early childhood teacher

babysitter/nanny

lifeguard

customer experience associate

childcare provider

YMCA of Northern Alberta

I have worked in many positions throughout my experience at YNAB. I primarily worked in the Health Fitness and Aquatic centres and my role was focused on the child and youth programming /day camps and youth programming.

 There is a training process for onboarding new hires for day camps but that tends to be the only comprehensive  training  staff receive throughout their career. As you progress you can only go so far unless you are friends with management. There are so many senior positions that are shuffled around to keep the same people in high roles. Applying for advancing positions in near impossible unless you are going to “tow the rope”. Management are looking for yes man/woman and are not interested in current non profit  advancements. The agency is NOT trauma informed or compassionate to minority groups. Anyone who does not fit the mold tends to burnout quickly and turnover in positions is high. 

There always seems to be a re shuffle of internal staff instead of hiring external. The YMCA seems to be scared of change and does not listen to front line staff. Throughout my entire experience there I have reached out to management in multiple levels (even ceo and coo) and received little to no supportive responses. One can not advocate easily and it can become an uphill battle until they listen.

Staff have to always prove their worth to the agency and they are often over worked (sometimes even without pay) and the expectations are high for part time staff. Examples of this are unpaid programming time, staying late, arriving early and having time cards rounded up to the nearest 15 min instead of true clock in and out times. Sick time is often unsupported and staff are guilted into working while sick as it is hard to find other staff willing to cover shifts. Young staff are often vulnerable to being overworked and left feeling burned out as they are not used to other workplace standards and think this is the “norm”. Most time things are brushed off as “that’s just the Y way”.

The youth programming does not reflect current practices and there is hesitation to be inclusive for all. This is evident in the limited acknowledgment or training for cultural awareness, there is no land acknowledgement for centre locations and there are limited partnerships ( with the exception of Castle Downs who works with it the community hub). Youth are often demonized in the building by other members and safe spaces for all are limited as staff are not adequately trained in mental health, crisis management, youth programming and trauma informed practices.

When addressing concerns to management they dismiss concerns and take months to respond. There is a toxic environment when you start to “rock the boat”. 

I do not recommend working for the YMCA, there are other agencies that are more inclusive more reliable and compassionate to staff. They Y talks about their 5 core values always but it is rare to see these values used towards staff and only towards the member and the members and obtaining new members is the only priority. 

The y struggles with identity, they say non profit and charity to cover their butts for other work place standards and rules are bent because standards to employment are different when you work for a registered charity and this is not always transparent in the hiring process. - there is also an expectation that staff donate internally to their own charity now named the giving campaign.

You do get a “free membership” but you are often to exhausted from your working day that you don’t tend to use it, or you don’t want members that know you asking you questions. Even when you are at the facility on your own time working out etc you are still expected to help out and answer questions and support the facility while off duty. 

You do gain experience from this role but mainly in the sense of what not to find in a career and how to set clear boundaries with workplaces. Lots of learning from this experience and because many staff are in the same positions as you, you bond really well with them. Have met some of my favourite people as coworkers- but that’s because your in the thick of it together. 

Overall, I was with the YMCA of Northern Alberta for almost 8 years. My experiences there varied from satisfaction to distaste depending on the day, but erred more on the latter the further I progressed through the positional hierarchy. The organization in itself is terribly top heavy, having 9 regional VPs to oversee different "pillars" of activity. Precedence is maintained on keeping these higher positions happy, so lower level positions are compensated at a dismal scale - comparatively to similar positions with other agencies. There is little growth opportunities offered to staff and nepotistic hires made into the management teams. Personally I witnessed the grand daughter of a former CEO be selected for a supervisory role - compensated at the high end of the wage grid - perform repeatedly poorly in the role and continue employment until they decided they were through. This is just one example. I have seen friends of management be selected for employment opportunities and have positions created for them in the role of director. I have seen many frontline hires be selected on the basis of personal or familial connection. Often the hiring process is not based on merit, but rather who you know. 

In style of management, there is little independence. Your title may suggest you are a program lead - but you are undercut and interfered with by higher level management at every attempt to lead your team. When you question or state opinion you receive outward, often hostile feedback. When expressing support for client and community relations in a managers meeting, personally I experienced being cutdown in front of colleagues by my manager. Who rather than explore the issue presented, expressed wanton want for me to "get off my soapbox" and in the same breath communicated need to collaborate. This incongruency with agency values is systemic throughout the organization - and a sentiment shared by many mid level management throughout all department. 

In terms of work expectations - there were no clearly defined job roles. In fact in the eight years I was with the agency - it wasn't until my seventh year that I received a job role and expectations. Primarily, this was in response the budget reproductions, and the need to "find money". Basically, additional responsibilities continued to be layered onto the role after the onset of hire. As the duties and expectations increased, so did the imbalance of work and Homelife. With the inclusion of being on call and available 24/7 - rotationally every 3 weeks with no additional compensation - the workloads often required you to be working from home on your time off. 

On the positive -- some of the colleagues I met through the agency were the best people I've met in life. At our levels and within our scope of work duties we established an internal culture within our respectful teams that made the work bearable and worth coming in for.

I would not suggest to work for the YMCA of Northern Alberta unless you want first hand experience with outdated work philosophies, suppressant leadership and unachievable work expectations. 

There is a lot of reinventing of the wheel that goes on with their processes and procedures.  In the attempts to streamline and become more efficient over the years, they seem to create more problems than solve them. 

Even the position that I was originally hired for went through a number of changes in terms of job requirement.  There is a lot of expectations that you are asked to pick up, and rather than finding someone with those qualifications, they'd rather keep dumping those responsibilities on the person who voluntarily picks up those extra tasks.  There's not a lot in terms of negotiation of wage/salary for picking up responsibilities above and beyond your role; even though a number of us are told that doing so could lead to raises.

I only ever got my small raise through performance reviews every year or so.  It doesn't take much to be bumped up to the top of your pay grade.  And then you just stay there until there is some kind of change or mandate that forces them to pay you more.  The only way you really get paid more is to work more hours.  But then they don't want you working to the point where you could actually earn overtime pay.  At one point, I got paid time-and-a-half just for doing personal training on a stat holiday.  They stopped that real quickly and forbid any of us to do any services or programs on stat holidays.

It does seem that management finds way to stop you from making money.  When I first started, personal training was outsourced to a third party company, instead of having their own fitness staff do any personal training.  I guess it didn't fit the image of a "non-profit."  Even when it was to the point that they saw the benefits of offering personal training themselves, they were trying so hard to offer the service in a way that wouldn't actually make them any money.

Yet, management tries hard to justify paying us the little bit above minimum wage for my position.  Before the minimum wage increase just prior to COVID, a lot of my colleagues were earning a lot less than me.  Although it seemed great to be one of the highest earning employee in the organization, in the grand scheme of things, that really isn't something to brag about.   I could earn way more doing what I was trained and hired to do at any other place (and not be expected to take on task or responsibilities that aren't part of the job description).

Working at the YMCA of Northern Alberta can be a deeply meaningful experience, especially at the front-line level. Front-line leaders genuinely care about their teams and work hard to support them, often going above and beyond to create a positive environment for staff and families. However, the further up the leadership chain you go, the more disconnected things seem to get.

Senior leadership (General Managers and above) often seem hyper-focused on pleasing those above them, which leads to decisions that don’t always reflect the realities of the front-line work. They frequently acknowledge burnout among staff but then add to it by assigning more tasks or increasing expectations without proper support. Hard work is often rewarded with—you guessed it—more work. Raises are minimal at best (often a dry percentage adjustment) and haven’t kept up with inflation or cost-of-living increases in years.

Performance reviews feel like a checkbox exercise rather than a meaningful tool for development or recognition. There’s a constant effort to “improve” processes by reinventing the wheel, which has actually led to decreased job satisfaction over the past five years. Long-term employees who were once highly dedicated are now questioning their future with the organization—a sad reflection of how morale has declined.

To truly turn things around, senior management needs to reconnect with the day-to-day realities of their teams. Spending more time on the floor, genuinely listening to feedback, and appreciating the hard work of employees could make a big difference. They also need to focus on creating opportunities for a real work-life balance by setting reasonable workloads, offering fair turnaround times, and avoiding last-minute requests.

Despite these challenges, the YMCA of Northern Alberta is full of passionate people who care deeply about the mission. With some serious changes at the senior leadership level, it could become a place where employees feel truly valued and supported again.

A meaningful but increasingly difficult place to work. It has potential, but systemic changes are needed to rebuild morale and retain talent.

The management at the ymca are quite terrible at helping new hires actually learn how to do their jobs. I was hired in a supervisor role which is also a management/leadership role within the Y, and given absolutely zero training for the job. I was not given even an outline of my job description or outline of my objectives within the role. The management was highly unorganized, unprofessional, and had no willingness to help anyone within the company. There had never been any professional development or proper training done with the staff ever,  and I was continually asked to hold up expectations and ensure higher performance from my staff team, without the ability to provide them with the training to do so. I was also assured many times that adequate training for my position would be provided very soon for me, yet I worked over a month with the organization with zero proper training, or even just a detailed explanation of what duties I needed to perform within my role. 

During a shift, I was left as the only leadership staff within the building, and dealt with a difficult and escalating situation during Teen Night. After that shift I reached out to my GM asking when I would receive the proper YMCA training for situations like that one in the future, but was never given a response. I was then abruptly asked to leave my role. after I had reached out to my GM to inquire about when I would receive my proper training, I had been assured I would receive, I was fired with no reason given, and told, “it’s just not a good fit”. 

Typical day involves helping out customers with rent payments and account inquiries. Security of the building is of upmost importance as workers keep a watch on who comes in and out of the building. This is aided through locked doors and a sign in/out system. I learned to develop my patience through customer service and come to learn that that customer is always right. The goal is to increase customer satisfaction and create a positive experience for any individual. The workplace environment is very diverse which I enjoyed. Discovering and learning new things was one of the many perks this job came with. The hardest part of the job was dealing with crisis situations in which composure played a big part in effectively dealing with such cases. You could be having a great day and in a couple of seconds your mood is thrown to the ground when a individual decides to verbally insult you even to the extent where threats would happen. However this was a part of the learning experience at the job and dealing with this became easier over time. Interacting everyday with customers and the Y team was the most enjoyable part. Everyone had something to offer whether that be humor or excitement and left you wanting to come back even when you had those dark moments on the job.

What is the best part of working at the company?
Building relationships with families and watching them evolve.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Lack or leadership, while micromanagement of irrelevant tasks, duplication of work, zero collaboration with employees. Highly political.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Political, no cohesiveness, training is you figuring out everything on your own, no collaboration.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Home Visit, casenotes on terrible free software, teams meetings and teams calls constantly, coding, marketing, accounting, spreadsheets to fill out all of the above which can be calculated on free software above, new paper sheets to fill out all the time in digital world, no clear leadership or direction, check in on app and via message.  So. Much. Duplication. Triangulation, flex time MUST be taken the day of, or day after. And must fill out paper form each time. Way too much and makes you lose enjoyment of the job.

-greet customers and clients
-answer all telephone calls and answer any questions
complete all membership paperwork; whether it be signing up a new member; cancelling a client's membership, or other client requests
-providing facility tours to all new clients and introducing staff members
-accepting payments for various services
-daily bank reconciliations of tills
-locking up the facility at the end of my shift
- learning the full day to day operations of the YMCA
-following the policies and procedures of the YMCA
-working as a team member with all employees that I interact with
-I have awesome co-workers, we are all on the same level and respect and compliment each other
-there is no hard part to this job; a lot of multi-tasking, and sometimes during the busy times customers have to wait to have their customers concerns dealt with
- I love interacting with the staff and the customers; as there is quite a diverse group of people who you get to know and listen to their stories and life experiences

I worked in membership sales and service. The job itself wasn't very fun or interesting, you just answer phone calls, and help basically everyone that comes  in and lines up. You work at the front desk and can get literally any question from how membership at YMCA works to things like can you open up the storage in the gym. There is no real training program in place, they just get you to shadow someone for a few shifts before throwing you on your own using CLASS.
The supervisors and the managers that you work with are really understanding. They do schedules for 4 months but if you need a vacation or time off for exams they can work around that. If it's not too busy and most of your work is done, sometimes I could sneak in some homework here and there.
There is a high employee turn over rate  but you meet some the best people there, they really help made bad days bearable. It is however, feel a bit like high school with different people forming different friend group, but overall it is a good place to work at.

My whole day was spent with the kids - crafting, building, playing sports, teaching games, having conversations and reaching out to parents as needed. I took care of their nutritional needs, made sure they got to class, talked through anything that was on their minds and did my best to make sure each child in my care felt like they were cared for and appreciated. I learned that I prefer relational management techniques and hard conversations in person. I worked very hard to make sure all staff under my supervision felt heard and supported. The workplace culture was friendly, enthusiastic and playful. The hardest part was the long days and the exhaustion of being at work 12-14 hours a day five days a week but only getting paid for 8. The most enjoyable part was the relationships built with the kids and getting to experience their journeys with them as they grew and developed and learned.

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Early childhood teacher 3 salaries reported	$16.83 per hour
Babysitter/nanny 7 salaries reported	$32,370 per year
Lifeguard 14 salaries reported	$17.93 per hour
Customer experience associate 15 salaries reported	$15.75 per hour
Childcare provider 4 salaries reported	$45,370 per year

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