instructor

specialist

youth development professional

tutor

swim instructor

YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago

The only relatively content employees seem to be the full time directors who enjoy a generous paid time off allowance.  This is an organization that expects to hire qualified and capable individuals and then pay them peanuts.  Most of the mid-level positions have been cut down to 29 hrs/week so they don't have to provide benefits of any kind, and then pay is slightly above minimum wage.  It's  gotten worse over the past year since all the individual YMCA branches have lost control over their own centers as Metro YMCA tries to compete with for-profit health and fitness centers by taking a a more corporate approach .  

The only positive (for full time employees only) seems to be that when you walk out the door, you can shut off work completely - not check emails or answer calls, etc.  I give management a low rating because they are so incredibly slow to respond to emails and phone calls, and often just let the ball drop on important issues.

They are now offering lower pay rates than they did several years ago, and are expecting instructors to buy into the increasing number of fee-based branded classes that require an out of pocket investment on the part of the instructors (again, for low pay).

The best part of working for a Y is the sense of community/ camaraderie among members, and the satisfaction that you are making a difference in people's lives.  Great job for someone who is independently wealthy and doesn't need the income or benefits, but wants to give back to community.

YMCA of Metro Chicago is a joke. Having worked for the YMCA since 2004 I have never seen such dishonesty in my professional career. The senior leadership team truly is heartless and lacks any core values the Y stands behind. They try to put on a show that they care about their employees, but that is absolutely not true. They claim they care about the community and social justice, that is not true. The Y years ago had a VP of Diversity, but under this regime, the position was eliminated. Just because you have diversity in your leadership team doesn't mean you care about it. The only thing Metro cares about is trying to figure out how to get out of the downward spiral we are in. We are SPIRALING out of control. I have never seen more people unhappy in their jobs and so many people shedding tears because it's so toxic. They pretend it's hunky-dory when it's not. They don't want to admit their failures. 

Senior Leadership only cares about looking good for the community. If you are a potential donor, don't give them your money. Not with their ASTRONOMICAL salaries, lack of business acumen, and frivolous spending. I wish I could go into more detail on how their spending and salaries are out of control but Indeed doesn't allow that level of detail. It should be relevant given how obscene it all is.

The entire Senior Leadership Team is evil and needs to be replaced.

What is the best part of working at the company?
Friendly community of parents; bilingual (English/Spanish) environment.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
There is a total lack of leadership.  The center is disastrously understaffed, and many of the teachers are temp workers with no credentials.  The site director was chronically absent, uncommunicative, and unhelpful to teachers.  Many of the children have severe needs (due to poverty, disability, emotional trauma, etc.), and these needs are not met.  A large number of the teachers are disrespectful to children, yelling at them and shaming them.  Total chaos.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Teachers are expected to work miracles with virtually no resources, and many of the teachers also enter the center with a negative attitude, which makes things worse.  There are no consequences for teachers who shame and disparage children.  In addition, the food served to children and teachers is terrible and unhealthy, which lessens morale even further.  Lastly, teachers are pressured to come to school even if they are very ill.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
No predictability.  Constant switching of the schedule, due to understaffing and lack of directorial communication.  In addition, many children have severe behavior problems, due to both their home lives and the total chaos of the center.

I worked as a day camp counselor, and before I get to my experience I would like to say the day camp kids were very neglected. Most of their equipment and resources were very diminished, including the counselors. Counselors were not paid enough for the work we did. We were paid a stipend which I am forced to believe is because the company did not want to pay us the minimum wage (I calculated what the hourly pay would be from the stipend and it was below minimum wage). Even when we got paid, the amount was frequently messed up and this would be brought up to corporate, but would be forgotten about or ignored (not sure which). We did not get formal breaks when working a 10 hour workday in harsh heat. We were expected to take our lunch “break” with the kids, but as we know kids do not take a break, and we still are required to supervise. For fun, management would let the kids pour food on us. The facilities (pool and pool bathroom) seemed to never actually get cleaned. Management seemed to be against us and not with us. While corporate was absent in general, leaving counselors to do the harsh work which we are not fairly compensated to do. I came home from this job every day unhappy, tired, and beaten down. I felt unappreciated and overwhelmed. Worst job I ever had.

Settle in, let's talk about Lakeview Y! Firstly Corporate blatantly lied to me and said that because of my low salary that I'll "Be promoted quickly so don't worry about it." Mind you, I'm required to open the Lakeview Center at 5am Mon-Fri since I've been here I count no less than 30 no call no shows, 4 abrupt resignations (ALL Leadership), and IT flat out refusing to repair machines key to my job. At my center, every other dept. picks on Membership. So much so that the Membership Director quit. A week before him it was a Supervisor who quit. So now we're left with this smug 27 year old kid who thinks to press the staff to perform, mind you he's bosom buddies with half of our dept. and doesn't hold them accountable. You can tell easily he doesn't have experience managing people. And to add insult to injury has tried on 2 occasions to threaten me. Can be racially micro-aggressive. Other dep. directors have passive aggressive battles with each other, and THEY TREAT THE ELDERLY MEMBERS LIKE AN AFTERTHOUGHT, I REPEAT, THEY TREAT SENIORS LIKE TRASH! 
If you work here, be sure to keep applying for somewhere else. Because they will wear on your soul with the work place stress.

So it took me about a month just to go through the hiring process. They were all set and ready to go with getting me on board. However, my CPR certification lasts for two years, and according to their polices mine had already expired. This is because the Y does yearly certs, so you would need to renew your certifications every year. Management told me they would find me a CPR class, and cover the charge for it. Then all of a sudden, I get a call from the assistant manager telling me that I need to cover the charge of the CPR class myself, and find my own class. This tells me that the assistant manager and the supervisor do not communicate all too well, as the supervisor told me they would help find me a CPR class and cover the expenses. Needless to say, they never found a class for me, and I found a job elsewhere. They wasted my time, and their own in hiring me. If there had been a bit more communication, and they had looked at my certifications BEFORE hiring me, then this wouldn't have been an issue. Overall, bad experience. Took them about a month to hire me, then they did not even bother to help get me re certified when IT WAS COMMUNICATED TO ME THEY WOULD.

This YMCA is going downhill at a rapid pace and the Board has governed a leadership of over 9 years that has a track record of losing money, robbing its endowment to fund capricious projects that never delivered what the “favored” people said it will deliver, a hectic revolving door of turnover at the senior management level, appointments of questionable and unethical staff to key leadership roles, questionable business practice by key leaders with utter disregard to compliance and sound business practice with blatant and systematic elimination and retaliation against employees who have the guts to stand up for what is right for the Association, doing nothing. Yes, no one at this YMCA from the Board of Manager President down to the lowest job title has made any decisive actions to save this long struggling YMCA. Instead, everyone is guilty of condoning and supporting all of the above leaving donors and most importantly the communities this YMCA purports it serves robbed and defrauded. 

There are more dirt this YMCA leadership is covering and hiding from donors, members and the Board but numbers do not lie. Statistics do not lie.

I'll keep the review nice and short. There is also no compete clause.The pay is definitely decent. When I worked there it was $18/hour for a private session but you get $26/hour for their YMAX training program (typically marketed to a client as a 25 minute session). They train you in their YMAX program so there is nothing paid out of pocket. 

Now here's to WHY the YMCA isn't that great. When I was hired it was initially just me and two other trainers, which left us with a decent amount of clients to work with. About two months into my employment, they decided they needed another SEVEN trainers on staff (which amongst us three trainers, all days and shifts were always covered). The Directors/PTCs never sold training (maybe 1-2 clients a MONTH). This in turn diluted our client base and we decided to find alternative employment. There was really no reason to hire these other trainers which was a slap in our faces.

If you're looking for one or two clients and thats it, this is a great place. If you're actually trying to build a clientele, then you're better off skipping this place all together.

The hiring process is absolutely horrible. I was hired last year and it took me a month from the time I was told I would be working to the time I was actually having my first day. I have to call support, management, or help desk for almost every new account and password. There are around 6 or 7 different accounts you need to manage and sign into and upload hiring information to and do trainings on, and they can't put it all in one spot. You have to figure a lot of it out for yourself. They say they send you emails and they tell you what your username should be, but the emails don't show up and the usernames don't work. I got rehired here after COVID, but I had to do the entire new employee process over again. A lot of data and passwords don't get saved in the system and I was always calling help desk during breaks in school to do hiring as soon as I could. Also they required me do mandatory trainings during my school hours, despite asking to change the time.

Quite literally the worst nonprofit to work for. Management was always constantly pushing corporate agendas when it was only to cover their selves. It was next to impossible to get a day off because we were always understaffed. It would be common for people to no call no show leaving another staff member to take the shift, most often turning regular shifts into doubles. I personally did it several times to only get a simple thank you from my supervisor. In the 6 years that I worked there the only times i got a raise were when minimum wage went up. We were supposed to get quarterly evaluations that turned into biannual evaluations that turned into annual evaluations that wernt even evaluations. The supervisor signed them and "went over them" with you. Just an overall spineless place to work. The headaches they will give will never be worth the money they want to pay.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Instructor 17 salaries reported	$17.58 per hour
Specialist 7 salaries reported	$15.86 per hour
Youth development professional 3 salaries reported	$17.14 per hour
Tutor 2 salaries reported	$18.17 per hour
Swim instructor 2 salaries reported	$15.86 per hour

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