I too was an employee of CORA. CORA made many promises of training, mentoring, and job placement that NEVER happened. CORA also advised they had 100's, sometimes 1,000's of jobs for us and that NEVER happened. Training was a joke! You can't switch people from one job to the next on a daily basis and expect them to excel. I moved my way through the ranks; Assistant Team Leader, Team Leader, Project Manager, Administrative Assistant, ect. I was privy, first-hand to the disgusting, often abusive treatment that IMS and upper management would subject it's employees to on a daily basis. I became more and more disillusioned as the treatment and expectations grew worse. I expressed my concerns to management, team leaders, and in written form. Then May began and the delay of checks and if you were lucky enough to receive one several weeks later... It would bounce. No apologies have EVER been made to any employees. At first IMS would blame employees saying they filled time cards out incorrectly and that was the reason checks were delayed. Then she blamed it problems with the time card company. Then she stopped direct deposit and said checks would be mailed. I new this meant they could blame it on the mail system (which they did many times, "We cannot control the mail.") Then she blamed it on vendors saying THEY were the ones sending them "bad" checks. Then it was again the employees fault for complaining to their VR counselors about not getting paid and that the states were withholding payments.
IMS would threaten employees with termination if they went to VR counselors with concerns. HELLO! We followed chain-of-command... Expressed concerns in written form on Employee Board, we expressed concerns with team leaders, managers, management... Guess what? It is our right to go to our VR counselors at that point! IMS and CORA NEVER addressed our concerns sufficiently. After waiting for NSF reimbursement and several checks, talking with VR counselor, Senator, ect., I gave my notice and was advised that the situation would be investigated.
You know what is truly sad? I believed in CORA and what they promised. I trusted CORA and IMS to fulfill what she had promised to her employees and their VR counselors. I do know that you can't run a business by threatening, degrading, and humilating your employees. I do know that positive encouragement goes further than negative criticism on a consistent basis. I do know that you must keep new employees in a position longer than a day or week or even month if you expect them to do a good job. I do know that before you get a new client that you should make damn sure you have trained those employees appropriately before throwing them into a position that welcomes failure. You can't train a person in 20minutes to do a good job. Lastly, you must PAY your employees on time as promised! You cannot expect employees not to be upset working for free, while you verbally abuse them and talk badly about others. That's just BAD management. We are now in September and I know for a fact that furloughed employees are owed up to 5 or more weeks of pay and are still waiting. Why do I know this? Because we form bonds with each other and develop friendships outside of work and unlike CORA, we mentor and support each other in a crisis.
I hope that CORA gets their act together and takes this critism and if they are to survive in the business world assisting disabled individuals, please take some classes on the appropriate to manage and critic your employees without being verbally abusive.
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