consultant

planner

infrastructure manager

benefit specialist

administrator

BGRS

Firstly, my whole training was via Teams (microsoft) call. We were all social distanced from my new collegues (which I found pretty dumb to have a class via skype call, ESPECIALLY with how lengthy, not precised at all, quick, our training was, for the amount of things we should know). The Relocation Directive is the longest most confusing thing ive ever seen. We read through it for about 2 weeks and it was still extremely gray and hard to grasp. I would get migraines everyday at work AND while at home. Management says to ask questions as many time as you want but seem so annoyed to help you. The Directive is not clear AT ALL a lot of case by case issues so we obsviously have to ask management for help. They do not provide us with clear answers. We did go over training things that we would be using like the systems for email, members files etc. Almost every case I have dealing with a member I have to ask management for help, as Im not sure where to find correct information. When doing it with a manager or a TL, they show you places that they never even taught you in training. And they expect you to know this!! The tone and breathing  A LOT of TLs do make them seem soo annoyed and bothered to help us. Not to mention theyre extremely understaffed which is not our problem. I genuielly feel like I dont get the help I need and deserve and my coworkers feel the same (as I asked them). Their covid rules are obsured and some of my coworkers (including me) have felt victimized by management. To continue on covid rules, we have arrows on the floor that we have to follow like a prison, this includes doors to enter and leave. If you dont respect the doors, paths, trust me you'll be hearing about it.... To go in the kitchen they placed tables in the kitchen leading a sort of maze in order to wait if the kitchen has more than 3 people inside. Ive been told by a TL when there was only that specific TL and I in the kitchen to go ALL THE WAY around the L/U shaped tables to get to the water to fill my bottle. The limit is 3 people in the kitchen which is of a pretty decent size. As soon as we stand up from our desks we need to put our masks. Im not kidding. TLs told us, the minute you stand, even if your feet havent moved, youre standing, you need to put ur mask on even if your mouth isnt open. But... when TL's go to each others desks, they remove their masks to talk... Keep in mind this is a open concept room (cubicals style). Also, were not aloud our phones at our desks due to a "security breach" as they like to say. It cannot be seen, not even charged. I have seen , many many many times, TLs using their phones, phones RIGHT underneath their computers screen, phones charging on their desks, and even just chilling there while working. But God forbid if we had our phones out.... I also noticed twice, that during meetings, they do not wear masks. Some meeting rooms have stained glass windows so you can see through. No masks and theyre about 4,5 or even 6 people in a small room. To add, all my coworkers and I cannot even have lunch together or even hang out together on breaks. We cant even sit at one desk away from theirs (to social distance). If we wanna eat together they told us go outside (its winter and covid so we all know theres no where to eat inside). The only place were aloud to use our phones is all the way down the main entrance, where everyone comes in, which in my opinion is verg stupid as everyone passes through there... Dont they want to limit germs? We have to sit on cold tile floors to make phone calls, emails or whatever if you need to use your phone. Also, the receptionist is always on her phone when were always told no phones on the 1st and 2nd floor no matter where you sre as this is a security breach. All in all, ALOT of hypocrites. Also, this is for my BIPOC people. There is racism here. I have seen a lot of passive aggressiveness and racism here. White workers get better quality of help, support and they favoritize alot of them. BIPOC get dismissed answers, as you can tell TL's arent caring or dont really want to help them. Its those type of places that only pretty much hire BIPOC people to look like its "diverse" workplace, but preceeds to hire a lot of black employees during training, but a lot of white employees have missed SOO many days and no call no shows and etc and still work here. The only positives: my coworkers (not tls, not management, just my coworkers), monday to friday, paid vacation. Id also like to mention that my coworkers mentionned to me that before we got hired and that the pandemic hit pretty hard, the people working at BGRS would get paid way better than we do now. Which I find not fair at all, we are working during a pandemic and considered essential, the salary should be the same if not more. Please really consider before working here. 

I’ve heard people say that the work they do sucks but the people they work with are awesome. 

BGRS is the opposite. 

The work is great but the people are horrible. 

Management has created a environment where it is every man for themselves.  They don’t encourage teamwork and lack skilled leaders. They don’t pay well enough to keep people so the turnover is really high. They churn through people so fast that whole departments turn over in six months.  

The environment is very “us vs them”, with each department feeling superior to all the other ones, causing mistrust and a distinct lack of respect all the way up to leadership levels including managers. There is no concept of working together with one purpose - departments actively work against each other. 

They are always hiring because of the turnover, and make bizarre hiring decisions - especially when hiring or promoting team leaders.  They can’t attract quality talent for any role. They have different expectations for unilingual vs bilingual candidates so the quality of their bilingual hires is significantly lower and management tends to be more lenient towards them. Bikingual hires need to be able to work in French every day, and there is no bilingual bonus or higher pay for bilingual agents.  In fact, not all agents start at the same rate of pay, even if they are doing the exact same job.  This leads to more mistrust and disrespect between agents assigned to the same role/department/team. 

Do not expect a respectful workplace.  Agents don’t respect each other or the team leads. Team leads don’t respect agents or other team leaders, and it goes all the way up to managers who don’t respect anyone. 

They are big on diversity and inclusion - which is great and sincere - but beyond the basic human rights which should always be respected, it’s a free-for-all. Knowledge, experience, skills, positive attitude, enthusiasm for the job, ambition, goals, job performance - none of these are respected by anyone. They will still talk down to you, be condescending and passive aggressive - when not being outwardly aggressive - and they expect you to fail, without any kind of acknowledgement when you excel instead.

The work itself is great.  You can genuinely impact people’s lives. You can feel good about the work you are doing. There is a lot of training and it takes a while to find your rhythm, but when you do, the work is rewarding. I loved the work. 

But the ”clients” you deal with day to day can also be difficult. They have deep rooted feelings of hatred and mistrust of BGRS and for good reason. Some enter into every conversation aggressively or already angry.  They have a lack of understanding of your role and will often be frustrated with you for things you have no control over.  And there are some very difficult clients. They will yell, make demands instead of requests, order you to do things, insult you and - if you let it - they will be abusive. It’s a small percentage of the people you deal with, and having a positive attitude and being able to communicate your genuine desire to help while still insisting on being treated respectfully and professionally will work in 99% of the cases when dealing with a difficult client - but expect at least one minor difficult client a day, one major difficult client a week and one unacceptable client (that must be escalated to a team leader) every three weeks or so. They happen and they can be emotionally draining.  It is hard to go to work knowing you (as a company) are not trusted and actually and actively hated by your clients. 

In short - any job with BGRS will erode your mental health no matter how strong you are. It’s inevitable.  

I have been working at the Ottawa BGRS location for awhile now. I can't even believe I am writing this review to tell people about how it really is... Prior to COVID-19 the work environment was decent at the best of times, there was occasional laugher, people smiling, with some chit-chat here and there with workplace colleagues in the lunch rooms, and at our desks. 

After COVID-19 we were the first office to re-open... There is no laughter, this is no happiness here, I'm not even exaggerating this at all. People hate their jobs here, upper management is so power hungery- get this, they aren't even in the office... You still have to receive lousy skype messages/ emails that you aren't doing your work when you've already completed your entire daily tasks checklist for the day. They also hate that you ask questions to your neighbour, talking over the partitions (FYI its an open-concept work room), hate that you use skype (your only method of communication), we have arrows to go to our desks, we can't stand up at our desks, we have to sanitize before doing anything, and we cannot turn around, leave or enter without our masks... This place is literally a prision, your ridiculously small starting (and ending) salary here in Claims, GI, or Planning Session is not even worth the amount of absolute trash you have to put up that is your team leaders and/or managers. 

I don't encourage anyone to take a position here, unless you are using this to get into the government. Otherwise, it's a waste of time and space. There is no place for advancement, they almost NEVER hire internally to people who deserve to move up, they higher people who don't know anything about CAF members/ military moves and immediately put them in positions of power here- seen it happen so many times. Your managers or team leaders will likely know less than someone working here 1-2 years (handful of people).

Also, I cannot believe how poorly they interpret the Relocation Directive to which CAF members are reimbursed from... So many members are completely screwed over for their moves and entitlements due to BGRS, so many families suffer and go into recovery with this program, because of how Upper management runs this place. SO MANY AGENTS (not even upper magement) know better ways to make this place run at 10x its current capacity- mangement doesn't care/ doesn't listen to us here. I swear this place just pretends their programs suck so they can milk more money from the CAF.

Consider not taking a job here, unless you want to put up with the mistreatment that is BGRS- retention is very low... They hire 15-20 people at once, 1-5 people out of 20 stays within a 1 year period- 85%+ leave within the first year. Hours go by like days here, the only decent thing is the beneits and paid vacation days.

If you're a Claims Processor, you have to learn not only the math portion, but also the GI portion. Only 18 an hour, which is very low considering all the work you have to do. 

You have to read and understand 14 chapter policy of benefits the people from the military get. Now, if you have ADHD, or trouble retaining information this will bite you. I only learned later it is much easier to highlight information and write notes. But if you're inexperienced with financial stuff (renting, leasing, etc) it will be really difficult. 

The company does not let you take home practice GI questions (with answers) or additional questions. The geography portion can also be confusing as well as the HHT/DIT trips. Anyways, overall, the people there were amazing and super supportive, but the fact we couldn't take home any of the lessons so we can better understand at home then ask questions the next day of training is absurd. Mind you, you use microsoft word to answer the scenerio questions, we can easily mail it to ourselves and look over at home. Should be pretty simple, like a preference, but its forbidden. 

Calculating how many days was also really confusing and never really got the jist of it, however I was usually put on the spot and wished I had more time to understand these things. 

Anyways, this was all in Spring 2022. 

So, if you're applying, just be wary of what you're putting urself into. 

Management very unhappy people. It shows when you work with them. They are Fake and they show this as well. When majority of people write how horrible they are in every way ITS TRUE guys. The job in itself is stressful and not rewarding either. I am trying to be positive here but I am also have to honest as well. I was hoping that my department collegees would be happy but everyone looked miserable because management made you like this it is sad. Training was short and god forbid if you ask questions. They say they want you to ask questions but, they do not. It is a lie. I learned that I do not deserve to be treated this way, that is why I have decided to write a review on BGRS. People need to know. I have a better paying and great job now so I am not bitter. I just think that I would want to know about a company and how they treat there employees.  Overall I give this company half a star. 

This is by far the worst place I have ever worked. Toxic work environment, poor leadership, and the most incompetent upper management I have ever seen. The high turnover rate says it all. You will not be treated like a person, you are disposable. Upper management will not even acknowledge your existence. The benefits are not good. If you absolutely have to take a job here, work on your exit strategy the day you get here and get out as fast as you can. It is appalling that the government continues to renew the contract with these idiots. I feel terrible for the CAF members who experience first hand the consequences of what a horrible organization this is as they constantly get screwed around.

I can’t stress enough how incompetent the management is. The job itself would be much better if they provided the support they claim they will during training. They are never around to help answer questions and will make a meal out of silly things instead of focusing on their actual job which is to provide support to the agents. You are on your own and when they give you false information they don’t get accountability. If you have to work here people think of a quick exit strategy. Everyone seems so unhappy including the very same management. They expect you to do multiple things at the same time and don’t check in to see if you are coping.

I worked for BGRS for a bit over a year. It is okay if you want a stable 8-4 job however management is horrible. They only care about their number targets and even when you hit those specific targets there is no recognition or reward. Some of the colleagues are good (if you find your people) however others will backstab you just to make themselves look better to management. I ultimately left because of micromanagement and toxicity. There is also a very high turn over rate. It is rare to find someone working there for 1+ years that’s not management. 

it pays okay and you probably won't get treated like a human being until a year or so into the position. there is a strong divide between the way new hires and other workers are treated. the work itself is relatively easy and repetitive however the management makes it hard to grow and improve. they expect you to hit a certain number even if its impossible and wont even help you hit that number. all the managers have a few screws loose and micromanage you like their life depends on it. i cannot stress how incompetenet the management is. stay away tbh 

Surprising your employees and corporate clients that you sold off clients to a competitor is burning bridges in the relocation industry. BGRS caused the layoffs  of their employees in 2017 by selling off a portion of their client portfolio to focus on profitable clients.

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Consultant 4 salaries reported	$46,625 per year
Planner 1 salary reported	$18.64 per hour
Infrastructure manager 1 salary reported	$125,000 per year
Benefit specialist 1 salary reported	$65,000 per year
Administrator 1 salary reported	$31,000 per year

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