At the Saint Paul, MN branch:
- From conversations I've had, most technicians are feeling either burnt out, overwhelmed, or bored. This low morale paired with low pay (as of early 2026, a single adult with 0 children in MN requires at least $23.31/hr to have a liveable wage without public or private assistance according to the Living Wage Institute) leads to feeling that the company does not have its employees' best interests in mind, and results in high tech turnover rates. This makes for a better part-time-while-in-school job than a full-time postgrad job to live off of.
- Differing metrics for feedback from the two interior supervisors (both of whom train new hires) leads to confusion and can create a darned-if-you-do-darned-if-you-don't feeling, especially for a new hire.
- Unfortunate response within branch to McCaren employees participating in early 2026 Minnesota general strikes. Poor response from corporate as well: lack of "hey, just checking in, are you guys (our highest performing branch) okay over there with everything that's going on right in your neighborhood?" message despite Botanical having enough Latino employees across their branches to warrant every corporate Teams message being sent a second time in Spanish. This, of course, won't be important to everyone, but it definitely impacted morale for myself and some other techs and office employees.
- With the high turnover rate, new techs often take on the problems that past techs left behind, exacerbating stress and the time to burnout.
- Air of passive-aggression with some management.
- Most upper employees at the Saint Paul branch are overworked, setting that same precedent for the techs. The commonly-spoken motto at the office is that "they're just plants," (and to not stress too hard about them) but that isn't really held up in practice.
- Supervisors admit that there isn't time to do all the necessary maintenance to keep the plants healthy in one sitting, which can exacerbate problems given that each account is visited just once a week.
- Unfortunate health, dental, and vision benefits. I have given "Compensations and Benefits" more than one star because it is possible to start at over $20/hr.
