Pros

Great benefits package, reasonable compensation. Hard-working peers and associates. Not much else to do in Rochester, so that should be considered.

Cons

Rochester is a nice town but it is rather boring. The Clinic has also recently initiated a hiring freeze, which may make getting a job more difficult.

Advice to Senior Management

Must increase the efficiency of certain units. There is a lot of overhead and some of the positions need to be reworked.

Pros

Pay is OK, not much else positive to say.

Cons

Boast themselves as a great company to work for, the reality is they're only another greedy company, looking to make profit, and cut benefits. Work employees to the bone, the recession is the greatest excuse to freeze hiring even if they're making huge profits.

Advice to Senior Management

When the recession is over, employees will probably leave in large number for better workplaces.

Pros

Large, complex administration with potential for upward mobility. Large investment in retaining their employees. Surrounded by well educated, well trained, and professional staff. High standards and numerous internal training/education opportunities.

Cons

It's a very large, complex organization where the individual becomes diluted by the numbers. Health insurance, while at a premiere health care organization, is limited to only Mayo Clinic resources.

Advice to Senior Management

At this point, I cannot see how they could/would change anything. They're doing the best possible given the limitations.

Pros

professional learning, , prestigious,teamwork,pride and the ability to change jobs while working for the same employer.you are at the forefront of medicine, so saving lives and being on the cutting edge is powerful.

Cons

compensation is not equal to others, the admin hired to replace a loved and respected admin has been the biggest downside in the last two to three years. She has been too distant and has favrites.

Advice to Senior Management

compensation,promotion

Pros

Respectful, collegial environment. Excellent benefits. Mayo Clinic makes working easy: backup childcare, generous paid time off, excellent continuing education support (tuition reimbursement), subsidized commute via public transportation.

Cons

Organization is stuck in "that's the way we've always done (insert topic)" mindset that gets in the way of innovation and creative solutions. Employee parking is almost nonexistent, which makes getting to and from work a real challenge for most.

Advice to Senior Management

Be open to change. Think about ways to evolve while maintaining the best elements of Mayo tradition.

Pros

The atmosphere is very laid back, that's for sure. You don't have a manager breathing down your neck, babysitting you. Compensation is pretty good for full-time employees, especially the health care. If you're going to work at the Mayo Clinic in an IT position, don't expect to be too stressed out about work, or staying long hours as long as you're competent enough to get it done on time.

Cons

First of all, getting into Mayo Clinic for a full time position is extremely difficult if you don't have the right connections and lots of patience. The recruitment process there is horrible, as they may put you on hold indefinitely without giving you a word of what's going on. And, in order to get in, you must put on a fake show in such a way as to conform to their standards of personality and behavior. In my experience, not much work was ever really done there, but it was mostly meetings and other things that got in the way of real work.

Advice to Senior Management

Stay on top of the recruiting process, restructure it if you have to. And make the IT department more IT and hire people with actual technical skills rather than schmoozing skills.

Pros

Mayo Clinic has very good work life balance. Mayo's focus is on providing excellent patient care and has built a strong reputation based on the integrated clinical practice, medical education, and medical research. It is very satisfying to work for a company that is clearly making a positive difference for mayo people's lives.

Cons

Mayo, from an IT/IS perspective has some big problems and frustrations. First, our failure rate on projects is much higher than it should be. There are many reasons for this. One is the strict requirements from a development point of view. Mayo has an IT standard called the Target Technical Architecture (TTA). The goal of the TTA is to provide a uniform, consistent IT infrastructure across this organization, a nobel goal. But what it really does is lock us into a set of tools that is out of date, and not optimal for the problems we are trying to solve. This makes work tedious and boring and redundant. When you know there are better solutions, but you are not allowed to use them, it can be very demoralizing. I think it also stifles creativity.
Another problem is that Mayo's IT infrastructure lacks a good project management and testing group for IT projects.
One of the most frustrating and demoralizing decisions recently is that all IT staff at Mayo are going to be required to wear business formal. For many of us with no direct patient contact, this makes no sense. It is going to make work more uncomfortable for many of us. Its also expensive for us to have to go out and buy a fancy wardrobe.

Advice to Senior Management

Realize that IT is central to the success of the business. Building the business knowledge and incorporating it into solutions is a complex task. You need to build integrated IT teams similar to the integrated clinical teams that Mayo is built on. The organization, management, and analysis of data at Mayo is too important to hand off to vendors. You need the experts on-site who can put these solutions together and maintain them.

Pros

Hired for life...unless you plan to move

Cons

Very laid back work culture. no performance incentives, no aggressive promotions.

Advice to Senior Management

Promote aggressive performance with tangible rewards.