Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota Reviews

Pros

Long time provider in the field of health care insurance, responsive to the expectations and requirements of accrediting bodies, active and supportive of employees engaged in community service outside the office, provides means and resources for maintaining good health and exercise during the work day, maintains high standards for clinical expertise within the areas of case management and utilization review, competitive salary ranges.

Cons

Slow to implement changes in business processes and to provide resources needed to compete with other national health care companies. Inadequate technology/systems and tends to upgrade in stages rather than implementing when able to provide the complete product. Upper managment out of touch with daily operations and declining morale & doesn't seem to care. Departmental and divisional silos that negatively impacts effective communication about commonly shared information and tasks.

Advice to Senior Management

Come out among the people and be willing to learn about the real company and its needs .

Pros

Work/Life balance can be pretty good if you're in the right areas. Lots of extra activities for employees to get involved in.

Cons

Unfortunately my experience with them was one of the most demoralizing throughout my fifteen year career in IT. On-boarding of new employees is horrid. Management seems to hide from their group a lot and promote dishonesty.

Big corporate environment with TONS of busy, but needless tasks asked of you. i.e. run specific reports or corrections to reports that are never used for anything. Every area likes to point fingers and hide behind the "process" rather than try to get things done. Very cloudy processes that rely more on creating more work than actually creating solutions.

Advice to Senior Management

Nothing, because they won't listen. They are in they're own world.

Pros

pay, and benefits, and 401k,

Cons

communication between management and upper management

Advice to Senior Management

Quick assumptions made without really understanding what is happening

Pros

Overall nice people to work with
Nice environment
Learned a lot about Healthcare in general

Cons

Hanging on to some people in spite of the inability to do good work
Re-organized talented and highly qualified individuals out of the organization
Sales VP can be rude and condisending to individuals

Advice to Senior Management

Realize you don't have all the answers and sometimes your staff might know more than you. Don't jump to conclusions about individuals without asking them about their thoughts.

Pros

Great company for obtaining work / life balance.
Compensation was excellent.

Cons

IT Leadership was not adequately skilled at assessing employee skills. Evaluation of skills appeared to be based on superficial characteristics, such as certifications obtained, and ability to attend and present at local and/or national conferences. They have made significant changes in IT Sr. Leadership over the past year that may have addressed this short coming.

Advice to Senior Management

Hire and promote staff that are able to obtain results. Make sure you stay in close contact with your employees to understand who those people are and reward them by giving them credit for work accomplished.

Pros

Work life balance, support for volunteerism

Cons

inconsistent leadership from mid management
HR

Advice to Senior Management

Pat is trying to drag the company into the current century and he should continue to keep doing so.

Pros

Lower management knows their people and act as a great advocate both for corporate goals and their employees.

Cons

Upper management is two faced. Everyone knows they are shopping India to replace key teams but they won't come out and tell employees what is going on. How can you run a professional shop when you treat rank and file employees like children.

Advice to Senior Management

Come clean with your employees. When you refuse to commit to us, don't act surprised when we don't commit to you!...

Pros

Great Company, willing to work with you to Balance work/life. Onsite workout facility. Good Benefits. Work hours flexible. Community feel to the work environment.

Cons

Starting pay is not very competitive to other companies for the responsibilities of the job. and the raises are not the best.

Pros

This company has wonderful management from the Director level down. They enable growth, build solid teams, and approach problems as opportunities. Best Manager and Director I have ever worked for.

Cons

Everyone about the Manager has a completely unrealistic view of what Engineers are worth. The management that came in several years ago is convinced that their Engineers are overpaid and are quite content to punish the teams through attrition and reorganization.

Advice to Senior Management

Just treat your professional employees like adults and put your cards on the table. two years ago *everyone* was fine with a pay freeze to save jobs. We love this place and our team members.

Pros

The workforce in engaged in what they do. Management is more involved in all levels of the company. The leadership team is the best that I have worked for. The corporate culture is more focused with clearly defined goals. We have seen an increase in communication on all levels.

Cons

The past years have seen outsourcing and layoffs. Staffing adjustments have meant that everyone works a little harder and there are concerns about job security… but no more than at any other job. The staffing levels seem to be getting where they should have been all along. Departments do not always work well together at times and there is a lack of collaberation.

Advice to Senior Management

There needs to be added focus on the departments working together and sharing information. Each department seems to be on their own island at times and there is little collaberation. Other than that, keep doing what you are doing. The last two years have been scary, but fun at the same time.