Year Up United reviews

The new management in the Crystal City office have taken the positive experiences of working at Year Up away from the staff. The adage "come for the mission, leave for the management" rings inescapably true. The staff is not respected, the Executive Director treats the office like a personal fiefdom, and has ruined the experience of most of the staff. There has been significant turnover and the espirit de corps is completely missing as everyone is tripping over themselves to leave. It is assumed now that the students are no longer first priority, but rather the bottom line, and if you fall on out of the executive director's good graces, for whatever arbitrary reason, your tenure is going to be miserable. There have been innumerable conversations worthy of lawsuits behind closed doors that further demean staff members and make them fearful of their jobs or abilities to progress within the organization. The executive director came into the site and without bothering to learn the culture commandeered the office and made arbitrary changes without regard for the staff who served the longest. It was clear how people felt when the longest-tenured staff began to make their exit plans quickly and unhesitatingly. We often refer to it as the "Guy show" as no matter the context, the executive director felt that the office catered to her whim and fancy, often commandeering rooms and entire functions regardless of context, often speaking without the grounding in the core values that staff members and students hold so dear, changing direction without bothering to gather any input, again regardless of the institutional knowledge surrounding her. It became clear if you were not on the Senior Leadership Team, your input was not only not valued, but not wanted at all. If it was heard, it was summarily disregarded. It continues to be disheartening to hear how unhappy everyone is and dejected they are to walk into the office every day. It used to be a magical place to work, now it is a belittling experience that has pushed the best people out or as close to the door as possible and unfortunately, seems to be accepted as part of the natural process of change management. National leadership does not seem to take heed that the people most immersed in the culture and selfless about their work are the ones leaving in droves. For the people for whom it is a mission and calling, not a job, it is now intolerable to walk through the doors.

I was fired from Year Up recently for speaking out against how the recent layoffs were done. A total of 140 people were laid off. They had meetings with HR and were told not to say anything. These folks were immediately cut off from email and Slack and were not allowed to say goodbye to their coworkers or student coachees. I called this out and experienced retaliation. When I was fired, I had already given a two week notice. HR did not give me an official reason for being fired. I had no records of underperformance.