24 Nov 2019
Toronto Public Library Reviews
4.4
94% would recommend to a friend
Ron Carinci
91% approve of CEO
88% positive business outlook
Toronto Public Library has an employee rating of 4.4 out of 5 stars, based on 223 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an excellent working experience there. The Toronto Public Library employee rating is 21% above average for employers within the Government and public administration industry (3.6 stars).
Reviews by job title
223 reviews
5.0
3 Jun 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook
Pros
- no experience needed - once you're a Page, you can apply for full-time positions that pay a living wage with just a high school degree - paid domestic violence leave, which saved me when I had to escape my abusers - wage tiers - for most positions your wage goes up each year even at entry level, due to strong union negotiations - pension plan for part-timers - I've been working for over 3 years part-time and qualified for the pension plan a few months ago! - flexible HR - when I got a new position while on leave to do an internship at a different employer, HR moved the start date so that I could start after I finished the internship - strong accommodation system - supervisors will accommodate as much as they can (disabilities, student school schedules, emergencies, etc.) The norm here is to accommodate instead of fire an employee - strong job security - as a public sector job and one where the duty to accommodate is taken seriously - strong work/life boundaries - starting on time and leaving when your shift ends is strongly reinforced. No one wants to work overtime here. No checking work emails outside of work. No taking work home. - paid training - when Pages are trained to do Public Service Assistant (PSA) work, they are paid the PSA wage which is about $15 higher. This also applies to any job duty a Page does that is for a different position - mandatory and optional training - about anti-racism, Indigenous Peoples, disability accommodation, how to help homeless people, how to help Ukrainian refugees, etc. This employer takes diversity seriously.
Cons
- you can't apply online, only in person, to each branch you want to work at because they don't share applications with other branches - Pages (entry level) cannot work full time - there are some "bad branches" - library branches where the work culture is not the best, including cruel colleagues and supervisors, and branch heads with unrealistic workload expectations especially if they've never been a Page - lack of transparency regarding how to move up within the library. Lots of job opportunities but Pages usually only find out about them if they're posted on the internal job board, where they close about a week later. However the library is working on better transparency. - a physical job where you are on your feet for almost the whole shift, pushing, lifting, squatting, kneeling, etc. - it's customer service, where customers sometimes yell at Pages and expect them to explain Library problems that are not a Page's responsibility to solve
2.0
26 Feb 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook
Pros
- Lots of in house training so professional development is easily available to you - If you have a good branch head then you will probably have a great time there, each branch is like it's own little island so your experience totally depends upon where you end up in the system - If you are starting out in the field or just coming out of library school then I would totally recommend that you apply here. It is a bit of a trial by fire and you learn a hell of a lot very quickly. Within a year you will either say yes this is where I want to be or no this is not the place for me but at least I got some decent experience on my resume.
Cons
- If you have a bad branch head then you will probably have a horrible time there, each branch is like it's own little island so your experience totally depends upon where you end up in the system - The system is so massive now that the right hand no longer knows what the left is doing and things can get disorganized quickly. - The number of aggressive patrons is increasing which leaves you feeling vulnerable a lot of the time. It is also rare to meet a female member of staff who has not had to deal with male patrons asking inappropriate questions or becoming sexually aggressive at some point. - Chronic understaffing throughout the system means that you are almost permanently on desk which leaves you unable to do many essential tasks. It also means that whenever you go to take vacation or even call in sick you feel guilty for the added stress this will bring to your colleagues. The hiring process, especially for internal jobs, seems to take an extremely long time and leaves staff even more short staffed for longer which lowers morale in the branches. - There is a strange mix of boredom and stress, I found I really had to push to get involved in any projects just so that I had something to do other than man the desk. However when things start happening it's a total flip and you suddenly don't have enough hours in the day. Then suddenly your project ends and you go back to the boredom. There's no middle ground between these two states.
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