This will be a wrong move - Anonymous employee Samaritans Employee Review

1.0
23 May 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

You meet some good colleagues.

Cons

They are moving towards a more in-person culture, which means people joining now have much less flexibility than those who joined before and that the talent pool is by default reduced significantly. Senior leadership don't trust nor believe staff when these say they are stretched and at capacity. There is a lot of tokenism around wellbeing, with wellbeing officers and mindfulness sessions being promoted as the fix. Working overtime is normalised, and done systematically across roles and teams, however senior leadership do not want to staff to say this is the case because it would reflect badly on them. There is a lot of time and energy spent on blaming staff for being stretched and stressed (eg they cannot prioritise well enough, or their managers cannot direct them well enough) which adds to low morale. There is no appreciation for the time that is required to support, coach and lead teams and managerial responsibilities are treated as a taken from granted and never accounted for in the work. There is no cultural diversity and the organisation is very White British. This impacts anything from what is seen as professional, desirable, and acceptable.

Explore other reviews about Samaritans

5.0
15 Jan 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Have a lot of chance accumulate experience with mental illness population

Cons

It's volunteer, so no payment.

1
1.0
31 Dec 2023
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Feel like you are helping someone sometimes

Cons

The training is straight-up abusive, with everyone being told that they are wrong all the time and then the instructor will correct them but her correction is not any different from what they said. Instead of sharing examples for how to effectively ask questions, they constantly criticize volunteers for framing questions slightly incorrectly. The attendance policy is discriminatory. I missed the last training session because I had the flu with a fever over 101 and a doctor's note from urgent care, they didn't care and kicked me out of the entire program. Volunteers are required to tolerate sex calls for several minutes before they are allowed to hang up. Repeat abusers will hang up when males pick up the phone, call back until they get a young female volunteer and proceed at them for free 100% confidentially. This also blocks the lines for legitimate callers who may need someone to talk to about their mental health. The entire system is incredibly archaic, with everything still being handled with paper, no data analysis, and no way to effectively block repeat abusive callers with technology even though this technology clearly exists today. They are not interested in protecting their volunteers because they know they can just recruit new ones. Volunteers are required to cover a 9-hour night shift every month with no exceptions. Cell phones not allowed for the entirety of your shift regardless of whether you are on the phone or not.

3
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