Banner Health Reviews

Pros

Banner is a large employer, you can work closer to home. There is good communication from the top down in terms of changes that are coming. The administration is visionary and has pulled off enormous sea changes, ie; going to electronic charting, getting most paperwork online, communicating via Email.

Cons

Five years ago, this was a much more enjoyable place to work. Now, it's all about how do we cut costs and wring the most out of each worker. Benefits cost more and cover less, there are less people for each shift, more call, to cover the more frequent bare spots created by having less people to do the cases. Call isn't just for the "off hours" anymore, either. Now, there are TWO people on call for most of the 24 hour cycle. Three dollars an hour for call pay is almost an insult, I'd rather have control over my own destiny. The refrain bantied about the department is "according to departmental needs", as you may imagine, this trumps the 'balance of work and home life'. The whole feel of the place is "Shut up and work, be glad you have a job!". Our turnover rate is astounding, I'm amazed that no one from the upper echelon is had their curiosity piqued. The managers are good people who are Way over their heads, and as a group, they lack sophistication in the people handling arena. The main thrust had been to force fewer people to do more work. I dread going to work and being micromanaged. Every week there are more rules and more tasks that make my job harder, and lessen the amount of actual 'nursing' that I get to do. I am heartsick about it.

Advice to Senior Management

Spend some time on the floors in the various departments, feel what it's like. Sit down at a table of workers in one of the breakrooms, ask them what their experience is. We have tons of surveys each year where there is plenty of opportunity to talk about how marvelous the company is, leave room for narrative, let us give feedback on the people making the decisions in our department, not JUST the person directly above us. You need to regroup, stop expanding the empire and take care of the people that have helped you to get there. Stop the squeezing and breathtaking controlling manuevers. The clocking in and out for lunch is really Too Much. Now I can't even enjoy the 3o minutes (that I pay for with my 12.5 hr shift), I'm concerned about clocking back in in EXACTLY 3o minutes, or having to fetch a letter from my manager as to WHY it wasn't exactly 30 minutes. I don't think there's anymore blood left in this stone.

Pros

Good place to learn, some excellent people work there

Cons

Poor communication, no employee feedback, limited sense of accountability, like a governmental agency without the stability

Pros

I enjoy applying my skills and talents toward a worthy cause, patients.

Cons

-Mediocre upper management. Unskilled and untalented. You can spot those ones by how defensive they are when you make them aware of their incompetence. They make petty comments without substance and belittle the work of others to make themselves feel important. They are often the loud and obnoxious ones.
-The leadership group promotes their families and friends
-Poor communication
-Poor benefits
-Poor compensation
-Inequality
-Non-existence tuition assistance and advancement
-The list goes on...

Advice to Senior Management

Reevaluate your current staff in an unbiased manner and start house cleaning. You must realize that your families and friends don’t always qualify to do the work. Stop promoting them. Always be neutral and listen to reason from all sides before you start your hiring and execution.

Pros

-Freedom to innovate and create change
-Willingness among staff members to communicate and collaborate
-Strong corporate desire to develop staff members and improve the organization as a whole
-Commitment to work-life balance

Cons

-There still exists a strong bureaucracy with substantial red tape
-Communication between departments is not always consistent or fluidly
-Rapid growth has led to a degree of disorganization

Pros

Opportunity for growth and development

Cons

Need to leverage remote technology more to eliminate geographic limitations

Advice to Senior Management

Keep the company sound by planning for the future

Pros

Pretty good benefits, generous time off if you can get it approved. Several locations make it possible to work close to home. An great amount of professional autonomy.

Cons

Employees promoted to supervisor with no other qualification than being a friend of the manager. Gallop polls manipulated by harassing employees over poor results. Uneducated and under-qualified employees in the same pay grade as college educated, highly qualified employees.

Advice to Senior Management

Middle management is all together overburdened with trying to run an organization that is broken. Most are under-qualified/uneducated for the positions they hold. There is little incentive for the best people to apply for management positions when it is clear that they will not be supported after they get the position. Also, while you may think there are opportunities for employees to find out what is going on, employees need to be direct to where these things are.

Pros

The opportunity for growth is outstanding since the organization is large. Support of leadership in the development of staff is great, through Leadership Academy and Banner University. The organization is headed in the right direction.

Cons

There are many longterm employees, and while that is a great thing in terms of retention it is not the best for change. There is resistance to adapt to the "new" normal and thus hinders the ovrall mission.
Not the best IT systems.

Advice to Senior Management

Have been to meeting after meeting and nothing gets accomplished. A lot of talking, and not enough doing. Hold people accountable, and empower managers to do so.

Pros

Middle management truly knows what the staff is going through, and try their best to help staff.

Cons

Middle management tries so hard to walk the tightrope that senior management has them walking. Senior management is so removed from what actually happens "on the floor" that they make knee jerk reactions and all the while they are congratulating themselves on what a great job they do. Banner Health 5 years ago was still a great company to work for. It is now such a joke and so many are looking for jobs elsewhere. Their retention has taken a huge hit this year. I work in a dept. that almost everyone is unhappy about, yet the CEO, and the CNO are clueless.

Advice to Senior Management

Investigate your directors. If the director has many staff that are upset there is a reason.

Pros

Good Pay, friendly coworkers, flexible scheduling.

Cons

Poor upper and middle management that are disconnected with staff on the front line. Micromanagement everywhere, benefit cuts, PTO cuts, layoffs, overworked, focus on budget control, increased nurse patient ratios make taking care of high acuity patients difficult, not the best place to work anymore, used to be, do not recommend as employer of choice, employees are not valued anymore.

Advice to Senior Management

see the con list above please.

Pros

Banner has a wide array of opportunities, especially in Arizona. Pay is reasonably good from what I know and the benefits are very comprehensive.

Cons

The only cons I found were related to the organization being made up of and managed by a great majority of women. Sometimes this lead to an imbalanced culture which was uncomfortable for men.

Advice to Senior Management

Leadership at Banner should take a good look at the culture and its female bias. The organization would be stronger and a better place to work if it mitigated this imbalance.