Riverside Careers and Employment

Throughout my time with Riverside it was a bit of a mixed bag. On one hand 95% of the staff I had the pleasure of working with really helped getting through the more difficult days at work where tensions were high and workload was heavy. Unfortunately the 5% of staff who made the job unnecessarily difficult and confrontational really did bring it down. I did have a decent relationship with my manager but what felt like a lack of acknowledgement about concerns regarding specific members of staff conducting poor practice, laziness, negligence and downright intolerable behaviour (speaking about service users in a derogatory manner) certainly did not go unnoticed by myself, fellow staff who wanted to do well and service users alike.The support and training I received could be compared to being given a recipe without quantity of ingredients. It was very much "Here's a book of generic SOP's and procedures. Have fun." and then left to fend for myself. Luckily I was surrounded by many lovely colleagues who were able to support and assist with queries but realistically they had enough to do already and should not be doing training on top of this. In my opinion this is a failure on Riverside and their on-boarding process.On the topic of on-boarding it took an unfathomably long time to get going from interview to start date. From memory it was about a month and a half. I have worked overseas in France and had a quicker start date with a DBS involvement so really this is unacceptable in this modern day and age.I started as a part time employee and got told in my interview about all the wonderful opportunities for progression and development. As I came to the end of my time with Riverside I was still yet to see any potential of that being told that I essentially had to wait for somebody else to quit before I could progress further. Transparency during on-boarding and interview process would go a long way.You will spend a lot of time feeling helpless to the constant issues cropping up with the building/s. Guiness as a Landlord would often deflect claims of repairs implying that residents were responsible for repairs. The few times they sent out contractors was either incredibly successful or totally redundant. A contractor would turn up to look at a broken fire exit, explain they weren't the right person for the job, leave, then cancel the job meaning yet another report would need to be raised.The most frustrating thing for myself is that for the support workers and staff working in the scheme you feel like you are essentially canon fodder. I recall having to argue with head office why PPE was essential during a global pandemic and that the equipment they had provided us with was not up to standard all whilst seeing lovely posts on the organisations version of social media of them all in their offices with decent PPE.To improve this organisation and to dispel the insanely high turnover a few changes are needed urgently.- Put money into the services and not into CEO's pockets.- Offer ACTUAL support for staff members and service users.- Be more transparent from the get go.- If certain staff receive multiple complaints from fellow staff and service users alike, pay attention and deal with it accordingly.- Divide the workload in a more balanced and fair way.- Give your staff a reason to be proud to work for you rather than embarrassed.To end on some positives, as stated earlier the majority of staff were wonderful and made the more quiet moments of downtime much more pleasant. It was a very good foot in the door for myself to look for future roles with different organisations and taught me a lot whether intentionally or not. I learnt a lot from the service users themselves and helped shaped my current work styles as a support worker now. 2/5

Talent Acquisition Specialist in Liverpool, Merseyside

on 11 January 2021

Great place to work

I enjoy working at Riverside. Appropriately Challenging and lots of opportunity for learning, development and progression. The people I work with and speak to on a daily basis work hard and really care about what Riverside do. The leadership team are very approachable, care about employees wellbeing and have really demonstrated this during the pandemic. Groups for LGTBQ+, BAME staff and Disabilities and mental health are brilliant too.

Housing Support Worker in Wakefield, West Yorkshire

on 13 July 2020

worst place I have ever worked but in Wakefield the management were terrible. There was no safety for staff. Unreasonable amount of paper work.

Never again stay well clear All about paper work and not about the clients Management level were terrible non approachable let bullying go on no wonder they have such a high turn over of staff

Retirement Living Support Worker in East London, Greater London

on 14 April 2020

Work place

My experience was good in the beginning, until they kept on changing Managers. By the time i left there, I have had four Managers. I found myself doing more than other people, who worked. I II had

Housing Support Worker in Liverpool

on 19 March 2020

Power crazy mangement

A lot of lone working unable to give the tie and support to the young people when they needed it. Conditions in the hostel were extremely awful .over run with cockroaches and young people having to cook while they were invading cooking areas and living and sleeping areas.whole building over run .

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