Pros
The animals of the Portland Metro area are lucky to have the Oregon Humane Society. The organization accomplishes great things, keeping the animals of our area safe and healthy, and finding homes for tens of thousands of homeless pets. They offer much needed services to residents who would otherwise not be able to access them.
Cons
I don't want this review to sound like the bitter rant of a disgruntled former employee. I'm happy to have worked at OHS. They do good things for animals. But this review is about how they treat their employees. Therefore... Management receive no training in how to manage employees, even if they have no prior experience. This results in managers who don’t know how to manage without their personal feelings ruling their decisions. Managers’ personal friends will enjoy benefits not experienced by other employees. The organization sets ambitious goals, and the mandate from the top is that goals are to be achieved at all costs. Achieving those goals provides valuable publicity, and therefore increases donations. One example: in order to reach a yearly adoption goal, adoptions applications are almost never denied. Staff don't have the freedom to deny an adoption that they believe is harmful to the animal, because that would hurt the adoption numbers. I personally saw many staff forced to complete adoptions that were obviously not in the best interest of the animal. The work environment at the Oregon Humane Society is extremely toxic, and this toxic culture originates at the very top. The management of OHS view lower level staff as disposable and replaceable, and turnover is very high. There is no attempt at improving the work environment for employees, or to address employee concerns. If employees bring concerns about the work environment to HR or management, they are then viewed as a troublemaker, and often experience retaliation. Retaliation often takes the form of a system of subtle or overt harassment in an apparent attempt to drive the employee to quit. I witnessed this personally on several occasions, and experienced it personally. A few additional things I witnessed personally while employed there: • Negotiating with employees who management want to resign, and using "we won't contest your application for unemployment benefits" as a bargaining tool • Firing an employee without cause, and writing a policy after the firing that they can then say the employee violated in order to create cause and deny unemployment (unsuccessfully) These issues are pervasive throughout the organization, and are not particular to one manager or department.