Preface: All I ask of an employer is to be paid for the work I do, treated like a human being while I'm there, and left alone on my days off.
I don't think I am asking for a lot.
Garda cash services fails spectacularly on all of those expectations.
You will start out as a "casual" which is just another term for on call/part time. You will have lots of work in the summer, and go weeks without a call in the winter. They want you to be available though, and can call you last minute, so forget about having another job. They want you to sit on unpaid on call. It doesn't matter if you have bills to pay or mouths to feed. The requisite monthly availability they demand will completely preclude you from having another part time job. That's right, part time at Garda trumps part time everywhere else.
As a casual, you are paid less than a full time employee. If you are working with a full time employee, there will be tension because of the different pay structures.
As a casual, you are paid by the hour, so you have no incentive to rush. Full time employees are paid by the shift. If their shift is ten hours, and they get all of their work done in eight hours, they get to go home and still get paid for ten hours. The full timer will pressure you to rush so they can get home, which costs you hours.
After a while (months, or years) you may make it to a full time position. Now you will get benefits. No raise though. They negotiated that part out of the collective. You will make top ra
I started my journey at GardaWorld as a Tactical Scheduler a few years ago. I really liked the job! It paid the bills, and my coworkers, and managers were super friendly! I moved to Portfolio Scheduler about a year after joining based off of my work performance. I still quite frankly liked the position, however sadly that is where all the positives end. The turn over rate is beyond bonkers, and managing OT for that is near impossible. You are dealing with clients, internal staff, managers, administrative work; entering coverages, keeping track of staff pay rates, bill rates, payroll, pay complaints, tracking opens, new hires, training, attendance of all staff under your portfolio all while providing excellent customer service ON TOP of all the never ending coverages, and opens, and you are blamed for anything that goes wrong as a portfolio scheduler. You can be an overachiever, a hard worker, dedicated to your role and it will not be noticed. Everyone is looking out for themselves, and you will be left with nothing but stress, anxiety, and the feeling of toxicity among the workplace. You will be hired most likely at a higher rate than loyal employees who have been there for years (hence no visible pay rate- they gotta hide it from the current staff just in case they look it up; not that the money you will get for the workload with equal the pay. Seniority. Does. Not. Matter.), and that might seem like a great offer but you’ll end up in the same boat in about two years. During
I was hired at the Mississauga branch as a casual hire, and what a waste of time it was working here for 6 months of my life. The entire facility is unmaintained and extremely dirty, the amount of black dust everywhere is a major cause for concern. The locker rooms are extremely filthy to the point that if you drop any of your black uniform on the floor for even a second, they will have dirt all over them. All their equipment is either damaged, faulty, or jury-rigged to barely work.
Their entire system is ridiculously out-dated and everything is done manually in a program that looks like it was made in the 1980s. The trucks are constantly on the brink (pun intended) of falling apart, and there is always issues with them. The managers are very disorganized and really don't care about anybody besides themselves and maybe the full-time guys that lick their boots.
The work culture is absolute garbage. People will step over you to get ahead, so trust no one. Everybody is talking about you behind your back, so if somebody starts chit-chatting and asks something like how many shifts you got this week, just don't tell them. They will complain behind your back and you'll either get shifts cancelled or receive not as many the preceding weeks. Don't make friends here, just do your job and go home if you are really that desperate. Everybody here is a back-stabber.
If you have the pleasure (sarcasm) of working with a full-timer, they will rush you to get the job done because the
ProsLook cool with a firearm, people think you're important
ConsBad hours, poor management, union politics, horrible work culture
I worked as a security dispatcher in the Ottawa office. The behaviour from "management" was unbelievable. The management would cuss at security guards and dispatch staff on a consistent basis. They would also spread rumors and gossip about all staff. Working there was almost unbearable.
I recall when a new member of the dispatch team was added, and instantly the gossip began. The new girl had an issue with the gossipping environment so she took it up with management within a few days of starting her new job. The management laughed in her face and as soon as she left, the management began screaming to other office staff, calling her a lying b**ch, saying that she's a loser, that she is going to get fired if she can't keep her anorexic mouth shut - all while a line of customers were waiting in the lobby, and they were hearing the entire thing.
The management are bullies. If you EVER brought up an issue to them, they would make your life miserable, and they would degrade you and put you down in front of the entire office. They would also take away your hours if you brought a concern to their attention to 'punish' you. If you emailed manager privately about an issue, everyone would know by the next day, because they often read personal emails out loud to mock you.
They were also VERY racist.
The management would consistently tell me "book a GOOD guard for "location", they have to be white and they have to actually be able to speak english. Don't give ____ any shifts, h
ProsDispatching was exciting and fun, the guards were great to talk to
ConsLong hours, made you work 12 hour shifts with only 8 hours between them, horrible management team
Gardaworld "The best of the worst in the industry"
I've been working there for 30+years, had experience in almost all departments. Unionized environment. If you're asking why I still work here after reading this...i'm retiring soon.
Typical day: You get to work, pick up your equipment & gun, verify everything is there, look at your stops (realized they overloaded your run again & clients will be mad...again), sometimes you can give the extra stuff to another team (which are probably newbies excited to have some hours), than you pick your favorite truck (if available or if not find one of the few that is still working), go to the vault & bring the bags to your truck, drive to the different stops (clients are usually respectful, cheerful to see you, but also 3/5 of them complain daily about the company's so call client servicing. I usually apologize by saying "sorry ma'am/sir, they're cutting again"). On the upside, If you're quick, you have guarantied hours (only for full timers), meaning the faster you finish the faster you go home with full pay.
Some of the GOOD:
If you're full time "you're in the money". 26.34$/hrs, health insurance, pension plan. You can find some friendly coworkers, lower management, clients. There's a nice cafeteria, many bathrooms, a big changing room with lockers & showers. Parking is 20.00$ per month. You have the responsibility of handling a firearm.
Now for the BAD:
For people thinking of working here know that you'll be part-time for ever...i'll take 20ish years to get a full time, they
ProsA OK pension plan for full time employees
ConsLower salary, no benefits/pension, awfull hours for part-time employees
A good opertunity for those who like a challenge... not so much for those who enjoy their sanity...
Working on a site that was acquired by GardaWorld meant trying to integrate the new company mentality/approach with the old company ideology to service delivery. There have been many struggles along the way and there has been a lack of support from the upper management team in delivering on our clients basic expectations. At a site level we often struggle to meet the basic expectations of the client, as there is little support from the scheduling department when regular and special coverage shifts go unstaffed. Often times when shifts run open the work is then reallocated to patrol staff on site. This leads to a reduced quality in scheduled duties, and increases the stress on Patrol Guards (who often have to forgo their full breaks to accommodate the increased work), Dispatchers and Supervisors who are expected to figure out how to run a shift with multiple extra coverage or even core coverage shifts open, accommodate breaks for fixed positioned staff and respond to unforeseen circumstances and emergencies, and then come back in 8, 12 or 16 hours and do it all over again and again. When guards are assigned for shifts from the scheduling pool they often arrive unequiped for their duty, lacking basic uniform items, claiming they were never issued them from the uniform department. GardaWorld management seems to come up with excuses or band-aid solutions rather than addressing head on the issues that they are faced with. There is also an apparent mentality that it is better to ru
ProsA challenging work environment, for those who are willing to step up to unpredictability on every shift
ConsA challenging work environment, for those who are willing to suffer through the unpredictability on every shift
I was employed by this company for almost 15 years and let me tell you....
Stay as far away from this company as possible. If I could id give them -100 stars
Their fleet of trucks shouldn't be on the road.
Their training is less than adequate to say the least. They add more and more work to the run, and tear into you for overtime. You're over worked and under appreciated. Its decent money for what you do unless you work nights, then you're definitely under paid, good luck getting any day shifts. It was a routine occurrence for HR to screw up your pay, if you took time off it confused them and guaranteed your cheque was screwed.
They say that its easy to get full time however, its an empty promise because they want to staff their branches with all part time employees so they dot have to pay holidays, or full time rate and they want their employees at beck and call so they fight over the hours they do schedule.
Management is a joke, they seldom promote from within and if they do its a bunch of kids running the show thats eager for a "yes boss" cookie. For a logistics company they couldn't route a run to save their life. Some of the employees are ok to work with, most are out to climb the seniority ladder( if they're full time) so they will throw you under the bus if they can.
Not only is their fleet, not road worthy they expect you to drive whatever hunk of garbage they put you in, potentially endangering yourself, co worker and public. They get a pass on mechanical fitn
if you enjoy a "job" with Garda world :you should probably get your head checked. there are no pay increases when there are many, many,many task increases ... more you make: the more they take and no matter how many hours of overtime you accumulate: you get roughly the same pay as you would without the overtime...2% annual raise "is a joke". when I started at my placement location I was happy with the amount of workload for the rate of pay...but since then the workload turned into a gong show where everything just got dumped on the guards {with a 2% annual raise}.Our job is dangerous, we work alone, and if we get killed on the job then our family gets $20,000 to bury half of our body apparently. the union treats you like a number, the company mentions team that literally means "we say team but we mean a selected few are a team and everyone else are disposable people without a voice". so if you enjoy having a job where you look for another job on a regular basis, want to have work duties dumped on you over and over and over again without a pay increase or even a thank you , no Christmas bonus , no advancement at all , risk your life without danger pay , not look forward to any incentives that would keep you working here , get treated like an unwanted stepchild and have all your requests discarded , watch others get treated like spoiled brats and have everything they ask for handed to them while you get to do the work they are supposed to do that THEY get praises for :"then th
Union is basically on managements side, they won’t protect you if they don’t like you, lots of politics. Union members are working in the office doing management work with management, which makes no sense, that’s conflict of interest. Management does not fix anything, have fun on nights. Management is run by guys who don’t know a thing about effective business and business culture. Trucks have never been cleaned, always breaking down. People only complain about how bad their lives are. Pay is decent, not worth the problems. They expect work to be done in 5 hours on nights when your scheduled for 8 hours, makes no sense. Union won’t fix the runs and won’t do anything, unless it’s union steward runs, they will fix them, yeah lots of favouritism. Nights has the most issues, shop steward on nights won’t do anything for you, no point of even talking to him, might as well talk to a brick wall to get a response. Other so called senior members on nights won’t fight for their union members, but for management, hence why nothing gets fixed. Place needs classes on what a union is. They expect every run to be done under 6 hours, meaning speeding over 100km a night on residential streets, no breaks, doing the work carelessly, and working dangerously. Union workers are trying to get each other in trouble, how sad. Lots of issues with this location, very negative experience, best day was the day I left. There is some light with the election of the two brand new union members who are trying
Pros:
-Une fois que tes installés quelques parts en temps que permanent, tu peux y rester pour un boute surtout si tu aimes sa.
-Beaucoup de postes à combler
-Tu peux apprendre beaucoup sur le travail, surtout de tes coéquipiers.
-Beaucoup de possibilités de postes/ evenement, poincons répétitif, bodyguard, surveillance camera, superviseur, transport de valeur etc....
-Si tu veux une passe de cash comme on dit, quand t'es pas sur le syndicat lors des 3 premiers mois pis que tu fais du temps supp dans le tapis.
-Ton carnet de note est ton meilleur ami
Contre:
-C'est l'fun d'être dehors, mais pas pendant plusieurs heures durant une tempête humide, venteuse et froide en Janvier. Une chance que le manteau qui nous fournisse est chaud.
-Pas assez d'uniforme/équipement et de basse qualité. Quand que tu nettoies ton pantalon 3 fois pis que c'est déjà en train de perdre de sa couleur.
-Ton salaire va rester le même, même dans 10 ans, donc considère si c'est le salaire que tu veux pour la vie.
-Le Syndicat prend trop de % de notre paye selon moi.
-Ton permis prend du temps à arriver.
-J'ai été sur plusieurs contrats qui avaient des patrons qui réagissaient inadéquatement avec le personnel selon moi. (ex. cr-ié après quelqu'un, parler dans le dos, nous dire de faire de quoi pis ensuite revenir sur sa parole ou juste une attitude non professionnel)
-C'était essentiellement une job lourde mentalement, qui pouvait être fatiguante physiquement dû au fait que beaucoup de gens
So I worked at this job for just about a year and lets just say its a hurricane show. Lets start off with number one issue and its the biggest issue out there.
1) For an armored truck company that requires people to carry firearms, this location does not require any kind of weapons training of any kind. All you need is clear a background, drug test, and be 21. If you have weapons traing be prepared to work with people who have zero training and zero sense of security. There is mutiple red flags just being around some of these people. There is some that I worked with that if I got into a bad situation I felt better by taking that persons firearm and using it myself.
2) Mangement only cares how fast you get done. They only care how fast you get done. They don't care if you do it safely or correctly, if the day takes longer then so many hours, be prepared for a lashing.
3) Don't be a good employee here, you will be over worked, taking advantage of, and still let go by the end of the day. Pretty much the worse of an employee you are the better they will treasure you. I delt with 1 individual who drove the trucks, hit mutiple things with it and was still kept on. Just sit there and say yes sir or ma'am, hey will baby you like you are they're own child as well cover your butt no matter what.
4) Zero job safety, I was yelled at mutiple times because certain individuals were not watching their surroundings. When I brought it up to mangement they just surrged it off.
5) The pay and
ProsSome good co-workers and good customer stops you go to.
ConsEverything, just read my review if you haven't, at least the first 3 and you'll see what is the issue with it.
Easy Work, Bad Culture, OK to Bad Management, possibly kinda Racist
I worked in the command center for one of their accounts. We monitored multiple properties as well as the guards that worked at those properties. I also covered shifts for the guards on location so I was familiar with their whole business structure.
Like the title said, the guard job on location was the easiest job I've ever seen or heard of anywhere ever (and yet some people still messed it up all the time). The command center position required a bit more knowledge and skill, but once you learned the ropes it was pretty easy too.
The real killer for this company, however, was the office 'culture'. First it's a security position so everyone is either conservative, a bootlicker, a cop wannabe, or hyper religious for some reason. That in of itself wasn't really a surprise or particularly difficult to handle. Things went from okay to horrendous after it became GardaWorld (formerly Whelan). Suddenly almost every ordinary conversation topic became 'too political' or 'inappropriate' for work. It was like working with high school children who were obsessed with tattling on each other.
Then, to make matters worse, Management 100% plays favorites and the nepotism was very real. The only way to progress further in the company is to literally be a friend of someone higher up or to be related or associated with them in some way. The great supervisor I started under was replaced by an outside hire who happened to be an old employee and best friends with the manager (supervisor's boss)
ProsGood work life balance, ok break rooms, incredibly easy work
ConsBad Office Culture, OK to Bad Management, kinda racist
Firstly, I would like to point out that the following complaints are, I believe, largely no fault of the immediate branch management. I believe most of these issues are due to inadequate management at a company-wide and corporate level. I would like to make it very clear that my branch manager was great, and most of my coworkers were also good, hard-working people.
That being said, there are not a lot of positive things I can say about this job. The work itself was fine, you’re never at a standstill and you’re busy all day long. However; the ratio of workload to employees is unreasonable. My branch had taken on the workload of another branch to help out, but on top of our normal duties, it was absolutely unfair. You would almost never leave at your actual scheduled time, and because of this I was often unable to have a life outside of work. I have no issues working overtime if necessary, and if that is the expectation, but that was not the case. On top of that, our machines were falling apart and would often times just break completely, leaving us even more short staffed. How can you do your job without the tools? My manager had reached out to get us more/new machines, but to no avail. Additionally, our computer systems would often stop working. With all of this happening we were still expected to be on top of the massive workload.
I have respect for all of my coworkers, however there was a few instances where I encountered some rudeness and it was an overall negative envi
ProsLots of overtime and hours, good branch management
ConsFailing and obsolete equipment, understaffed, negative environment, underpaid, no work/life balance, stressful
When I first started last year it was horrible the first 3 hours HR started off saying just sign the papers I will explain to after keep in mind these are legal papers I'm going to read it then proceeded to try to rush me.
I didn't have a choice to come to this company it was pretty much you transfer or you don't have a job and with the economy I did what I had to just to find out they gave me decrease and didn't get inform of anything including my payday changes and all HR had to say was we look out for our staff and this was at Christmas so double payments had to take place cause of no notice. So when I needed help my site manager said just to call and she would come and help me so I needed help with reading my paystub or even explain it a year later nothing a few months ago I lost my login I sent a email and still haven't gotten anything.
I had 2 deaths in my family and I ended up in the hospital for almost a month with doctors notes and photos ever since then she has been rude to me and giving me attitude and yet she turns around and says don't give me attitude I don't want to fight with you and I have witnesses listening to her saying this and I am being calm. The day I had a check up she had a security guard her friend text me not to return to site and to go to head office so they can fire me after my doctor's appointment. The text didn't come from her but came from a security guard to me that is shady way of running a business and staff.
She will not return my
ProsGood Hours
ConsBesides Hours everything is Horrible
Questions and answers about GardaWorld
How often do you get a raise at GardaWorld?
Asked Nov 7, 2022
Jamais
Answered Mar 22, 2023
3 years
Answered Mar 21, 2023
What is the promotion process like at GardaWorld?
Asked Nov 8, 2022
Very less
Answered Mar 13, 2023
Nepotism
Answered Mar 8, 2023
What is a typical day like for you at GardaWorld?
Asked Nov 7, 2022
12 hours
Answered Mar 19, 2023
No communication. No support. Incompetent management. Zero training. Arrive on time, but leave late as relief never shows up on time. A day full of excuses.
Answered Mar 17, 2023
What should you wear to an interview at GardaWorld?
Asked Mar 27, 2017
Nice and clean business casual is sufficient. You want to look professional and serious.
Answered Jan 25, 2021
Dress neat and smart
Answered Aug 24, 2020
What is GardaWorld holiday leave policy? How much holiday leave do you get per year?
Asked Feb 2, 2021
3 semaines plus maladie et congés familiaux
Answered Mar 23, 2023
Seriously, they can't even get union seniority right. Don't confuse them by adding holiday leave to the mix.
