt to help all military service members who call in complete their tax returns or answer various personal finance related questions. We are not required to actually complete their entire tax return or set up long term stock market investing plans. We are basically like a help desk and attempt to help them answer their questions without having to pay out of pocket for a service. Most of the time all questions can be answered. So the pay by the company is actually pretty fair all things considered. A full time finance/tax consultant will earn around $45,000 to $52,000 depending on experience and time worked with company. There is also a few thousand extra per year bonus for tax calls completed during tax season. The business is also appears to be exponentially increasing which is a good thing. In theory the required responsibilities may increase which should lead to higher pay in near future. The management both middle and upper could be better. During tax season everything is super busy and there is no leadership from anyone. Everyone is scared and no one wants to step up and be a hero and take ownership. There appear to be case managers and other supervisors and still many times calls/cases go undocumented or follow up procedures break down. There needs to be a dedicated supervisor during tax season and probably all year long due to the complexity and intensity of tax calls themselves. The last few years and moving forward the tax calls are become more and more complex. It will soon become important to have a dedicated license tax professional on staff who can help take ownership and responsibility. I enjoy working for this company but they appear to favor hiring supervisor positions from outside the company rather than seriously consider current staff. 

The BUCA (Back Up Care) department is a complete MESS. The expectations are very intricate, lengthy and convoluted for $15.87 an hour in 2024. This rate has been unchanged since at least 2017. 

You will work every weekend both Saturdays and Sundays of every week with no additional compensation for working weekends. I have never worked anywhere that doesn't have a shift differential for weekend work. That was the first red flag. 

We were on the phones within a week of training and were ill prepared. The average tenure here is about 1-3 months. It was very apparent why they continue to have countless training classes one after another. Tech issues were plentiful and the systems are some of the most user UNFRIENDLY that you will never encoutner making the job much harder than it needs to be. 

Calls are back-to-back all day every day and you are expected to navigate multiple dated systems and screens and carry out their confusing, convoluted, and lengthy processes. 

You also have to do many follow ups, so there are many inbound and outbound calls all day, there will be no downtime. When you aren't taking inbound calls from angry clients who are upset that we were not able to fill their requests, you are making outbound calls that mostly consist of you mindlessly calling providers to see if they are able to accomodate care. 

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. This place is ok if you are just looking for something quick and won't be long term. People come and go, it is a waste of time. 


The interview is great becasue Workplace Options seems like a great place to work. The problem is that you're not actually working for workplace options, you're working for a partner company, we'll call them Sunny Skies. 

Sunny Skies does not resemble what you've agreed to. It's a multi-tiered system that allows for incredible amounts of system issues. It's just constant refreshing and relogging into your systems to make them work. It's rediculous! 

My entire training class failed our assessment and we were put on the phones and told to just do the best we could and too ask for help.  I was mortified! The awful service I gave to people made me embarrassed, I apologised and felt terrible that I'd wasted so much of their time on hold while I waiting on hold to get answers on how to help this person. It was a cluster at best. I left that afternoon and shipped their equipment back to them the following day. I took 2 full legal pads worth of notes for an entry level job and was not at all prepared on day 1. The detailed pieces of what should be a simple tier 1 type of incoming interaction are mindnumbing. If you care about realness this is not a good fit, but if you enjoy just being gaslit throughout the day, you'll love it because the managers are super supportive as they pretend it's all reasonable.

Do you like being tied to a cubicle for at least 8 hours every day without a break?  Do you enjoy feeling guilty about taking your 30 minute lunch?  Does lying to clients about their company "benefits" sound fulfilling?  Does sucking up to management give you a thrill?  Do you like being asked to come to work on your day off because the company is chronically understaffed from high turnover?  Do you find it clinically appropriate to have all of your client interactions recorded and saved in a database, then evaluated by managers who have no clinical background?  Do you define "positive work culture" as meeting with your friends to cry about the lack of support in the bathroom together?  When you take a vacation, do you like wondering if you'll have a job when you get back?  If so, then Workplace Options is the place for you!!  Workplace Options boasts an oppressive work culture with micromanagement, constant surveillance from supervisors, competition against your co-workers to see who can "help" the most clients (translation: get them off the phone as quickly as possible since the company is paid per call), and the least fulfilling job you will ever have as a counselor.  

This place is a nightmare.  There's gotta be something better out there.

I learned a lot and was able to grow my skills and prepare to advance my career. however, there is little to no room for advancement as a clinician. Layoffs occur frequently with no warning, no severance, and no outplacement, and several longstanding, loyal, and experienced clinicians lost their jobs in the latest round. The company laid off several clinicians and other employees in June and quickly began posting ads for clinical positions again. One might speculate that the company prefers to hire newer clinicians with less experience, in order to save on salaries, rather than value loyal employees who have the expertise to best serve the diverse, global client base.

While team members have strong skills and are very dedicated and supportive, most people are exhausted and unhappy; this is a for-profit company and operates with the same expectation as any call center: volume of calls taken per day and quotas of services offered drives the business.

Clinical supervision is excellent, team leads vary in quality.

Company owners and managers do not value their employees, and do not walk the talk of the worklife balance and healthy, reasonable expectations of employees that their company mission supposedly promotes.

This is a very different environment than most counselors are used to. Honestly, it's not a bad place to gain clinical experience as the company serves employers globally. However, the day-to-day stress and micromanagement can wear people down. This is a productivity driven, for profit company that is paid per call. Very short breaks and constant monitoring (you have to punch in a code on the phone even when using the restroom) are draining, especially when dealing with crisis calls. This company is HUGE and contracts with other EAPs, essentially representing them.  The most enjoyable part of the job is when clients call looking for in the moment support- but often, people want to initiate their "free counseling sessions," and may have no interest in speaking with you. Be advised that you won't always be providing clinical work, a lot of your calls may be customer service issues/wrong numbers/prank callers, etc. Working here has expanded my clinical knowledge due to the variety of issues clients present with, but I'm looking for more flexible, warmer environment.

The environment at WPO is very stressful and workers are pushed to their limits with no compensation for going above and beyond. However, mid-level to executive level management "sugar coats" company situations and processes to make employees stay and make employees believe that they will one day be rewarded for their trouble. There is a high turnover rate for entry level positions, leaving high frustrations and low quality of work due to the need for constant training. Once promoted, the company culture becomes clearer and employees are left to determine when they are being lied to or when the company is actually being transparent. When an employee quits or is let go, WPO does not usually hire another person, they expect other team members to absorb the work with no extra pay. The company does provide a great place for a "pit-stop," recent college graduate or someone who is looking to gain skills that will transfer to a less toxic organization and better compensated position.

Managers are overly stressed, which in turn leads to team leads micromanaging counselors. Training is not thorough enough, so when training is complete, you still have tons of questions and will find most of your support from co-workers rather than management. The environment is highly stressful with a constant reminder that you need to produce. Even as a new hire, once a phone call is done, if you take too long to submit your notes (which you are only given a few minutes to do before being put back into the call queue to accept another call), you will have team leads messaging you questioning what you are doing (basically asking what is taking so long) Instead of the focus being on client care, the focus is on numbers and how quickly you can take calls. The pay is good, if you are willing to overlook the tons of other negatives. Definitely not for me.

Majority of the clinicians I worked with were wonderful people and very supportive of each other. 

There were some great benefits during the time I was there: stipend for supervision for licensure, reimbursement for clinical exam, exchange program where you traveled to other offices around the country and worked, and not having to take your work home with you or be on call, when you're done for the day your are done. 

There were some negatives like any place will have: routine of the job can become mundane, not a lot of opportunity to grow, 24 hour service, so you may not have a Mon-Fri 9-5 shift, high call volume can be overwhelming, and little break time. 

Overall it's a pretty good place to find your footing, especially if you were like myself and fresh out of grad school. Made some life long friends here, became fully licensed, and spent a month in London. Not too shabby.

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