Kaiser Permanente Reviews

Pros

Well Organized, Competent Management, Good benefit packages

Cons

Salary is not very competatitive

Advice to Senior Management

Keep going

Pros

Healthcare - it's the industry that is experiencing the highest growth and has the most potential.

Cons

Employment - working for unskilled Executive Directors.

Advice to Senior Management

Please qualify your Executive Directors prior to promoting them to the role.

Pros

pay was competitive, formulary of drugs was nice for pharmacist, initial training was decent, management willing to invest in technology and facilities. It is a good place to work for new pharmacy graduates.

Cons

You will like Kaiser if you like:
1. Four-hour shifts. Even part-time pharmacists and technicians work many four-hour days. What does this mean? Very few days off. Do the math. Working twenty hours per week means working five days per week. One hour commute each way, means giving thirty hours to get paid twenty. This is great if you like to have no days off and drive a lot.
2. Lots of management dishonesty and mind games. For example, management puts note on employee food refrigerator door saying refrigerator is being removed. In fact, refrigerator is not being removed, it is just a way to make the employees angry and clean out the refrigerator. Apparently this approach is preferred to discussing cleaning of refrigerator with employees – like adults. No joke. Wish it was.
3. Filling all prescriptions for every patient in ten minutes or less. Patient comes in and hands pharmacy technician 18 empty prescription bottles and wants refills. Patient is assigned a number. If that number is not recorded as completed (i.e. all prescriptions filled and patient paying at register) in ten minutes, you have “failed” in customer service. Your “failures” are recorded meticulously and reviewed with you – of course. No excuses accepted. Pharmacists and technicians in tears daily. Seriously.
4. Being told to help patients, then being punished for helping patients. For example, patient gets glucose monitor machine. If you spend a few minutes educating the patient on how to use the machine (like you’ve been required by management) you are punished for taking too much time and also NOT sending the patient to a diabetic educator – where patient must pay ANOTHER copay for that service. If you do NOT educate the patient on how to use the machine, you are punished for not providing excellent customer service. Damned if you do help the patient, damned if you don’t help the patient.
5. Being terminated as an older pharmacist. Apparently, the experienced pharmacist is viewed as primarily a person to train his/her replacement. You see, after you train a couple of younger pharmacists, it’s just time for you to either be terminated or have your hours cut so low that you have to quit and take another job elsewhere.
6. Equipment failure. Give Kaiser credit for investing in some technology – they deserve that credit. They developed and used the electronic medical record years before legally required to. On the downside, their technical support for that technology is quite poor.

Advice to Senior Management

Make up your minds on what employees are supposed to do. Put employees in a position where they MIGHT succeed and not in a position where they are guaranteed to fail. Realize that eliminating your experienced people comes with a cost – and ultimately means that YOU will be eliminated in a few years for no legitimate reason. Ask not for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee.

Pros

great benefits, sweet people, everyone there was hard working and compitent of there job. They where caring wanted everyone to succeed.

Cons

room for growth was not great. I had long hours and would have to work on the weekends once every month

Pros

work/ life balance
career development
lots of opportunities
engaged and smart employees

Cons

large
bureacratic
performance improvement not streamlined
could get lost in organization

Advice to Senior Management

Focus on mentoring and employee development

Pros

We get 7.5 weeks of vacation if you are a non union employee so long as you do not call off sick using your vacation hours. Union employees get 5wk of vacation with 5 days of Life Balance.

Cons

Managers hiring other managers daughters, sons and friends...nepotism.

Advice to Senior Management

Look at your managers and see if they are qualified to do the job. Do they have a degree? Many managers at kaiser do not have degrees.

Pros

Great benefits, solid company, low turnover for the most part.

Cons

Management (Marketing and Communications) do not listen to their employees and therefore don't understand the line of business that they lead.
Small bonuses (based on organizational performance in a non-profit environment)
Slow to market with new products or too quick to market without handling operational issues to ensure functionality. It's hard to market something that does not work!

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to your employees. They do the actual work and know how things operate. When you make aspirational decisions, you look stupid.

Pros

there is no big pressure on works

Cons

It is hard to get everything done fast.

Advice to Senior Management

try to improve the working efficiency and reduce the cost

Pros

Good healthcare benefit. Overall job location was good.Office furniture, lightening and general work environment (esthetics) was good, Town halls were fun! Love the Thrive Campaign!

Cons

They work you to death. Look down upon you taking any time for medical or bereavement leave for that matter. Politics run thick. Management is bread from thick politics. The retirement benefits are rarely enjoyed except for those who stay beyond five years. That is nearly impossible as either work hours get you, the lack of management support, poor pay, or politics most everyone is thinned out before then. They sound good on paper. but the disconnect is HUGE. No thriving here

Advice to Senior Management

Overhall! The politically incumbent management is sick. Review your values, review your mission, think the pack-- maybe you can actually beome the company you profess to be.

Pros

you learn a lot about different technologies, great work environment, good people, flexible hours, telecommute if desire.

Cons

long approval cycles, everything is happening very slowly, a lot of money is wasted on technology that at the end of the day might not be implemented