Kaiser Permanente Reviews in Los Angeles, CA Area

Pros

Money. The managers are too inexperienced and naive to negotiate.

Cons

Even basic business skills are not understood. When you reveal how naive they are, they will blame or fire you.

Advice to Senior Management

Your managers/ directors are naive. Your marketing and technology is WAY behind. REORG! Bring in people from the outside who have experience.

Pros

Job security, nice people, opportunity from within

Cons

Hard to get into, if you start at a lower salary to get your foot in the door, you'll stay at pretty much that salary forever because they will never give more than a 10% raise, if that.

Pros

Excellent benefits for the employees

Cons

Company is so large, sometimes you get lost in the crowd

Advice to Senior Management

none

Pros

The benefits are great. Flexible for families and great for mediocre work.

Cons

Awful place to work if you have ambition or want to implement change.

Advice to Senior Management

Change should be encouraged.

Pros

The benefits are good, but only if you work there long enough. Some departments allow a flesible 9/80 schedule. They offer a pension and 401(k) matching, and if you work there long enough, they'll cover your Medicare premiums.

Cons

I can only speak of my group: Terrible group leaders with poor communication skills and even worse at doing their jobs. One plays the political game well, the other is just along for the ride. They reward only people who have been there a long time instead of people who can do the work. They are not very open to ideas to improve the department. They micromanage practically every minute and like to throw it back in your face to keep you down. Direct supervisor is not a very loyal leader and they're pretty cheap on group events.

Advice to Senior Management

To the senior management: Replace my group leaders with people from outside. We all know the only reason they're in their positions is because of seniority and they know where certain information can be located. It certainly isn't because of competency.

Pros

Great benefits and great people. Good mission to help people be the best they can be. Serves the communities with free health clinics, grants and events.

Cons

Marketing leadership stumbles with clear vision, direction and indecisiveness. Matrixed organization, requires a lot of searching for the right person to get things done.

Advice to Senior Management

Marketing leadership needs to take more interest in developing their employees and in helping them break down barriers that get in the way of them doing good work.

Pros

I would say that there is a lot of room for growth and the opportunities do exist. I am happy.

Cons

The pay is not the top of the line. But I think the benefits make up for the lack of pay.

Pros

everyone who either knows about Kaiser from the outside or current employees know about the "historical" claim to superior benefit packages. There are a ton of really great people who work in the company. The "communal" decision making processes encourage and reward long-term friendships/partnerships that can be leveraged for advancement...which unfortunately is also a downside....Kaiser is no meritocracy.....

Cons

There does not seem to be a correlation to hours worked, how hard you work, success in your job...and advancement. There is a curious certification program akin to a kind of union environment that punishes high-achievers and rewards mediocrity. This certification program, however, is unevenly applied only to certain classes of employees namely those who are lower on the totem pole. If you happen to be a mid-level director and up you are "MYSTERIOUSLY" exempt. Bottom-line gripe: For some people in order to advance you must traverse their certifcation requirements for each level which translates that while mid-level folks and up HAVE no requirements outside of their normal job duties to advance and for everyone else you must not only (1) excel at your current job to a point where someone blesses you with the "right" to (2) satisfy their "certification" requirements. In KP, lack of TRUST by management toward staff is a major problem that creates a "your on THAT side of the railroad tracks" mentality where management preferences consultants over experienced staff. .....in fact the dirty little secret is that a lot of mid-level-and-up execs are/WERE these same consultants......so the fear about the inmates taking over the asylum makes the paternalistic control and structure of KP more understandable. So the fact that the number one complaint by experienced KP employees is that "management does not listen" is really a symptom of a larger issue that "management does not want to listen".

Advice to Senior Management

frankly............giving advice to senior leadership here....is kind of like telling Congress not to raise taxes.... Death and retirement appear the only path to cleansing this issue. And no, not all KP employees believe that Halvorson's leftward leanings toward assuming the role of Obama's healthcare gestapo for the rest of the industry is a good idea.

Pros

Kaiser's reputation is highly regarded in California among health care professionals.

Cons

If you are looking for a place to work with not much movement and change this would be an ideal location.

Advice to Senior Management

Improve employees growth through coaching and mentoring programs

Pros

Great benefits with stability. Size of organization & name recognition allow for pridenof employment.
The company truly values employees and promotes work/life balance.S

Cons

Difficultnto move up within the organization unless there is turn over of senior staff. The regional differences and the addition of national program office create gaps in communication.

Advice to Senior Management

Work more closely with regions and force chNge to those regions that are outliers. Provide opportunity and incentive for regions to collaborate & adopt similar processes.