Blue Shield Of California Reviews

Pros

1. In SFO!
2. Best benefits ( speaking of 401k contribution etc. and NOT Stopck options)
3. For most part -work-life balance is supported.
.

Cons

1. Senior Leadership needs to interact more with staff.
2. Senior Management needs to be skilled in articulating vision and communications.
3. Career Growth Path has to be very well-defined and made very trasnparent.

There are reviews on culture" and "how bad the leadership is". In my opinion, this is NOT the case.
No organization can have "all great leadership". Leadership style differs, culture differs. At the end of the day, people have to choose and decide what works for them.

1) is Blue Shield like a Startup with lots of "goodies tossed in your way"? -No
2) Is BSC - a well organized organization where you find it easy to navigate yourself ? No.
3) Can you walk into BSC dreaming of climbing ladders because you are "talented" - No and Yes. Depends who your boss happends to be and the situation.

All in all...it's not an outstanding company if you have great ambitions. but yes you are employed and enjoy the average work atmosphere.

Advice to Senior Management

1. Establish clear Accountability

2. Recognize Accomplishments throughout the year and NOT "Once in a Year" at the time of
     appriasals - especially when "feedback" is requested from unconnected people.

3. Communicate Growth path clearly and also Future Plans - At all levels, not just CIO level.

Pros

Great Benefits, nice hours, friendly people.

Cons

Sometimes hard to move up in company.

Advice to Senior Management

none

Pros

The location of the corporate headquarters is a plus.
In general they employe some good folks (non-execs).
Decent benefits and PTO.

Cons

They don't promote people, even when it's well deserved.
Upper management is woefully disconnected.
They hire incompetent people into roles because they are unsuccessful at recruiting.
The communication is some of the worst I've ever seen in my career.
Silos are everywhere (which ties into the above comment).
Very old school, conservative culture.
They do not encourage free thinking or empower employees to make decisions.
They do not "manage out" bad employees, but rather saddle the good employees with them.
There are no perks. NONE! You have to fight for a $2 pen.
In general, raises for a "good" review are below inflation, so unless you're promoted (which they never do), you don't want to stay too long at BSC or your salary will lag.
They just got the results of an employee satisfaction survey, which were so bad, they're creating "action teams" to try to work on the issues. These teams are (of course) being lead by the same folks who managed the company into this state.
BSC is very frenetic.
No matter what job you take there, you'll end up being in crisis mode.

Advice to Senior Management

Where to start...
Promote and recognize your staff.
Get some training for your managers on how to manage people. It's truly appalling how bad most of them are at it. This is not an innate skill in most people!
Provide decent raises that keep up with inflation.
Break down the silos and go back to the old corporate structure. The business units are a failed experiment in their current state.
Work on your culture with outside help - you have the same people leading the culture initiative that are a part of the problem.
Speed things up! You need to take quick action around this culture issue. It has been going on far too long, and your culture team has become a water cooler joke. Nothing is better. But, we can wear jeans now.

Pros

+ Lots of intelligent and friendly coworkers
+ Coworkers are generally friendly and willing to work with you when you make an outreach
+ Generous benefits package with competitive compensation. If that means forgoing a Christmas party, then so be it.
+ Free access to on-site gym facilities in certain offices
+ Plenty of opportunity to get involved in important work that is impactful to the company
+ Information about different departments is openly shared and made readily available on the intranet
+ Management recognizes the need to update the culture
+ Tremendous potential to become a great place to work - but lots more work to do before we get there
+ Commitment to affordable healthcare drives our 2% pledge and significant donations to safety net providers in CA

Cons

- Lack of coordinated strategic efforts leads to lack of accountability and duplication across department; can make it very hard to get things done.
- A lot of people claim are (or claim to be) overworked or maxed out in terms of capacity. This causes stress, which trickles down to the lower levels.
- Lack of strategic focus; we have too many competing priorities
- Lagging our competitors in terms of innovation
- C-levels and SVPs seemingly sit in an ivory tower; Sr. Managers and Directors often don't speak or make eye contact with you in the hall.
- Fragmented culture; within a department, there can be good morale, but there is an air of dissatisfaction about the company-wide culture.

Advice to Senior Management

* We need a reorganization badly. Redundant functions sit within multiple organizations. This leads to waste and inefficiency, which only means that we are only embodying the massive problems that are threatening to be the downfalll of the healthcare system as a whole.
* In order to attract and keep top-quality talent you need to treat everyone with respect. Dissent is fine (and can be good), but openly condescending to or degrading your direct reports is not. Learn to listen and let people express their opinions without interrupting. Try to look everyone in the eye during a meeting, not just your fellow VPs or Directors.
* Learn to delegate and give formal authority to others to get things done.

Pros

office location is good. good and bright people.

Cons

good and bright people may not be fairly treated, company politics.

Pros

People doing the actual work to run the company are great to work with
Its very close to the Embarcadero Bart Station
Nice 401k match, has a pension plan
Directors and above receive supplemental pension along
Bonuses tied to company performance more than personal
Directors and above receive an additional bonus vested over 5 years
Things move slow if thats the pace you like things.
Some really smart people work here

Cons

Smart, energetic people are the first ones to leave
old old old systems that your grandpa used to use, i.e. mainframes, microfiche, and punch cards (not really but not far off)
VP's doesn't see the value for a financial accounting system made in the 21st century
Big push for trust, but no one can trust senior management
Wants to be a "Great Place to Work" but doesn't address the core cultural problems
Company moves at a snails pace for any change
Silos everywhere, some directors are very territorial

Advice to Senior Management

Focus less on trying to make the list of "Great Places to work" by Fortune magazine and instead work towards Actually making this place a good place to work (i.e. stop taking away benefits, changing the benefits of those who retired, be willing to shake up senior management). Do more substantive actions (be willing to shake up senior management and recruit directors and VPs from actual great companies) rather than window dressing (i.e. getting wear jeans every day, so 1990)

Pros

The people are very nice. Benefits are good. Location downtown is great. Nice offices. Fledgling process practice that may or may not make it. Reasonably evolved project management. Management is making a huge effort to communicate and respond to employee needs. Emphasis on health - lots of opportunities and encouragement to improve and maintain health. Self-interested, yes, but they do it very well.

Cons

Silos within silos within silos. Top management has low visibility - except HR. Groggy culture. Product organization(s) are schizophrenic. They cannot decide if they should organize as lines of business or not, so they are periodically brought mostly together and then separated in a year or two. Product is hopelessly separated from the details of how their products function. Now, there was a re-org, so this may have changed.

Advice to Senior Management

Implement 360 reviews. Get a grip on product. Be more performance oriented.
Doing a great job communicating information. Take that further and lead by getting the executives out on the floor. Walk around, say hello. Find out what people are working on. Get Bruce in front of the employees. I may have seen him once in an elevator.

Pros

Great reputation as a leader in the health insurance industry, a rare not-for-profit with deep commitment to universal health care, health reform and affordable health care (including returning income over 2%).

You can make a difference here.

Cons

Professional growth tied very closely to your manager and their desire and ability to invest in you. Self-promotion and getting on key projects required.

Pros

Not-for-profit status.
Company mission...in theory
The common folk
401k and pension
Wellvolution
Tuition reimbursement after a year
Stable company

Cons

Senior management
Lack of communication from the top down. They say they are trying to fix this but its been 5 years and its not getting any better.

Inappropriate communication from upper management. When is it ever appropriate to call people out without warning in front of a room full of their peers? Or write nasty emails to reprimand people with out having all the information.

Antiquated computer systems....EDS when Ross P owned it... Access databases
The IT department. For a company that is in halfway decent financial shape couldn't they spring for better servers?? When your department is completely paperless, and the servers go down and there is complete work stoppage, shouldn't this be a priority??

Incompetence is rewarded. Current upper management does not think it is appropriate to promote people who know the process and have some leadership skills and could be mentored. Better bring in someone from the outside who knows nothing and will take at minimum a year to figure out the process while driving out the people who know.

The current staffing is so top heavy. Managers upon Sr. managers...seems like every other day someone is being promoted.

Raise and compensation structure. Pretty much everyone gets the same rating no matter how much effort you put into working. You must walk on water to get the highest level.

No follow through. Everyone has great ideas and they start a project and it gets implemented but NO ONE follows up to see if it worked out, does it do what it was supposed to, do we like how it functions?

NO GOALS until last month. How can you be evaluated on goals for a year that you didn't get until August?

Advice to Senior Management

Don't disregard in house talent. Make the effort to develop your employees. Upper management needs to set their goals and communicate them to to their direct reports. Walk the walk if you talk the talk. One team in motion is great if everyone is on board. When your senior management can't behave themselves out of meeting room, how do you expect any of the staff to buy into the one team in motion theory. I don't think the issue lies with Bruce. It's the constant turnover of upper management and then the paradigm shifts after every new Director. Know your people and your people's people. Actually do this!!

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