Kaiser Permanente Reviews

Current Employee – been working at Kaiser Permanente full-time for more than a year

Pros – Fair benefits--although they bundle sick and vacation which is not a great offering, Also they have a fair amount of outside of work discounts like gym memberships. Desk ergonomic options are great and available--so take advantage and seating is often very crowded. Values are fantastic but.....BIG but they don't translate. THRIVE is wonderful but its an ideal customer they seek rather than a culture they foster. The Thrive patient is healthy and is independently managing their health--which is great because getting more than 15 min in front of a gatekeeper Dr. is as easy to manifest as an act of God. Nice matching in 401K and retirement but you have to be there 5 years and very few people--stay the course except the ones well over 12 years in--seems they have resigned themselves.

Cons – Very politically run company. All parts work separately from HQ because of the politics and as such-- very disparate. Management is not transparent at all. They will work you to death. Do not allow or acknowledge partner family death as time for grieving nor for taking time to attend services. Pay is extremely low-end and they will do everything they can not to negotiate with you.

Advice to Senior Management – Transparency! Practice what you preach and if you are going to work your employees to death then separate sick and vacation days. 401k vesting at 2 years as few stay for all 5.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Kaiser Permanente full-time

Pros – Not working here or applying for their insurance

Cons – Everyone who works in management is deceptive, malicious and does everything they are told no matter what it does to the patient/employee.

Advice to Senior Management – Actually do what is right and don't become a robot

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Kaiser Permanente full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Some areas have work life balance, other areas expect long hours. Kaiser has been laying off employees but the work grows. Hence long hours for many remaining employees.

Cons – Political, favoritism, management is more concerned with managing up than managing and growing their employees. Hard to move up unless you excel in politics.
This is not the place to work if you believe that being smart, adding value and doing the right thing will help you move up in the organization. Marginal employees are constantly promoted because they are political, not because they improve the company or are good leaders.

Advice to Senior Management – Take a look at your leaders and clean house. Some VPs should have been let go years ago. Lack of ethics and integrity

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Kaiser Permanente full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Great staff, highly qualified, very experienced, best in the area. Good vacation & education benefits.

Cons – Staff is overworked, understaffed. Retirement package is considerably lacking (translation... do you like cat food and crackers). Staff who retire from this health care organization do not get a break in the cost of health insurance.

Advice to Senior Management – Decisions should not be made by management not familiar with mental health services. Management has utilized the least resources while expecting the maximum from it's mental health staff. The per member per month cost for the mental health dept. is one of the lowest in the country.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Kaiser Permanente

Pros – The boss doesn't micromanage too much; the people I worked with were nice to work with; There are some good workers here...

Cons – VERY dysfunctional department; extremely busy department to the point that the morale is EXTREMELY low--some people in permanent positions do not get along--there were NO holiday festivities at all due to this--it was all about WORK, WORK WORK!!!!!!; the UNION and/or Manager evidently is allowing several employees to totally take advantage of the system, i.e., meaning there are a couple of people who don't come in to work 2-3 times per week and they get away with it!!! It really makes contract workers upset because they want a permanent job and think they deserve it because they work VERY hard and show up every day, and then there's no real chance to get to work there permanently (not sure I would want to anyway!!)

Advice to Senior Management – The main manager barely speaks to you most of the time, even in passing through the halls! It wasn't just me either. They could be nice and humorous in meetings--never had bad words or feelings with her. When I first was working there as a contractor, and just asked a "basic" question about being able to get in the building over the weekend, she was VERY condescending. To top things off, our temporary agency told us that there might be a slight chance our contracts might be extended after the end of 2012--no promises. Do you know how I found out my contract was not going to be extended? A week or so before Christmas in a Staff meeting, it was announced that two of the other contractor's contracts would be extended, but then the Manager looks across at me and says she was sorry but they could not extend everyone's contract due to money issues.!!! Even my agency was not informed of this!!! I have worked for over 25 years in some major companies over the years in much higher positions, and have not EVER been treated this disrespectful! Why not just tell me in "privacy" first that they cannot keep you on? Guess that's how they show their appreciation for people who come to work every day for 5 months, work all day without hardly any breaks, and don't complain!!!

Former Employee – worked at Kaiser Permanente full-time for less than a year

Pros – Pay, benefits and some of your co-workers will have a professional helpful attitude while you are learning your job. Most of my co-workers were helpful when I asked.

Cons – The department where I was assigned had poor internal customer service by front line managerial staff in reference to their employees (their external customer service to patients was usually excellent). A couple practiced passive-aggressive career sabotage and false accusations to cause several employees to quit or be fired.

Advice to Senior Management – Dealing with sick patients is a fluid situation that requires focus from every front line employee. They must have their minds clear to consider their vast medical knowledge and how to safely help the patient. Because the distraction of workplace bullying compromises patient care and employee health, eventually no one will want to work in the department.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Kaiser Permanente for more than a year

Pros – WAGES, Union will bat for you (only after 90 days)

Cons – poor training and on-boarding, sink-or-swim, not organized, will work you 9 or 10 days straight and balance it so you don't get o/t pay, every weekend and holiday as an on-call w/o so much as asking you before etching the schedule in stone, encourage employees to work double shifts that cause mistakes in pt care & testing, strict 3day/6mo sick days (they have sick emp's working with pts?), ,, sr employees are lazy, old out dated unsafe technique/skills, no dress code=facial piercings,exposed gang type tattoos and dirty t shirts/sweat pants; scary for patients, no certifications or formal training required, heartless or rushed butchers trying to draw morning labs up to 30 pts in less than 2 hrs make their Sunnyside lab a horrific place to work. It will get worse as they downsize to make room for new west hospital.

Advice to Senior Management – Thrive motto and Labor & Management Partnership is a facade! Hire and keep employees with compassion, work ethics and current certified skills. Give your members what they deserve

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Kaiser Permanente part-time for more than a year

Pros – Organized mostly, nice pay scale and benefits.

Cons – Don't always listen to RNs as to what their needs are, Ex: staffing. They consistently staff as few nurses as possible, and we have been stuck quite a few times trying to figure out how we were going to handle the patient load.,

Advice to Senior Management – Would be helpful to listen to us more, spend bit more time here so that you can see the flow of the unit and how we handle what we're given staff wise for our current patient load.

Current Employee – been working at Kaiser Permanente full-time for more than a year

Pros – Good Benefiits and there is a union. There are some very good people that work here

Cons – IT is controllled by H1Bs. Prepare to be bullied and harrassed as a training strategy. An extraordinary hostile work environment has been created in the tech area. Innovation is not appreciated or encouraged.

Advice to Senior Management – Remote management of sites is not effective. Managers give away power and are dependent on consultants who know everything about the systems they dont.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Kaiser Permanente part-time for more than 8 years

Pros – Opportunities to "make a difference" working to advance public health research, most of which is funded by NIH (National Institutes of Health) and other government grants and private foundations.

Cons – Research Associates and Assistants work very hard to make the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research successful by doing the day to day tasks required to keep mostly NIH funded public health research projects going strong. Without these workers' contributions, no data would be collected, analyzed, reported, or published in medical journals. The vast majority of these workers are not represented by Labor Unions and are paid low salaries.

Many of these research projects are high profile studies that receive attention from the media and other groups within the organization. Upper management - both within the department and outside the department - likes to tout these high profile projects as great successes - feathers in their caps - achievements like no others in public heath research. This year a lavish party was thrown to celebrate fifty years of achievement in public health research and no expenses were spared. Simultaneously, thirty lower level workers were handed sixty day layoff notices without any severance pay or rehiring support, despite years of loyal service and excellent performance reviews.

Upper management has created a class divide between the six figure salaries paid to administrative employees and the hard-working underpaid Research Assistants and Associates. Several administrative level employees in supervisory roles are incompetent, lack basic management skills, and have disdain for lower level workers. Bullying and defamation from people in positions of power toward lower paid workers are common experiences that have been occurring for years. Power-hungry narcissists are allowed to continue inappropriate behavior without any consequences or correction from the top.

Advice to Senior Management – It is time to clean house. It is imperative that leadership within the Division of Research establish clear management policies and procedures and enforce them. The organization is suffering from low morale and very weak leadership.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company