Pros
Good for someone who wants stable pay but doesn't care about promotion and job quality. Good for the group of people who like to become managers and supervisors for power and status purposes with no qualifications
Cons
DPSS is very unorganized and inefficient starting from HR. Job is offered in a very rude manner as "do you want it or not?" style. Eligibility Worker II salary start is $48K a year gross. Eligibility worker II minimum requirement is bachelors degree for new employees, but for existing county employees degree is not required to apply for the same position!!!! NO contract detail is disclosed at the time of job offering or at the time of orientation. Job application fails to disclose important information such as new employees will be offered the worst schedule available and outside employment is limited to max 24 hrs per week. Outside employment is not accommodated by DPSS and if there is conflict of hours employee is not accomodated and has to quite the second job and is expected to survive with $48k a year gross. Another amazing missing part is that the above mentioned detailes are note disclosed even during orientation. DPSS completely disregards the right of applicants to be aware of those information before quiting their jobs and accepting the offer. Those few who complaint they are often remined that it was " part of the 60-70 pages that was given to employee" which was in a very unorganized manner. Even the language in contract is not clear and diseptive as it suggests hours "might change" and not "will change." A big gap. New employees at the district offices are assigned to 9am-6pm hours and at the call centers to 10am-7pm shifts. while those hours might work for a small group, but employees opinion are never taken into consideration whether they are happy with those hours or not. NO HR hotline for employees to use to report an urgent matter. NO available HR representative assigned to each office for employees to approach in times of need. Eligibility Worker II in call centers are on clock meaning they are being timed the entire time even when using bathroom. Gate keepers monitor customer service employees during their 8 hour shift. Customer service employees are warned if a customer is put on hold for more than five minutes. Customer service employees ready time is expected to be at least 70%. Telework is not being offered easily at all and if the ready time drops the employee will be assigned back to work from office. County has parking shortage issues for employees. Employees are not being treated fairly, nicely, and are not accommodated at all. Vacation request/time off is based on seniority. Senior is defined as an employee who has been with the county 20+ years. County claims employees are allocated certain amount to purchase insurance but the insurance plans are horrible and are nothing but a scam. Benefits are bare minimum. PPO is offered at the rate of $4000 per month, HMO is $960 per month, and Kaiser is $760 per month for single person. Rates for You +1 are: Kaiser $1,521, HMO $1,840, and PPO $8,180. Rates for You + 2 or more are: Kaiser $1,770, HMO $2,130, and PPO $9,480. Here is how much allotment each category receives, Single: $1,037 per month, You +1 1,892 per month, and You +2 and more $2,236 per month. Dental insurance is a sperate pay per person. Majority of employees enroll in Kaiser because it is the cheapest plan otherwise they have to pay out of pocket. DPSS plans are provided only by Kaiser and United HealthCare. NO third party to create competition and rate fairness. As a result United Health care issues rates as it pleases. Administration consist of undertrained, unprofessional, and inefficient managers. No tests are taken/required to take for deputy and supervisor positions. Also those positions do not require education level either. Job evaluation is nonexistent... Employees with good and bad performance all receive the same raise. Job promotion is through connection and not actual capabilities. Example: an employee who has been suspended before becomes a deputy and a manager who was removed from its previous office due to employees dissatisfaction will be appointed as a new director in an other department without any trainings or lay offs. Deputies like to showcase their status and power in the workplace. Even pregnant employee's hours are not being accommodated. Customer service employees are not allowed to end the verbally abusive calls unless the caller hangs up. At the call centers an employee will be warned if they sign in five minutes later than the start time. Training is bare minimum and employees are either thrown on calls or on accepting visits in person. District office employees are not being timed, not being monitored, or even questioned. Restrooms are filthy. In some offices employees are warned to keep their food and belongings locked. District offices in downtown areas are in horrible conditions. Call center employees are remined several times that the are just numbers and are not respected. Retirement plans: employees hired in the recent years are part of plan G. meaning 9.10% is deducted from each paycheck for retirement. spouse are not included in the retirement plan. Plan G offers full retirement after 30 years of service and Medicare is offered after 25 years WITH premium being deducted from retirement. Eligibility worker II position in call centers are referred to as the black whole because it is very difficult to receive promotion for other departments. Supervisor position incentives are not very encouraging + the position comes with a lot of responsibilities. DPSS has a high turnover rate which makes one wonder.... There is no such thing as work/life/balanace in DPSS.