Banner Health – “Really?”

Pros

At one time I considered Banner Health to be a great place to work. Upon being hired, 1st impressions would lead you to believe you are in with a major healthcare company that is growing rapidly, thus, there being room for advancement or promotion (but not really). The benefits are okay, being able to have PTO is nice, getting a yearly bonus is smiled upon, and there are many good people who really do work hard and do their best to help others. Unfortunately, this is where much of it ends for most of us.

Cons

Let me first state I agree 100% with the downsides that many here have already wrote because they are true, and then some which I will write here. Banner Health states that the mission is "delivering excellent care." What mid to upper management doesn't seem to get is that you cannot achieve this goal when many are cheated, disrespected, intimidated, micro-managed, manipulated, over-worked, underpaid, etc...the cons seem to keep growing as the years progress. The company itself, it's facilities and those who are running them are turning into, for lack of a better word, what you might refer to as a nanny mentality. Cameras are everywhere, security surfs the internet all day when they aren't looking for cars in the wrong parking spaces to ticket or tow. You have to swipe to do nearly everything, including but not limited to printing. The computers are blocked so you can't access sites which are friendly, but music sites (use imagination) remain open for you to listen to music with swearing in it. It has and still is becoming a politically correct environment whereas no matter how right you are about the wrongs which someone else committed, they come after the few who actually have the nerve to speak up to the management and manipulate you to be in the wrong in ways you can't prove. The people who don't do their jobs or get away with everything often are related to the management in some way or another and the those same people who should be put on corrective action are not, even for repetitive insubordinate behavior and/or disrespect toward others. Bad people don't lose jobs, the good ones do for reporting the bad. If you actually show up to work and are productive, you set an expectation that must remain consistent regardless if the few people in your department are doing their work or not. Don't worry, you won't be recognized; Only the higher ups get that kind of satisfaction as they pat each other on the back and get their increases while implementing even more responsibility on you. On top of that, promotion is all inside as is a majority of the hiring process. If you pass someone corporate in the hallway, you almost get the feeling they are looking at you like a bug that needs to be squashed or that you "don't belong" because you aren't one of them. Another thing -they are shoving the "think-green" movement down everyone's throats whether you agree with it or not, investing a lot of funding into the ridiculous costs needed to convert or make everyone comply, all the while building more medical centers while preaching to the choir about cutting benefits or costs, leaving other facilities understaffed, stressing out the workers and then sending the smoking gestapo around as a result of the stressed out nurses or staff caught outside, even off the property! And the finale...gauging the employees through surveys to see who will take a flu shot when they decide make it 'mandatory.' It's your body, and there is no law, but hey you need to be protected and told what to put into it, no matter how harmful it may be. I suspect with the way things are going they will use this as a way to force out those not in compliance, saying it will cut even more costs, using the country's depression as it slides deeper down as an excuse, or they will use it or market it as a compliance or safety issue.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop the lying to the employees of Banner. Stop pretending you care about the patients when you cut staff that would be to care for them and treat great people as scum. The hypocritical costs need to end. Don't we take a compliance course yearly on anti-kick backs? The ridiculous amount of policing is making it less and less desirable each day. Is this Brave New World, and didn't I see some of these policies implemented in a book by George Orwell when I was in grade school?