I worked for Video Monitoring Systems of America, VMS for a period of four years.in my work experience I have never worked for a company that totally disregarded it's own policies, reviews, raise increases and drug policy like this company did. I do not recommend this company to anyone who wishes to build a career or asks for the same respect that they bring to the workplace and company.
When I first started working there the company seemed fine. It wasn't long before Corporate America set in. The top CEOs of the company were let go. Within a year most of the department heads and upper management were no longer there. They were either fired or had left the company.
The company manual clearly indicated that after every year the employee performance reviews were to be completed. However, during a "preported company slow down" the reviews and wage increases were skipped entirely. The company indicated that it would do these later in the year. It didn't happen. Remember, this is a 365 days a year operation which meant some of us actually volunteered to work on Christmas, New Years Day and other holidays.
When Video Monitoring Systems of America made an economic upswing later in the year, the company used resources to try to buy other smaller companies instead of providing the wage increases promised and mandated in it's own policy manual. This happened repeatedly.
With employee morale so low it was no surprise that VMS had a yearly turnover rate of greater than 30% of it's workforce. A new operations manager was brought in to fix the problems. He didn't last seven months, he quit. No wonder. The problem with this company was from "The top down."
Additional employees were then hired to try to "bridge the gap" in turnover. So many employees were needed because of losses that VMS eventually turned over the hiring of new employees to a temporary agency, Pride Staff. Pride Staff still does the hiring to this day.
Eventually, the promised reviews and wage increases were implimented two years after the fact. The raise? Beween. 06 and. 25 an hour.
Drug usage now was also quite high despite the company official policy on these things. It wasn't uncommon to see employees smoking dope in the parking lot in their cars. The bloodshot eyes of some employees was hard to miss. No problem though, as I have first hand knowledge that a fellow employee supplied some acid and other drugs to the operations manager. Great.
Most of the original real hires from VMS were long gone. Every department head was gone. Some were fired and some were laid off. Good luck getting unemployment with this company also, since they will try every trick in the book to avoid paying it. Not that hard in a state like Kentucky. Especially since the Kentucky unemployment board has a unique interest in not paying claims. When you provide unemployment evidence in a hearing, the board will conveniently lose it, dismiss it or forget it.
Fortunately, I left for another job. Everything here is 100% accurate. I either witnessed it myself or got the information from close co-workers.
Stay away from Video Monitoring Systems of America. Even if they have cleaned up some of these issues (doubtful), you will be wasting your time working for them. I wish I could take back the years I spent working for them. Even if one person reads this and stays away it's worth the time writing. With VMS, when you move up you move out.
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