hmmmm - Event Coordinator Tracy Aviary Employee Review

Great organization to work for in every way, committed to conservation. Walks the talk.

I have nothing negative to say.

There are so many good, kind, and thoughtful people working here who are passionate about their jobs, the communities the Aviary serves, and the animals and landscapes they care for. I can honestly say that my work was incredibly meaningful and my managers in the Education Department were the best bosses I’ve ever had and were phenomenal mentors. They constantly advocated for my work, my mental and emotional well being, and my pay (I started at $14.00 an hour [$29,120] and ended at $45,968 [salary]). Additionally, your coworkers are going to be some of the most beautiful and supportive people you've ever met.

I cannot in good faith recommend that anyone work for Tracy Aviary. It is not a place that systemically values its employees and your passions and hard work will be exploited. The turnover rate is 22% for a reason, and they laid me off because I was too expensive of an employee (for context for my pay, I have a Master degree in education and 8 years of teaching experience). You will not make a living wage at this institution if you are under a manager position (and the Aviary does believe in the nonprofit practice of "promoting" people to manager positions without manager pay) and there are no real plans on fixing that because the Aviary has operated at a loss for the past 2 years and is projected to do so in the future. Even employees who were hired on at 30 hours a week are getting hours cut because the Aviary simply does not have the funds to support them. I want to call out the systemic toxic work environment I believe stems from the highest level of management. I hope you don't brush this off as the voice of a disgruntled employee since I was let go, but I have witnessed four years of abuse from this the most senior management. the CEO does not respect his employees' skills or view them as people, viewing them instead as interchangeable cogs in a machine. He has told staff to their faces that they do not bring anything new in value if they stay longer than three years. Which is definitely the reason and not because three years is when you are vested in retirement. He does not want to raise wages because that’s too expensive, which certainly is an interesting opinion for someone whose compensation is easily Googable as the CEO of a nonprofit to have. On the topic of compensation, you will not receive additional money if you speak Spanish, but you will be expected to be a free translation service for the Aviary on top of your normal job duties. You have the cheapest insurance possible. They offer 9 holidays, and if you do not use them within 90 days, you will not receive that holiday or compensation for having worked that holiday. You cannot cash out your PTO or your sick leave. And rather than putting off his bonuses for a few years or providing a plan to address employee feedback on the pay, management decided it would be a great idea to curry favor among staff with the unbudgeted for “Aviarian Ovation Award” which costs around $300 - $500 per employee (and three or so are given out at a time) and have no clear criteria for selection other than the CEO likes them. To be clear, every employee who received this award deserves their prize and recognition because they are good people who give their all, but it’s such a wild thing to do when the aviary is constantly saying they need to balance their budget. In addition to the compensation being bad, I have watched senior management berate female employees to tears and seen them harass women and people of color from leadership positions. The preferred victim is whoever is in charge of "activating" the Nature Center, as they believe there's some magic reason the Nature Center isn't making money other than the place isn't finished building yet and construction costs are way more than they thought. Any effort to warn new staff about these problems is brushed off as malicious gossip. This is actually my second Indeed review of the Aviary (I almost left a few years ago before my director managed to get my salary to a competitive level with other nonprofit coordinators in SLC). My previous review was a lot more vague about the abuses I witnessed, but instead of talking to me about my concerns or making any meaningful change, the CEO “strongly recommended” that I remove my review by telling my director to tell me he wanted it taken down because it was simply “unfair” to the Aviary.