Canada West Veterinary Specialists Job security & advancement reviews

It is listed as the responsibility of assistants to train new assistants because the turn over is extremely high. Still new people will be training slightly newer people before probation is even over. There is virtually no support from your supervisor and problems don’t get addressed. Burnout is very high, the pay is not worth the stress. It is cliquey and management picks favourites, you will not advance in your career if HR does not like you personally. This job can ruin your mental health and then they will blame you for it.

Pros

meaningful work with animals in need

Cons

management, Hr, burnout, poor staff retention

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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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Insights into Canada West Veterinary Specialists

Based on 10 survey responses

Areas for improvement

Inclusive work environment
Support from manager
Ability to meet personal goals

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.