Lots of lip service and hypocrisy at the top
Pros
My particular team comprises genuinely friendly and enjoyable people, our immediate leadership is very family-oriented, we have regular work from home days, there is a good amount of money allotted for career skills education and training, and of course—free snacks in the kitchen. However, I know from colleagues in other locations this is not the norm across the organization.
Cons
The company claims to be a progressive leader in wellness, espousing the importance of whole well-being (“physical, social, emotional, and financial”; “body, mind and spirit”). However they are a health insurer that offers only their worst, highest-deductible health plans to their own employees. I have a $10K deductible for myself and my daughter. Mental health services, chiropractic services, acupuncture, all of my prenatal appointments (I just received my second ultrasound bill for $1K) are considered non-essential and are therefore not covered until I meet my deductible (as yet unclear whether they’d be covered even then). Every single colleague I have met whose partner is fully employed with medical coverage has chosen to be on his/her partner’s insurance. Not Aetna’s. Aetna claims to score exceptionally well on gender equity throughout the organization, yet offer ZERO paid maternity leave to their employees—forget about paternity leave. They also don’t have a single HR resource to support or advocate for women navigating the very confusing and complicated process of applying for disability (6 weeks at 60% pay) and federal FMLA leave (12 weeks of job-protected unpaid leave during which you are considered an inactive employee and will be paying 100% of your health care premiums). I actually have yet to meet any HR rep within the company who advocates for the employees. Period. Furthermore, they employ a forced distribution curve for annual performance ratings, a practice which only demoralizes and demotivates high-performing employees and encourages mediocre, just-enough performance from everyone. If busting your butt, repeatedly going well above and beyond, and producing top-tier work that’s applauded by executive leadership only gets you a 3 rating (i.e. average, “meets expectations” performance; a 2 rating requires you be placed on a performance improvement plan which can lead to termination) then what are you trying so hard for? I have personally experienced (and heard about from other managers) a high incidence of low-performers within the organization—hugely costly. I also know via my peers that it is incredibly difficult to fire someone. 99% of the time those low-performers just get moved around to different departments. And then, of course, you have very high turnover for top talent. Not the best recipe for transforming the healthcare space. And... the merger with CVS has only made everything even less favorable for our employees. Our benefits are starting to be stripped away—for example, no one even uses the awards and recognition program anymore either because they’re no longer allowed to (only managers can give points now) or because the points are relatively worthless (1/5 the value we used to get pre-merger). I am confident this will only worsen once all benefits are completely integrated in January 2020. There is currently no upward mobility—countless promises of promotions, raises, and even just full-time status that have never been delivered. Our team is replete with contingent/contract employees who are 1-2 years later still waiting for full time status promised to them shortly after hire. As a manager, things are especially difficult because there is very little benefit I can offer my direct reports (no promotions, nearly nothing raises, only paltry, meaningless bonuses). Its also virtually impossible to hire—even to backfill for employees going out on leave and those who leave us permanently!!—because we are almost never given an open requisition and often have them taken away when employees leave us. These operational practices are damaging to your culture and ultimately unsustainable.
