At USHG, you'll hear a lot about culture. After my brief stint at Manhatta, I feel some obligation to warn. There are some bright, shining stars on the staff. Unfortunately, this was overshadowed by toxic elements — in my experience, being talked down to and relentlessly talked about behind your back, including by trainer(s). That's not unusual and could be chalked up to fit. What's more alarming is what came next.
When I confided to a colleague about negative experiences in training, management later brought it to me as a complaint that I had been "talking behind my trainer's back." The "culture of feedback" felt weaponized against me. Senior leadership pulled me for this chat mere hours after a conversation with HR when, meeting for an unrelated matter, I admitted my discomfort in training. I would say they were circling the wagons.
From leadership, there was no glimmer of acknowledgement or interest in my perspective, even when I became visibly upset. Despite the party line about feedback, mine did not seem welcome or even heard. When I shared my experience, he did not respond at all, and shifted immediately back to a cool barrage of minor complaints about me, all of them boiling down to, "things we heard you said." The message was clear.
At the door as I left for the last time, the same leader added, seemingly out of nowhere, to reach out with any lingering thoughts. I was shocked to hear this. I told him that I didn't mean this badly, but I hadn't had the impression he cared about my thoughts — did he care about my thoughts? It was an earnest question, and he did not answer. I was really hoping he would, that I was mistaken — that it wasn't just another empty line.
As it is, I left with the impression that what USHG says about themselves and what they do is starkly different. When they say "we care for each other first," they don't mean everyone, and they might not mean you.
