Henry Ford Health System Reviews

Pros

You and your work matter at Henry Ford. There is a job here for anyone and everyone who can get in the door.

Cons

Sometimes managers are control freaks and change up everything. Then coperate will defend their actions. Being a 24 /7 operation means there is a chance you might get the graveyard shift.

Advice to Senior Management

Dont keep everyone under your thumb.....let your workers pick their hours based on their home life not yours. Time clocks would be a great investment.

Pros

benefits are great good health system

Cons

money, feel like i could make more

Pros

salary, tuition reimbursement, benefits are good

Cons

No advancement in company, jobs are "spoken for" before they are posted. I have put in for about 40 jobs this year with not one call. Human resources is the worst!!!!!! Have to make an appointment to ask a question.

Advice to Senior Management

Fix HR problems

Pros

It's a job and within such a tough employment economy (worse a Detroit job market), you have to appreciate that

Cons

Very dicriminate salary payments. Froze the salary and wages for three years, in an effort to "keep jobs" for employees. But what went for the goose doesn't go for the gander. Executive leadership and clinicians/physicians still received raises while the rest of us sacrificed.

Advice to Senior Management

Be consistent and more appreciative of your non-clinician workers. Hey they're an important part of your business service as well.

Pros

Great hours and pay raises

Cons

Bad location and upper level management

Pros

CEO Nancy Schlichting is a great healthcare visionary and in her early years really transformed the corporate culture at HFHS in very positve way. When you listen to her, you understand what you need to do in your job, you feel hopeful about the future and proud to be a part of the organization. She has put together a good senior leadership team and they develop strategic plans that are the envey of many a healthcare system. I always look forward to the annual meetings when frontline managers get to hear them directly.

This is a nursing dominated management system, a plus for them. They usually get 2-3 times the salary increase as compared to other personnel. (recently 6-8% vs. 2.5% this was after 2 1/2 years of no increases the previous increase was 6-8 % vs. 2%) They also get 100% tuition reimbursment to complete BSN & MS. They can be promoted to management with little or no management experience. In fact they have a new course for RNs that teaches them how be managers while they are managers.

HFHS has some of the best dedicated, compassionate frontline staff that I have ever worked with.

Cons

I write the following after and indepth discussion with several of my peers.
There is a disconnect between senior management and middle management, and a very large disparity between of the nursing frontline managers and other professionals. I would advise other professionals to go elsewhere. HFHS is not the place for you, little respect for any other type of work.
No chance for advancement in this nursing dominated system, even if the position is for operations management with no actual nursing skills needed.

Middle managers are a blast from the past. They think hoarding information gives them super powers over you when we all know it really just makes it much harder for you to do your job I have personnaly experienced and heard horror stories of them taking credit for frontline managers work. You are afraid to say anything for fear of being fired, no protection.

You are often threaten with the idea of the Hunter Group returning to downsize or they tell you about the 250,000.+ people applying online for your job so you better behave. Okay, they don't say you better behave but it is implied.

We do have a employee survey through Gallop but most frontline managers could be singled out so you do not dare speak your mind.

 Often you are asked your opinion in meetings but if you disagree or do not echo back their opinions you are shut down and humiliated. They don't really want to hear you. It is better to just parrot or do not say anything. Much of the work is past on to the frontline to the point where there is no longer any work/life balance. Sixty + hours a week is average which would not be so bad but we do not make the salary to pay for services to balance our homelife requirements. So, by the time you get a vacation you really just spend it trying to recover or catching up at home. You are expected to answer your blackberry 24/7.

Advice to Senior Management

Start paying attention to what your middle managers are doing and saying. Attend some of their meetings. See for yourself.

Look at you mix of frontline managers.
Will the nursing dominated management with little mangement education serve us well going into the future? Are you setting us up for failure by limiting different perspectives?

Beware, inexperienced managers that do not know how to treat or talk to their staff. I fear this can lead to a mass exodus of frontline staff when the economy turns around.

Pros

Great people and great leadership

Cons

Slow to make decisions, sometimes too large of an prganization

Advice to Senior Management

Focus on the customer, first and foremost. Do not get caught up in. Business dealing that distract your attention from the customer.

Pros

The employees are nice and there is a general sense of teamwork to get the job done.

Cons

No raise in 3 years, but I guess that's the norm for healthcare in michigan.

Pros

Nationally recognized, values employees, customer focused, understands their market

Cons

Still working to stregnthen their business processes

Advice to Senior Management

Continue on the path to improving the business side of health care, while maintaning a patient focused culture.

Pros

The people here are great, it's a big family.
We do great things here.
I would get care here and the care I've witnessed as a patient advocate for my family has been good.

Cons

New Management doesn't seem to care about employees unless it benefits their needs.

Advice to Senior Management

Care about your staff. If you treat your staff with respect and actually care about them then they will return the favor. If you can accomodate schedule needs: Do it
Because when you call them when not schedule to ask them to work, they will come.
Also they will be more likely to stay and the unit will have less turn over rate if they feel accomodated, valued and respected. They would be less likely to leave because they would fear that they would not receive that treatment by other management at another hospital.