Pros

Great mission & corporate culture...this growing organization has tried to do right by their EXTREMELY hard working employees...absolutely fantastic co-workers

Cons

Clients dictated much of the organizations direction so it's often challenging to find a clear & stable one
A LOT of change...can be viewed as a good thing
Declining Benefits

Advice to Senior Management

Recoginze and reward employees...even in small ways...dynamite talent is hard to come by but easy to loose if it's taken for granted.

Pros

The mission is to make people healthier providing them timely support and education with their chronic disease or health risk. Very admirable and one can take pride in that --

Cons

but unfortunately, like most big corporations the cultural statement became nothing but words on a page. Every year we get treated to an "October Surprise." Typically this means less money, less benefits, less balance in your life or perhaps your job just goes away. Each year we are told to take one for the gipper with the promise of improvment. I don't know who is thriving, but this company is destroying itself from within. Good talent leaves and is replaced by overseas temps or less quailified, less expensive warm bodies But the house of cards is rattling -- hopefully a big wind won't strike any time soon.

Advice to Senior Management

Say what you mean and mean what you say. Years of smoke and mirrors, Pony shows and dog acts no longer fly.

Pros

Great company mission. Solid benefits package, although it gets leaner every year. It's a job, and in this market, having a job is a good thing.

Cons

Pay is not equitable within the company (doubt that "Total Rewards" will level the playing field). Pay is not comparable to the competition. High stress, constant change with promises of things getting better and exciting new programs that don't materialize.

Advice to Senior Management

Watch out for the competition.

Pros

The company focuses on improving people's health and thus has a premise to be proud of. The company does its best to hire well. The relationships are work are invaluable.

Cons

Lack of a sustainable strategy. Multiple call centers that are isolated from the core business, There is a lack of intentional employee development. Great place if you are a self starter and take the initiative to take on multiple responcibilities. Unfortunately, this leaves you fragmented at the end of the day.

Advice to Senior Management

Be less reactive. Take time, when times are good to understand and develop your core strengths, i.e.the market and its employees/resources.

Pros

The work is focused on helping people manage their heath which could be rewarding when you were able to step back and see that as the end goal.

Cons

The rapid growth through acquisitions lead to a lot of disorganization and a lack of clear direction. Rules and processes were constantly changing which lead to a lot of work that ended up getting tossed. There seemed to be a group or certain employees who had more say and got do to what they wanted. Advancement seemed to happen only if you never questioned anyone or anything.

Advice to Senior Management

There's a lot of talent in the company that is unappreciated it. See what you have and provide them with work and challenges that will help them be at their best.

Pros

In the beginning, they sit you on a "Sunshine Pump" and tell you how great they are and how fairly they treat the employees

Cons

The management at this ofice does not know how to manage people. They ahve several favorites who are the "beautiful people" who can do no wrong. They let these people et away with not being competent, breaking company policy, abusing time off, coming in late, bringing pets to work, etc.

Advice to Senior Management

Senior management needs o start paying attention to the poor management of this location. Also senior management has no respect for the employees because they slash bonuses foe the good workers and raise their own salary and bonuses. Sr management is driving this company into the ground. Look at the stock price. It will soon be $0.00

Pros

it's a fun culture and the people are committed to a worthy mission. you really do have the freedom to try new ideas. if you think of something that the company can do better or that's new, the door is always open. executive leadership reaches out to make sure that their messages are being heard. if you like an environment that is fast paced and things change everyday then healthways is for you. we work hard but we also take time to recharge and get ready to do it all over again. you will be challenged beyond your job title.

Cons

teams don't do a good job of talking to one another and there's a lot of double work. roles are often unclear and we are quick to start up a project without fully thinking it through. the environment is fast paced, which is good but is it always fast paced for the right reasons? we set big goals and sometimes those goals aren't realistic. we have confidence but it tends to be based on what we've done and not what we can point to that's coming up in the pipeline. and while you do have freedom, you don't always have a lot of direction.

Advice to Senior Management

be realistic in the goals you set and don't over promise.

Pros

Healthways sounded like a good place to work. The training program seemed comprehensive and it seemed that they would work with you to help you succeed. Healthways was a growing company and it sounded like an opportunity to grow with a company that had been meeting with success. It sounded like there was opportunity for personal and professional growth in this company. The upper management gave the facade of actually caring about their employees. The company seemed to value their employees. The company knows how to market itself and one could find favorable reviews in national publications. The company does try to provide a comfortable work space.

Cons

Healthways takes on new business before they are ready. They do not follow the values that they say they live by. The senior leadership gives the appearance of caring about the employees but it is appearance only. Communication is poor and things change very frequently- often within hours after a change is announced. Working in the call center means your are tied to your phone. The expectation of hitting the metrics always looms over you and you are expected to hit the metrics even if your are doing other projects for Healthways. Senior leadership does not understand the job they expect the clinicians to do.

Advice to Senior Management

Pay attention to what the employees are saying. The corporate level needs to listen to what the employees at the local level are saying. Retention of good employees should be high on the priority list and maybe changes should be made at local levels regarding senior management.

Pros

If job is done right then you are helping people stay healthy.

Cons

Company is having a hard time rationalizing products due to acquisitions. At the same time for a developer I'm not sure they have a commitment to using Stateside developers in the future. They seem to want to cut costs as much as possible. Instead of loading up on competent developers they seem loaded up with Account Managers, Account Execs and Projct managers more than anything. I think there are at least 4 of those to one developer, maybe quite a bit more. There is always the talk about listening but no one is recognized for anything but managers. There are too few places to move for professional advancement and the yearly raises will not keep up with the market, especially for a good developer.

Advice to Senior Management

Value you developers, lisen to them, involve them in business decisions. Open the books to them and let them see what processes are costing money and then empower them to make decisions as to what is a priority based on what it will do for the comapny's bottom line. Stop treating engineers like the manual laborers on a contruction site.

Pros

flexibility of hours,wage,orientation (great info to take to another Disease Management company) and original benefits...they slipped drastically. At one point our company "talked with" employers that provided our current level benefits.

Cons

They spend more money providing orientation just to drive their staff out the front door. Every year I was employed there they had OUTRAGOUS turnover. If they cared about the bonus maybe they could appreciate their employees or at least listen to their concerns SERIOUSLY!They had to go to health coaches because they blew threw the RN/LPN national pool and no one will work for them. Bad sign when a professional peer says "Oh you work for them"

Advice to Senior Management

I don't think there is hope. You don't listen to your employee surveys, then the local management has to send out rah rah invites to participate in a survey or group when yu are just placating and waiting for your next bonus check. 2007 performance didn't warrant a "bonus" however you were showing greater returns than the year before when you "authorized a bonus". You have a cloistered group of leaders in some local BU's that don't talk to one another and no one gives a damn about what the member or employee has to say. The management information you use to train with promoting "cult like" (yes I have the article) promoting not for abilities..........