Cerner Reviews in Kansas City, MO Area

Pros

Majority of the associates are great and the culture at the peer level and below can be fun. The pay was ok although it started to get less rewarding.

Cons

I was a woman trapped in a boys club with advancement opportunities going to the same men who regularly golfed, fished and hunted with the boss. I worked extremely hard, developed a loyal team with solid results and was routinely passed over or told to stay in my current role so I left.

Pros

Cerner has good training program. They throw hard problems at you so make you think hard and work hard which shapes your technical and professional growth. Most of management and architects are respectful of associates below them. Engineer gets to work on various technologies, but they are slow on picking up industry standards. They provide laptop computer so you can work whenever you want and where ever you want. Working once in a while from home because of personal reasons is permitted upon managers approval.

Cons

Company promotes work hard play hard on paper, but in reality it is more like work very hard and it is okay if you don't get time with family. Hard work is not appreciated and raise is almost next to none compared to amount of work. When you join they set expectation of around 48 hours per week but most of time you end up working more than 48 hours per week. There are weeks when you will work close to 65 hours. I had heard from other employees that their growth/raise was threatened when they put less than 48 hours but 40 hours consistently. Company sets unreasonable deadlines and make you work crazy hours. They send you on ASE which is basically going to train nurses and doctors on how to use cerner software, and shifts close to 13 hours long. Company charge hell lot of money to hospitals for providing this services, but associates who attend this ASE merely get $60 for entire day (13 hours). When they come back from ASE it is upto their manager to give some time off for hard work, but not all manager does that.

Pros

Cerner is a great place to learn how to work. They do a good job of exposing you to lots of opportunities that you may or may not think you're ready to experience. The skills you learn on the job, relationships you build, and prefessional credibility you have after working at Cerner for a couple of years is invaluable. Cerner also does a great job of allowing people to move laterally in just about any direction within the company, giving you a lot of possible career paths. Over my 6 years at Cerner I had opportuniteis to live abroad on 2 occassions, travel extensively in the US and work closely with hospital executives to form strategic plans for their hospitals.

Cons

Cerner expects you to work. The motto is work hard and play hard but the reality is more work than play. Not to say that you are worked to death, or the company doesn't provide any outlets for fun, but their is an implied pressure to work whenever there is an internet connection. It is not uncommon to recieve emails 7 days a week. Additionally, the salary for experienced associates is not what you can get elsewhere. I have had a lot of friends work for 2 to 5 years then move on to competitors, consulting groups and client sites with substantial pay increases ($10K - $25K difference) and what seems like a more balanced workload.

Advice to Senior Management

I would reccomend making experienced associates feel more valued through pay. Their are high expectations but the compensation seems to be lacking what you can get for the same job elsewhere. I would also reccomend doing away with expecting everyone to live in KC.

Pros

If you're a college grad, Cerner is an excellent place to learn, but don't stay long. Learn everything you can in 3-4 years and you can make a lot of money as a consultant.

Cons

- If you don't have a relative in management and don't know how to play the politic game, don't expect to get a promotion.

- Expect to put in 60 hrs/week minimum.

Pros

location is good, as it is near to main area.

Cons

Quality of work is not good.

Advice to Senior Management

Recruitment is not good. Improve process. Give call to right technical people.

Pros

Job security is high compared to other companies. Being in health care sector company is providing lots of opportunities in different areas of healthcarefield

Cons

depending more on obsolete technologies and growth will be very slow compared people at management side. Pays very well for managers than technical people

Advice to Senior Management

Cerner hierarchy has to be changed so that technical people can have more control over the software than managers. Don't depend on millennium for next decade . develop something new

Pros

Mostly good people to work with. Intern Velocity program provided lots of fun opportunities outside of work. Free summer housing.

Cons

Everyone seemed a little unhappy. Full time employees constantly getting told to work at least 47 hours (from upper management). Constantly got put on wrong teams for my skill set

Pros

Good transition company to work for out of college. This also means there are some immature employees around which can be distracting but I have also had some helpful associates that can push you to think. There are may departments to transfer in if you find something else you are interested in.

Cons

Large companies also means more policies and more loopholes to get things done. Often I find myself trying to push another team to get something done that I am not given access to do.

Moving up in the company can be deterring when most of the positions ask to be on-call. I have heard of some complaints on not being compensated enough for this. Other positions which aren't on-call can have deadlines requiring much overtime without extra pay leaving a stressful life.

Bell curve way to rate overall employee performance during reviews. 15% of a team has to be categorized as needing improvement , 70% categorized as performing well, and the last 15% get a decent raise with outstanding performance.

Advice to Senior Management

Management needs to base employee performance by customer satisfaction instead of the amount of tickets closed. the tickets could be any number of requests and does not equal quality.

Pros

Great training, good pay, good benefits. There's something for everyone at Cerner, and it's a good place for new graduates to cut their teeth.

Cons

Long hours, not really room to move up the ladder. Cerner has a high turnover rate due to the fact that they keep costs down by constantly getting new graduates that have no experience and nothing to compare their work experience to.

Advice to Senior Management

Pretty good, guys. Back off on the long hours, the heavy travel, and give us a bit more money. However, that can be said of most jobs.

Pros

Pay, benefits and job security

Cons

Must be self motovated and self lerner.

Advice to Senior Management

More concern for associates