Kaiser no longer cares about employees or patients - Optician Kaiser Permanente Employee Review

1.0
Sep 12, 2022
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Health Insurance Pension Misc. Other Benefits Higher Pay Guaranteed your full hours

Cons

This used to be a great place to work but its been slowly going downhill over this past few years. Kaiser is laying off and firing as many people as it can to save money. This leaves all medical center staff short to deal with the increasing number of patients that kaiser wants to get to be able to get more money. In addition you are expected to now fill in for other positions so they don't have to pay those postitions the extra money and just force you to do the extra work for the same pay. Usually this means 10 to 20 patients for every 1 worker which causes angry patients and long lines. For any appointment with a doctor it can take up to 4 months to get in to see a doctor even in the mental health department so hopefully no one has an emergency. Management doesn't want to work with you at all or listen to any of your feedback. The people who make decisions do not work in the department and make decisions on a number basis instead of any intelligent design. For example if you have 1 doctor working then you only need 1 person working even if your job is more than directly working with the doctor. You could help 100 patients that day and it doesn't matter they do not look at that or take that into account. When someone quits instead of replacing that person they just get rid of that job entirely and the other workers with the same title just take over all of their work. This has become a toxic work environment leading to employee infighting due to stress and being overwhelmed among other things. Kaiser does nothing to help with this and just hands out write ups as often as they can. Speaking of which if you are sick 3 times in 90 days even with a doctors note you will get written up. Kaiser would rather someone come in sick and spread it to patients than to allow the employee time to recover from sickness. I could go on and on and on. IF you are willing to do the job of 5 other people and would like higher pay then I would apply however if you want to keep your sanity then I would look elsewhere. Kaiser is no longer a company who cares about employees or patients. They just care about how much profit a non-profit can make. Kaiser is no longer a non-profit organization so don't think they care. The CEO makes millions of dollars and his pay hasn't gone down but the amount of employees have.

Explore other reviews about Kaiser Permanente

5.0
Jun 26, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great work life balance and supportive team.

Cons

Slow to change and adapt new technologies.

4.0
Sep 9, 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Kaiser is a great place to work and build a career over time. In my experience salaries are above market for most positions, and the benefits are so good that many people become "lifers". The health coverage is extremely generous, and time off starts off adequate and gets better over time (18 days when you start, moving up to 33 after 15+ years - this does not include sick time). Employees truly believe in the mission of KP (at least, I do) and it's clear that this is a place where employees' contributions are valued. Although my role is not part of any of the unions, the fact that our workforce is predominantly unionized also places a positive role in KP's reputation as a good place for workers (although having unionized staff also presents many challenges). Overall, I enjoy working at KP and would recommend it to others, but understand that you are entering a big bureaucracy. A friendly, mission-driven bureaucracy, but still.

Cons

Cons: having lots of "lifers" means that innovative ideas and workflows are not always adopted without a fight. People have their roles deeply embedded here, and any threat to the status quo is seen as negative, even though we need to make some pretty radical changes given the new health care environment post-ACA. There's a lot of "not my job" attitudes here. It's hard to navigate the layers of bureaucracy, both in terms of personnel/HR/benefits, and in getting work done (there are often 4-5 departments at the regional and national KP levels working on similar areas, and no guidance on who does what.) Be aware that KP is not immune to reorganizations and layoffs -- they do make a good attempt to ensure workers are hired elsewhere in the organization, but there are no guarantees, and there can be a lot of turnover in certain departments. Benefits are currently generous but are always subject to downgrades in the future, so just be aware of that. Some changes to the pension and retiree medical benefits are about to hit, and with them a wave of Baby Boomers will be taking retirement, which should hopefully open up many new management opportunities for Millennials. Oh, and the biggest con of all: we still - STILL - use Lotus Notes for email. Shocking, I know, but true.

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