Mayo Clinic Reviews

Pros

Very good benefits, doing research in cutting-edge field, good name

Cons

Administrative system is a little bit sluggish and inefficient, but not a big problem.

Pros

Mayo provides very good benefits; particularly for research staff I has 18 conference days. Health and other benefits are good as well. Very collegial environment.

Cons

Visible signs of inefficiencies as people are here for forever. This often results in a simple task taking unreasonably long time.

Advice to Senior Management

I think the management is well aware of what needs to be done to make Mayo even better than what it is today.

Pros

Benefits, great educational support w/Library providing assistance with articles and so forth. Tuition reimbursement is one of the best in the Nation for an employer! Amazing Gym for staff at a very reasonable price. As a nurse, I've worked elsewhere and I must give credit where it deserves credit. There is good open communication between nurses and "residents" but zero with the consultants. Consultants here are the Staff doctors, and most of them 98% walk with their noses up in the air never acknowledging the nurses who care for their patients. Rochester is a very safe, small, no traffic kind of town. If you have kids, this is the place you can appreciate living in. If you are single, don't get your hopes up.

Cons

No Parking for new staff. If you work a 7A shift, you basically have to wake up at 5A to get here on time, and that's only if you live in TOWN!!! No diversity what so ever, and Minnesotan Nice is not nice at all! Too many two faced people here. I'm not saying that there aren’t any hypocrites anywhere else, but nothing like this place! A very bureaucratic management and advancement opportunities for nurses are limited. It certainly is about who you know and how well you've gotten along with your nurse manager to move up the ladder. If you've never worked anywhere else but Mayo you will not feel competent to work anywhere else after working here. Nurses don't start IV, or even put foley cathers in! They have a "team" for all of this. At first this may seem nice for you that you don't have to worry about doing this, but when you need an IV STAT, good luck! They give you less patients to care fore than other hospitals, but you will be doing a lot more than your nursing role to make up for that. Nurses here change linens, bathe your patients in a shower not just in bed, feed your patients and do your strict I&O, and sometimes get paid to sit in a combative patient's room as a one to one, because they don't have patient sitters here. Oh and to top it off, you'll also be a social worker calling Nursing homes to hold patient's bed and arrange home health Oxygen and so forth. Basically, they call this "Primary Nursing." I would have to say the ultimate con in this workplace is the lack of diversity and way too much back stabbing and triangulation. If you are not from the Midwest, don't ever move here! You will regret it!! Go to Jacksonville or Arizona but don't ever think of coming to this frozen land!!

Advice to Senior Management

Be flexible and understand other people's culture and modalities. Don't claim to be a diverse employer, yet expect employees to adapt and adjust their communication styles for the "Minnesotan style." Way too many committees and chain of command, and all do NOTHING to resolve anything in a timely matter. In fact they will do as much stalling for any change to happen!

Pros

Appears to be a financially secure healthcare facility.

Cons

To political it takes a long time for dicisions to be made and then implementation is prolonged.

Pros

* job security
* secure job
* won't lose you job (as long as you show up and follow the dress & decorum policy)
* given the low productivity levels (in the non-patient-driven areas), if you're smart about it, you can get by with "working" very few hours.
* people are mostly nice and friendly, though backstabbers and passive-aggressive behavior are tolerated
* did I mention, that as long as you show up and don't do anything illegal, you won't get fired? dream job for slackers!
* access to good continuing education
* mediocre standards (in non-patient areas) provide opportunities to achieve great work-life balance by doing just the bare minimum
* if you do a great job fixing your own mess, you will be recognized for the extra effort
* there are a few rare gems among the middle and even senior managers, but they can't (and don't *want* to be everywhere...)
* marketing to the outside (the consumers) has improved 1,000-fold in the past decade. Kudos to allowing forward-looking people to do innovative things (e.g., social media presence)

Cons

* rampant nepotism - promotion based on seniority, not rocking the boat, not challenging those in charge and by getting along well with the MDs
* rampant mediocrity; majority of all middle managers are promoted from within, often two or three levels beyond their first level of incompetency (would that be the pointy-haired boss principle?)
* great work above and beyond the normal is not recognized, as it threatens to raise the mediocre standards set in place by the middle management
* complete lack of strategic thinking, strategic planning by the vast majority of middle managers
* every innovative idea only survives once it has been thoroughly bureaucratized (mayo-ized)
* the leadership model is a physician/administrator partnership model that would work great if there was insistence by the physicians to put outstanding administrative leaders in place; but most administrators lack basic leadership skills and are mostly strong on operational management; thus the physicians need to step in as leaders - and that's what most of them never were trained for, so they wing it - most better than their administrative partner (for what it's worth) but still way below the potential. You wouldn't let a psychiatrist perform a heart surgery, so why do you let almost any MD be "a leader"?
* as long as

Advice to Senior Management

* hire aggressively (60%+) from the outside giving the new senior managers the right to fire non-performing middle managers. Set a goal of replacing 40% of all managers with managers and leaders who have managed and led outside of Mayo.
* totally overhaul your IT department. It is performing at less than 25% of its potential based on the money spent and the number of employees (1,800+). That means giving people a year or two to live up to their salary and job performance
* pay for performance, especially in the non-patient-care areas. a quick and easy way to change the culture to one of metric-driven high performance.
* get Dr. Noseworthy an administrative partner that is a visionary leader and not a die-hard cost-cutting performance enhancer (that can also weed out the administrative ranks without having to give thought of firing their neighbors or now-relatives...)
* in summary: create a culture of accountability - and act and pay accordingly; create a culture of leadership, not operations management; create a culture of disruptive innovation, not incremental improvement. Make the brothers Mayo proud again.

Pros

Mayo is a national treasure and offers many opportunities for challenging work. Mayo is not for profit and does not suffer from the competitive stresses of other similar large healthcare organization.

Cons

Mayo, like many other healthcare organizations, suffers from an over reliance on process and systems thinking. Mayo has a historical tendency to be risk averse and struggles to adapt to change in a timely manner.

Advice to Senior Management

Read Gladwell...

Pros

Good reputation and excellent at what it does. Staff at Mayo are friendly and dedicated to what they do--without question. There is, however, a disconnect. The mantra is that the needs of the patient always come first. Well. They do, BUT. The real need, more and more evident too, is to stay financially viable and to grow the institution. One can speculate as to why that is . . .

Cons

First, many management level jobs are ONLY open to people with 10 years or more at Mayo, and senior positions only to those who have worked at the southern locations as well as the one in Minnesota. Then there's the issue of special treatment for a certain echelon of staff--all physicians, and those administrators who have a) been in the organization for a long time (it is not uncommon at Mayo to work with people who have NEVER WORKED ANYWHERE ELSE), and/or b) been recommended to the secret "society" by another member of the this large and elite group. It is very painful. A good physician does not necessarily a good leader make.

Oh, and dress code. Yes indeed, there is a DRESS AND DECORUM COMMITTEE that dictates what you can and cannot wear--and this is well beyond the pale. People have been reported for wearing open toed sandals to work, for not wearing hose on a hot summer day, for not sporting the jacket and tie . . . so, you decide. Great place to work? Yes, it's a place to work.

Advice to Senior Management

Instead of thumping your collective chests about Fortune saying its such a great place to work, look around and actually INVESTIGATE your staff satisfaction surveys. Look at your practices in that regard. Then ask yourself if what you spin back to the rank and file is genuine and real.

Pros

Decent benefits
Tuition reimbursement
Access to reputable healthcare

Cons

Stress & hostility in the workplace.
HR seems bias toward management when addressing issues that are brought to their attention.
Little to no recognition for a job well done.
Nonproductve employees are allowed to keep doing nothing.
Promotions are based on politics rather than performance.

Advice to Senior Management

Please don't continue foster an environment were nonmangerial staff members are treated poorly and where the only remedy to the problem is resignation. I think 'where the needs of patient come first' is a great motto to live by but it should not come at the expense of treating employees with respect.

Pros

Great pay and benefits. Fantastic resources. A very wealthy institution.

Cons

Management’s refusal to openly acknowledge and address issues related to patient care, sanctioning of employees who speak up, HR complicity in punishing employees who speak up and HR complicity in protecting supervisors who cover up the problems.

Advice to Senior Management

Fire supervisors and HR personnel who cover up the problems (ex: deleting and shredding documentation). Hold management responsible for unethical behavior. Encourage employees to report their supervisors to a neutral and fair party.

Pros

* World-class reputation
* Brightest minds and leaders in the provider community
* Excellent resources and tools -- you just need to know where to find them

Cons

* Diversity (lack of)
* Rigid and formal culture
* No motivation or incentives for management to address bad apples in the crowd

Advice to Senior Management

* Just like there is a world-class system in providing the best care to patients, create a world-class talent and leadership recruitment, development and retention system. Don't just reserve the best opportunities for Administrative Fellows.
* Take calculated risks and make bold efforts for transformative and consistent system-wide change.