Aetna Reviews

Pros

the people are reat to work wiht. the environment is very relaxed

Cons

no room for advancement for that location unless you are willing to relocate to another state

Advice to Senior Management

n/a

Pros

Flexible hours in my dept
Good co-workers
Some opportunities to learn new skills, etc

Cons

Manager obviously had favorite people - he only talked to me & my co-workers if he needed something done or we didn't do something correctly or quickly enough.
Management style was to throw people into new situations (with no direction) to see how they would handle it - he thought everyone should be able to figure things out without any help.
Also many at the management level lack actual people skills.
Never showed any appreciation for job well done - only pointed out flaws and provided "constructive criticism".

Advice to Senior Management

Sometimes hiring right out of college is not the best thing to do. Also, some actual management training for those promoted from within the ranks would be useful. Recognize and reward your employees when things go right - don't just point out all the negative.

Pros

steady employment,good working hours and benefits.

Cons

very stressful with little or no understanding from management. Try and understand what the front line person who actually speaks with our members has to go through.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen, and care about the daily activities of the job. Lend a caring ear, and please be available when called upon.

Pros

best tech support and equipment

Cons

physical plant needs a redo building improvements

Advice to Senior Management

On the right track keep it up

Pros

The interview is very easy because no technical questions were asked the entire time.
The work schedule is flexible. I was able to show up whenever I wanted and leave whenever I wanted as long as I attended the meetings and I got my work done.
Every one is allowed to work from home, wether you need a couple of hours, a couple of days, or full time at home (from any state in the US).
Aetna offers free classes to help with personal/retirement finances.

Cons

Almost all of the people who actually do all of the coding and testing are based out of India.
Almost all of the project management, developers, and QA people are either consultants or from the outsourcing companies. The team I last worked on started with 4 employee developers and 20 offshore developers. When I left it was 2 employee developers and 24 offshore developers. This makes collaboration and maintaining code standards near impossible.
IT at Aetna is a lot like working for a consulting company where the business department will ask you for a change to some application, you will cost it out, and then it is up to the people from the business department to decide if they want to move forward and pay for the change. This means that there are no improvements to the code / infrastructure unless it is directly coming from a business department (or the application breaks).
There are few perks to working in any of the offices. There are no free food / drinks, no free gym, no free recreation room, or useful services (to someone under 30)
You have to pay for parking in the Aetna owned parking lots.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop outsourcing all of the development / QA work. Just because you hate making jobs in the US do not take it out on the few full time employee developer that exist in the company. Since I have worked at Aetna (started in 2005) the overall quality of the applications and my understanding of how applications / systems work has gone down because Aetna as a whole is not looking for talent, but for lowest cost people. The quality of the developers I work with is so low that we spend 25% - 50% of the time and money changing what was already created because it was not done correctly.

Pros

Employee Resource Groups are highly encouraged and touted. The Office of Diversity works hard in regards to public relations with the employees. The people here are mostly positive and easy to work with.

Cons

As many companies now, there are an inordinate amount of people under single team leads, which can negatively effect meaningful feedback. There have been round after round of layoffs in the past 5-6 years, so unless you are production or a CSR you'll be worried about security. Medical benefits are offered, but aren't as good as you'd hope - the high deductible plans are moderatly priced, but these aren't HMOs.

Advice to Senior Management

Let's chill with all the re-orgs and actually change the culture. You'll get more productivity with stability and an appropriate culture instead of constant change, upheaval, and bottom-dollar culture.

Pros

good job, easy to do, customers love you , great training.

Cons

very clickqsh with management and they dont listen to you when you have a real problem

Advice to Senior Management

management will protect their own buts so know your stuff.

Pros

Great management team in place that listens to employees; for a 150+ year old company, they are keeping up with technology and a variety of communication strategies to make Aetna the plan of choice in the country
Ability to work at home
Flexible schedule (i.e., 4 10 hour days, not just 8-5)
Great health insurance choices
Money in HRA/HSA for personal & family wellness initiatives

Cons

Corporate staff does not always listen to the field staff that are actually out in the trenches trying to serve our membership.

Advice to Senior Management

Manage staffing ratios better so that there is not a layoff every 2-3 years.

Pros

The product I support is AMAZING to work in. In my role I get the chance to reach out and be exposed to MANY high ranking employees. Everyone is very competent and never say no. PTO is never denied, even when busy, overtime is great, work from home is granted to every member of the unit. Love it! Benefits are better than our competitors, UNH has higher cost medical, lower 401k match, higher deductibles. Heres a tip you get $600 off a year for, not using tobacco and passing metabolic syndrome. I pay $11 a check.....

Cons

Pay for gym- cheaper than my other gym- Anytime fitness
Acquisitions on the rise, would rather see in-house development
Conservative Approach to Underwriting- Take more risk- win more bids

Advice to Senior Management

Remember your staff and seek greater bonuses

Pros

flexible as far as hours

Cons

Salary js low and promotions are hard to get.