Kaiser Permanente Reviews in Los Angeles, CA Area

Pros

Benefits are great; they have a pension. Pay is somewhat aligned with the industry as a whole. Department i am in has a superior training department.

Cons

Department Reorganizations and layoffs seem to be a yearly occurrence. A lot of regular employees are on two year contracts. seems to be hard to move from a two year contact position to a regular full time position. A lot of Departments would rather hire outside the organization than promote from within.

Advice to Senior Management

Give more opportunities to the employees you have.

Pros

It's an OK place to work. Good salary. Good work/life balance.

Cons

Upper mgmt sucks. No clue

Advice to Senior Management

Get a clue..

Pros

good benefits for full-time staff only
good and fair ETO earned time off for full-time staff only
great place to work if you have kids ( you can take off when needed for school functions)
the workers are plesant and easy to work with
if you need to leave early typically not a problem

Cons

thoughfull plesant leadership is lacking.
creative talent can not be utilized to their full potential.
templeted designs, so very little room for creative exploration.
do not project a thought on how it can be improved or done better; keep opinions to yourself this will ensure process and keeping management at a distance - play the game.
year end goals put everyone in a bad mood.
very limited holiday time off, expect to work the day after Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years unless it falls on a weekend. leadership and seniority staff take off every holiday period so you will be working with a few other temps or lower seniority full time staff.
must befriend a manager if you want to get ahead.
allot of favoritism exist, it will take you forever to make friends in this place no matter how hard you try everyone is out for themselves no matter what you do for people.
decision is not a word that is used or understood, you will spend allot of time re-doing things over and over for no apparent reason or understanding, if you ask then your questioning authority or have an attitude, someone with an open mind or thinks rationally this is the worst possible scenario to work in.
it is a us ( management ) vs. them ( employee) mentality.
managemnt does not respect employees and make comments about the ones they don't like with other employees in meetings.
everyone speaks in Kaiser"isms" and the acronyms will take you months to learn, its another language spoken fluentley everyday.

Pros

Longevity is a plus in a large organization like this. Many employees transfer from one facility to another creating a network region wide of people who interact to resolve issues.

Cons

The union can sometimes provide protection of problem employees. Some actions or behaviors warrant a much more harsh action instead of second third and forth chances for the same infraction.

Advice to Senior Management

Practice what you preach.

Pros

Great benefits and salaries
Many people want to do the "right" thing vs being driving solely by financial reasons
Strong name recognition and respect in the industry
Good opportunities for internal training and career advancement
Lots of opportunities in job roles
Diverse workforce

Cons

Large, bureaucratic organization - lots of patience required
Consensus driven environment makes decision making process even slower
Lots of internal politics and small 'fiefdoms'
Difficult to let go of low performing employees

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

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

good benefits--although, as a higher earner, one does have to pay taxes on the imputed value of the benefits.
stable salary structure.
get 1/2 day per week off in Southern California
good way of getting training after completing residency before moving on to bigger and better things

Cons

Very bureaucratic and intensely political environment.

All promotions are based largely on seniority.

Managerial hires must often be approved by union leadership.

The union leadership often paralyzes the organization.

SCPMG has legions of administrators, both physician and non-physician, who sit around, criticize, pontificate and add no value to the organization.

Physicians have little to no autonomy in shaping their own work processes and no control over the unionized support staff.

The unionized support staff are often thuggish and are not held accountable for their actions

I was stuck in a department that was perceived to be of little import to the hospital and medical group. Thus, I did not get the support that I needed. The physician chief of service did not care for either myself or my colleague, perceiving us as a means for him to escape into administrative functions. The non-physician department administrator was weak, ineffectual and unsupportive.

The salary structure is based SOLELY on seniority. There are no rewards given for productivity or revenue brought in. Thus, SCPMG retains older, less productive physicians who find ways to spend their time performing administrative functions.

Inappropriate usage of patient satisfaction surveys often discouraged integrity in the arenas of disability management and opioid prescriptions. While I would not cater to malingerers or drug seekers, I saw colleagues who did both, to preserve their patient satisfaction ratings.

Advice to Senior Management

Empower individual physicians.
Alter the salary structure to reward higher performers and more productive physicians.
Allow the partner physicians some say in organizational decisions, small and large.
Slowly begin replacing unionized positions with non-union positions.
Alter the

Pros

The people are nice. Great benefits.

Cons

Sometimes I work long hours.

Pros

Great company, great benefits, stable.

Cons

Easy to get pigeon-holed in a position because there isn't a clear
Career path. Poor marketing leadership on the national and local level.

Advice to Senior Management

Value your people, provide good training so they can stay relevant to their industry. Listen to your employees, they understand the day-to-day aspects of the job.