Premera Blue Cross Reviews

Pros

Helpful supervisors, great benefits (a wide range of options to choose from for medical/dental/vision insurance), great company morale, lots of freebies. They have an awesome lunch area with all types of food serviced by Sodexho.

Cons

I don't have anything really bad to say about them. Sometimes the call center could get hectic, but that is normal. I would work their again in a heartbeat if they were hiring!

Advice to Senior Management

My advice to management at Premera Blue Cross is to keep up the good work! Continue to treat each employee as an important member of the team and this company will go even farther than it already has!

Pros

Colleagues
Benefits
Location
Committed to community and environment
Strive to do the right thing and make a difference
Adapting well to healthcare reform
Subsidized food program/great food vendor
Health & wellness programs
Flexibility
Concern for employees

Cons

Heirarchy
Limited career advancement opp. for some
Patriarchy
Conservative
Traditional mindset (fairly formal)
Favoritism
Limited recognition and rewards
In many cases, silos still exist
Need more company-wide activities to promote interaction

Advice to Senior Management

Encourage more interaction between groups and set up opportunities. Leadership could be more visible, more forthcoming, less formal, and less controlling.

Pros

Associates have high integrity and are committed to doing the right thing for the customer. Ability to work cross-functionally on solving problems. Lots of associates who are highly knowledgeable about the industry.

Cons

Excessive focus on prioritizing things on lists so that leadership feels they are being addressed, only to be told that there are no resources and the work never gets done. Leadership ability at the director level varies widely. Senior management can sometimes micromanage which is demoralizing if you are a competent professional prepared to come to the table with recommendations and actions. Can be too hierarchical and patriarchical - not a lot of innovation and very conservative.

Pros

Flexible working hours.
The benefits are good.

Cons

IT management does not understand the concept of 'coaching' their associates
Many projects in IT require shared resources yet timing is for support of these projects seems like it is secondary. This causes extra hours that are often above and beyond sensible.
Even if you think you are doing a good job, watch out because it doesn't take much to get you targeted.

Advice to Senior Management

For IT, I would suggest cleaning house from top to bottom.

Pros

Flexible hours, asking for time off is not a struggle, telecommuting, no micro managing, easy and fast commute, ability to listen to music as you work

Cons

Good luck advancing at a normal rate if you're not related to someone in upper management. Sure, there are great opportunities throughout the company, but doesn't mean you actually have a good chance of getting them.

Advice to Senior Management

Reward your employee with something more than jamba juice. Recognize people who actually do good work consistently without having to kiss everyone's behind/be related to someone in a higher position. I'm tired of hearing what a great job we do and getting terrible raises. Then to hear the CEO made $$$$$$$$ in bonuses while we all get 2% raises for our outstanding work is bull.

Pros

-Benefits and compensation
-Work-Life balance
-Commute
-Very smart and educated staff

Cons

-In my group, senior leadership couldn't manage themselves out of a paper bag. Sort of astonishing level of incompetence.
-Management showed little to no interest in creating the conditions for success
-If I had a dollar for every meeting I attended, I could retire. Totally excessive.
-Management definitely fostered a culture of fear and conflict
-In terms of technology, management expertise, operations and processes, openness to innovation, rapidity of change, etc, joining Premera is like joining a state-owned company in the 1950's. If you like that sort of thing, go for it!

Advice to Senior Management

Show some accountability. Show some leadership. Act as if you care about people below your ranks. Check your ego at the door.

Pros

Ample free parking - if you got there before 8:30am. The mission statement and philosophy focused on the customer, the people we insured. Many of the people I worked with both on the Business side and in IT - this was not a large segment of the population due to the lack of accountability that is so wide spread there.

Cons

I've been working in IT for twenty years and I've seen a lot but this by far is the most dysfunctional IT Department I've ever worked in. There is NO Leadership with vision and strategy alignment with the business units. The mismanagement in the Leadership ranks is frightening. It appears they all came from failed companies or were shed by downsizing. There are so many former WaMu people there they could rename it WaMu II. Most of the line staff walks around gleefully unaccountable for producing anything, coming in late and leaving early and socializing most of the day away. There are a lot of people riding on the backs of the few that are working hard there. My advice, if you’re in the IT profession, don’t come here.

Advice to Senior Management

Clean house in IT Leadership from the CIO down or just outsource it all. Provide real vision and leadership to the IT masses so they can work up to their real potential and not languish in the backwaters of IT.

Pros

My co-workers and team members were fantastic. There was fairly good training as well. Ability to have Health, Life, D&D insurance fully paid for were good as well.

Cons

The company is very political. Teams within the same department were unwilling to help each other out and supporting departments also were unwilling to go the extra mile if there was a need. Long standing employees (20 plus) were fired without explanation - The company would simply take there stuff away in the middle of the night and pretend like they didn't exist.

Advice to Senior Management

Treat your employees better - support healthier lifestyles, don't be so draconian as well. I only saw Mr. Barlow on video and heard him in voicemails in my tenure. I felt like I was living in the book 1984.

Pros

Good food and prices offered in building 4 cafeteria.

Cons

Cut out middle management, look at the processes in place. You want to save paper, but you aren't utilizing the phone to get answers. Just sending out letters that document you made contact with the insurance applicants. It's wasting time, to people who clearly need coverage sooner not later. You have contractors telling other contractors what there job and duties are. This is causing errors and mistakes and mismanagement of the contractors to not perform as well as they could be - if they were managed by Premera permanent employees. It is not a fair situation. If I had known I never would have taken the position. It ended abruptly with a lack of consideration from middle management not even
having the decency to explain why. It left me cold. I can only wonder the impact of how the customers who look for getting health insurance here feel. There is a disconnect here from management, Premera employees and the contractors brought in. This could be more successful, but it fails because you don't counsel the temps as to what is being done incorrectly. You just remove them and don't tell them why.

Advice to Senior Management

If a worker is not counseled to correct what is not satisfactory, it is not a very kind situation. I felt the contractors who had been there longer were running the show. And middle management wasn't seeing behind the scenes as how the work flow was being directed. There were times it didn't make sense what we were being asked to do. And it may have been misconstrued. Advice to management is stop sending all those letters and make some phone calls to get documentation sooner to approve and process applications from the public. Have a group phone line for people to call to know the status of their applications, as well as email. There is a bottle neck there and it doesn't have to be that way.
Lastly, talk to people and let them know they are about to lose their job and why. I ended up feeling used and discarded after I got a phone call that this had been my last day. Your company should be handling this with more class. And not a "let the screen door slam on your way out". I worked hard to accomplish my work and never got any thanks or recognition for it. Even if I was the worst worker, I don't think you should treat people that way. I guess I know better now. But people at the top at Premera, take a closer look at how the middle managers are performing their jobs. It leaves a bad taste.

Pros

Nice commute and location, good parking,

Cons

Poor middle and upper management

Advice to Senior Management

New leadership