Canada West Veterinary Specialists Employee Reviews

Unfriendly staff, management doesn’t care about problems going on, hierarchy between techs and assistants, assistants are basically kennel attendants and cannot do most of the things taught at school, pay is not enough for how we are treated and you cannot even afford to live when working 40+ Hours a week

Pros

Free lunches sometimes and cute animals

Cons

Pay, staff, Hr, 30 min break on 10.5hr shift

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Awful Everything

Technician (Former Employee) - Burnaby, BC - 29 March 2022

Working here is like being back in high school, it is an extremely toxic work environment you will have people talk about you behind your back while trying to work in a full icu for 10 hours, There is a high turnover rate because management does not care to keep the staff they have and sees everyone has replaceable. It is a great place if you want to learn however how much you get to learn depends on how much people like you. Their is no one supervising on a day to day basis so lets just say some staff work harder then others.

Pros

Working with the patients

Cons

everything else

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Insights into Canada West Veterinary Specialists

Based on 2 survey responses

What people like

Overall satisfaction
Clear sense of purpose
Energizing work tasks

Areas for improvement

Fair pay for job
General feeling of work happiness
Inclusive work environment

Short term for most staff

Technician (Former Employee) - Vancouver, BC - 31 August 2021

The hospital, veterinarians and technicians are amazing people. The issue is leadership and HR. There is an extreme lack of professionalism and experience. The general manager operates more as a CEO and is very hands-off day to day. The day-to-day is left to a very inexperienced team. The hospital would operate better if there is a specific trained manager in place.There is a huge turnover of Staff which puts a burden on everybody else in the hospital with a constant revolving door. The hospital should be offering more than two weeks vacation and three sick days per year. This is just not acceptable this day and age. The hospital should put more effort into retaining staff than recruitment.

Pros

Training

Cons

Long hours, poor benefits

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Great Place to learn and grow

Patient Care Assistant (Current Employee) - Vancouver, BC - 26 May 2020

If you are seeking a future in the Veterinary Industry Canada West is a great place to work. Everyday is a new learning opportunity and the company really supports growth with their Veterinary Technician Junior program. Everyone I worked with is friendly and supportive.

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Very stressful

Veterinary Technician (Former Employee) - Vancouver, BC - 23 January 2020

Canwest is an incredible place. everyone are very compassionate and they do their best. Unfortunately, it’s a very competitive environment, and you don’t receive a feedback properly from your supervisor on time.

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Misleading management and obvious favouritism

Veterinary Technician ICU/ERCC (Former Employee) - Vancouver, BC - 19 September 2019

I worked at CanWest for just over a year as a technician. During that time, I saw multiple technicians and assistants come and go, and at first I wasn't sure why. When hired, management draws this incredible picture of a happy work environment, great wages, a 4 day on 3 day off week and rotating schedules, which none is true. To start - Scheduling. You can be rotating from overnights (9pm-7am) to evenings (7pm-5am) and they claim you have not worked 6 months of overnights. They'll also rotate you "weekends" from Thur-Sun to Sat-Wed and claim that as rotating weekends. Evening/ Overnight and Weekend staffs do not get to attend many of the CE offered since it's always during their night and during the week, which was a huge issue for me since I was trying to grow my career. Every technician hired will go through this, and based on how much the scheduler likes you, you could potentially get a change in shift, but it's highly unlikely. Evenings and overnights are equipped with 1 (maybe 2) doctors to take care of the whole hospital, which means most of the staff are doing mass amounts of overtime and called in on their days off to help with the work load. The care lacks on overnights because there simply isn't enough staffing. Hope to work during the day or in a service (or request it early on) or you will be massively overworked. Pay is adequate. If you look at all the overtime you will do and the "premiums" you receive by working at night, you make slightly more than any other vet tech in Vancouver. Your lifestyle will however suffer and you won't necessarily advance -

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HR doesn't care about your life outside of work, will work you raw

PCA (Former Employee) - Vancouver, BC - 30 May 2019

I worked there for over a year and I have to say it was just awful. Most of the staff are very nice but management only cares about meeting their financial goals. They care very little about individual mental and physical health. The hospital itself is very very clique. Every department is tight knit and they don't communicate between departments well. They pay is awful and it's very difficult to make enough to support yourself alone. The hours are very long and they leave you no choice but to accept the shifts they offer. I was hired to work a Monday to Friday set shift; needless to say it didn't happen that way. They changed the shift times a month after they hired me and I either had to accept it or quit. The amount of effort and work I put into the company did not feel equal to what I was being asked to do, and what I was being paid for. Very little individual recognition or room for career growth.

Pros

Occasionally free lunches

Cons

Long hours, rude management, disorganized work environment, low pay

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Hard to have mantain a life balence

Patient Care Assistant (Former Employee) - Vancouver, BC - 2 May 2019

-4 days on, 3 days off is nice -irregular hours -good people -lunch and supper are sometimes provided which is nice. -Caring staff -room to move up

Pros

educational

Cons

open 24 hours, low pay

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Amazing experience

Veterinary Assistant/Receptionist (Former Employee) - Burnaby, BC - 18 May 2018

My time with Canada west was short but insane! I got to be a part of so many ground breaking treatment options and talented, knowledgeable vets that really do care deeply about their patients and clients

Pros

All the cute animals

Cons

Long shifts

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Amazing medicine, terriable work/life balance/work culture

Veterinary Technician (Former Employee) - Vancouver, BC - 29 October 2017

There are a lots of little things that come up that HR doesn't tell you about. Very different work environment from day (when services are on & full staffed) to night/evening. Support staff are not nearly well paid enough for the sweat, blood and tears they are putting in.