resident care specialist

wellness coordinator

cook

director of care

registered practical nurse

Symphony Senior Living

Symphony has potential, but the toxic micromanagement style of leadership and lack of support for professional development completely overshadow any positive aspects.

The micromanagement leadership style was absolutely suffocating. The owner hovered over every little task, talks down to you, offering vague or contradictory feedback, and is very demoralizing. Instead of empowering employees, the focus was on control, making it impossible to do meaningful work or feel trusted in your role. Hard work will always be unappreciated, and favouritism was blatant.

The structure of the organization is lacking. The upper leadership team wasn’t aligned or didn’t understand the reality of the day-to-day challenges we were facing. This further contributed to a lack of direction and left employees feeling unsupported.

I genuinely tried to make the most of my time here, but the combination of micromanagement, lack of development, favouritism, and absentee leadership made it nearly impossible to thrive. Not to mention you are expected to change your whole life at the drop of a dime for the company who in turns doesn't show appreciation for you. If you’re looking for a place to grow, feel valued, or work in a fair environment, I would strongly recommend looking elsewhere.

If you are considering a management role at Symphony Senior Living – think very carefully. This organization has a consistent pattern of hiring strong, capable individuals, overloading them without proper support, and then terminating them without cause once they’ve cleaned up the mess — often during probation. This allows them to cycle through leadership roles while offering lower salaries to the next hire. It’s a damaging practice that hurts not just staff, but residents as well.

During my time there, I witnessed alarming levels of staff turnover, chronic understaffing, and senior leaders more focused on optics than outcomes. Many good people were pushed out after burning out — not due to performance, but because they demanded accountability or worked too hard to fix a failing system. I was one of them.

Do your research, talk to former employees if you can, and read between the lines of any job offer that sounds too good to be true. For your mental health and professional integrity, I urge you to proceed with caution.

What is the best part of working at the company?
There is really no bonus. Overworked, underpaid.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Everything. You are expected to be everywhere and everyone all at once with no support. Management gets incredibly angry when you cannot do a thousand things at once, especially if it is dangerous, extraneous, or outside of your job description. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Toxic. You are expected to be doing everyone's job, including things that may be outside of your scope of practice or outside the realm of your capabilities, without any support from management. The staff is overworked and underappreciated.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Residents screaming for help, being disregarded as a human being, being told to be everywhere at once when you're one person. I was rarely doing work at the desk as was listed in my job description.

Things may have changed, but you will be doing housekeeping, laundry, serving and ensuring all residents are taken care of and gotten to and from the dining room for meals. All in a 6 hour shift. They can't keep staff because of this. Management does not listen to the needs of their staff and suggestions on how to make things better to keep their staff. And the staff is VERY overextended. That being said, it's not a bad place to work, but be prepared to work hard as it's really long term care and not a retirement home. But the residents are all friendly, and there is a cat and a dog to keep you company;)

Theres one manager who is driving the great workers out by being nothing less then a bully. It could be a really great place to work expecially in the lockdown unit but high turn over rate in Moments make is so stressful expecially when that manager is down your back in a negative way. I felt like I was worthless, I had an interesting experience but with a few changes I would of stayed. here is union so you'll never be secure knowing you'll get bumped out every month and it's about 16.30 per hour. Management was amazing except for the 1. Your definitely over worked but I enjoy the day going fast. Free lunch on Friday's.

I loved performing for/with the residents at Symphony! I worked there as part of a co-op placement through my high school. Everyday I would make my rounds talking to the resident's that I quickly learned by name. I performed twice a week and the other days I would do odd jobs and pretty much anything just to help out around the building. I love the homey atmosphere I got from the residents, and I'd have to say they were my favourite part of the job!

I left the organization because of serious concerns regarding the safety of residents and staff on the dementia unit. 

I thoroughly enjoyed working with my residents, their families, and the staff. It was a difficult decision to leave, but I could not support this company in good conscience. 

Because of this experience, when my mother was taken ill, I flatly refused to place her in a retirement home and managed to keep her at home with supports as long as possible. 

I caution people to extensively research when considering retirement homes for their loved ones.

Although managment tries to be agreeable and supportive, they are working for the owner and just want their peice of the pie. 100% money driven, and that doesn't mean for staff. Poor training, poor atmosphere, untrained staff and managment. Fake smiles. Fake hugs. Fake compassion. Residents with "matter" under nails, or can't fit shoes over uncut toenails. Stay away. If you have compassion for seniors, this place will swallow you whole and bring you to your knees. 

A typical day at work is answering the very busy phone line, interacting with the residents and performing all Administrative details required.
 I learned about the love and support you get from your co-workers and residents. What it is like to work in a family enviroment..
 I loved all my co-workers and still to this day have long standing relationships with them.
Losing a resident.
I loved every aspect of this job.

-A typical day at work would imply doing some filing, sort out mail, answer incoming calls and direct them to the right staff member, organize activities and create Word, Excel, Powerpoint documents

- I learned how to work under pressure and in stressfull situations

- Great management team

- Most enjoyable part of my job would be the constant interactions with the residents

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Resident care specialist 1 salary reported	$20.88 per hour
Wellness coordinator 2 salaries reported	$61,250 per year
Cook 2 salaries reported	$17.62 per hour
Director of care 5 salaries reported	$66,000 per year
Registered practical nurse 4 salaries reported	$26.09 per hour

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