Blue Shield Of California Reviews

Pros

Great team / Exciting work / 401K / Pension / Free Gym / Flex in PTO / Close to Bart

Cons

Over worked but that means job stability

Advice to Senior Management

Accept Creativity

Pros

Fair pay
Ability to work on new projects
Some good people

Cons

No work life balance
Only CEO makes decisions
Other C-level execs seem interested only in collecting their paychecks

Pros

Good pay and benefit offered to employees.

Cons

No room to grow for employees.

Advice to Senior Management

Promote more within the company.

Pros

Nice people, great SF location, decent salaries.

Cons

Job titles seem to be one level down (eg, as a Sr Manager I'm running projects that would be a Director at other companies). Career path is totally variable depending on your manager. Lack of visibility to Senior Leadership - there seems to be a wide gulf between C-level / SVP and the rest of the company.

Advice to Senior Management

Allow mid-level managers who run projects or own programs to present to you directly when you have a question about their area of expertise - instead of funneling your request down through all the managerial levels, and having the answer filter up through all those layers.

Pros

Pay is decent but no work life balance if you work in a department that actually has to get things done (versus something at Corporate)...

Cons

Mgmt changes their perspective all the time from making money and cutting jobs to being concerned about what the paper writes. Two leaders with different ideas makes it nearly impossible to get the company aligned, but it's a consensus culture so nothing moves forward...

Advice to Senior Management

Let people make decisions and do their jobs or get rid of them

Pros

Pay was OK, workplace was above par. Job flexibility was good unless you have a terrible manager like I did for 2.5 years. Good and competent people.

Cons

Health insurance cost was way high. As an employee, I was paying more than a regular guy w/ a family. Good thing SF has the Healthy SF plan. IT Department was a hit-or-miss. One Server Ops group was so bad that it held up one of my projects for almost 2 years. Upper mgmt. didn't do diddly squat.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to your own advice. You all advocate openness and change, but when it comes down to it, you don't care about either. You all are just interested in business as usual. This attitude comes all the way from the top, and it percolates to the CFO and the CTO. I don't blame you; you're part of a monopoly. Why change.

Pros

- full of people across departments who have worked and invested in the company.
- they are incredibly helpful and resourceful

Cons

- my department used to be full of people who loved their jobs, their contribution and their teams. Has been replaced by a smaller subset of the original department from 4 years ago who survived and are incredibly stressed.
- lacks strong leadership in regards to making decisions. busy bees are expected to do all the work regardless of resources or time.
- no clear direction or path to fulfilling our mission to provide affordable healthcare. Not for profit status is a joke.

Advice to Senior Management

-There are "lifers" within the organization who should be recognized and rewarded. I am not one of them. I'm relatively new, but I have been discouraged with how a lot of the employees say "BSC used to be a great place to work".
- Set priorities and show leadership by taking responsibility of decisions and look out for your employees.

Pros

Corporate stability makes a fair sense of security in one's job.
Varied and ever-changing tasks keeps your mind engaged.
Generally very competent, professional immediate coworkers and management.
Pay is decent, retirement package is generous.
Not-for-profit mission is well-internalized by most folks.
Promotions easily achievable for those who are talented and motivated -- and for those who have the right connections.

Cons

IT infrastructure more at home in 1977 than 2011, desktop and mainframe, and most unhelpful IT staff.
A higher than normal amount of political intrigue. Seriously, this is an insurance company, not the court of the Byzantine Empire.
Health insurance plan, ironically, is sub-par.

Advice to Senior Management

Get your people some real computers and software from the last decade. It's not that expensive.
Listen to your actuaries. When they say "you're going to lose your ass if you sell this product at this price", they're probably right.

Pros

Close to BART
Nice people
Reasonable pay

Cons

Senior management doesn't listen or ask for opinions
Very low raises
Siloed
Cliques

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to your people

Pros

They offer a decent amount of paid days of and holidays, and have competitive pay.

Cons

There is a complete lack of communication between business units and they are horrible at documenting business processes. They also have no problem working you to the bone without much recognition.