Pros
I had stable hours and a consistent roster once it was established, although this took around four months. The most rewarding part of the role was interacting with residents, which I genuinely enjoyed. There were also a few supportive coworkers, and overall the job can be suitable as a short-term or interim position.
Cons
A lot of the time we were severely understaffed with very limited resources at one point we only had two clean towels for 40 residents and still got the blame for that. The hourly rate was okay for what we did, but should have been slightly higher in my opinion. There was not much support from management for career growth. They expected too much too quickly and didn’t listen to newer staff, while older staff took shortcuts, yet newer staff were blamed for mistakes. There was also noticeable discrimination towards European staff compared to Filipino staff, who seemed to be favoured over others. At times, due to the hospital ward being full, we had situations where there were around 5 hospital-level care residents and 2 dementia-level care residents placed in the rest home, including residents requiring hoists, but no additional hoists or equipment were provided from the hospital unit, which added extra pressure and made the workload even more difficult to manage.