Pros
The benefits are generous. Even before Covid, I was fortunate to have the ability to work remote full-time. When this is possible, NH is willing to allow this. While they do not provide individual merit raises, they offer company wide cost of living raises from time to time, as well as 1-2% bonuses, if departments as a whole have met their goals for the previous year. These are often given out in the spring. Some employees have complained about this because they feel like the employee evaluations are useless in that they do not reward people for excellent performance. However, I view it as helpful because I worked for a smaller company in the past where people only got raises if they were favored by the boss, as if it were a popularity contest. It has it's pros & cons. Because of my previous experience, I'm for this current process.
There is a different culture for clinical vs non-clinical team members. Clinical team typically have to go in to work each day, but they are also less often the targeted for layoffs. It is the opposite for non-clinical teams.
At NH, you can work on a really wonderful team and feel valued, appreciated, not micro-managed, challenged, growing and blessed, but you can also work on teams where it is the opposite. I have personally experienced a little of both. They let middle-managers really manage the employees, so if you have a good manager/director, you may be more satisfied at NH, than someone on a different team with a different manager/director with a different management style.
I have seen a lot of people get promoted within NH with nice salary increases, but I have also witnessed those same individuals be laid off within a year or two. It can be viewed as a positive, because then they can take that experience with them and use it on their resume, but there are some who don't want to be promoted after watching that.
Cons
I've mentioned the good culture side of NH in the pros section, but you can also work for teams where there is a bad culture, understaffed, overworked, micro-managed, and feel unappreciated. In 2023, NH went through a high number of layoffs and reorganization. They targeted C-suite, VPs, directors all the way down to keep from impacting clinical services, which is always their core focus. Non-clinical teams are always at risk. It isn't over, as in Dec 2023, NH announced more Digital Products and Services (DPS) jobs will be outsourced to WiPro in India by May 2024. People are viewed as resources, despite them renaming HR to People & Culture. Resources (people) are quick to be chopped when they want to purchase more hospitals and get their operational margins down to a percentage that will help them win the bids and offers on these takeovers and mergers.
Since all the layoffs, morale is low and people are being very careful, taking no risks, and many projects have been abandoned, frozen or are moving at a snails pace. DPS projects were always slow, but this is on a whole new level I never thought possible. While they started out laying off mostly contractors, it quickly turned to permanent employees. Most non-clinical hirings right now are contractor positions, so they won't get to experience the great benefits here, as there is often a hiring freeze, even when there aren't any layoffs. DPS has introduced a lot of red tape to getting work done. Everything is heavily scrutinized, and most likely won't gain approval to move forward. While we have made progress in some areas, we have paused progress in so many other areas. It feels like everyone in DPS as a whole have become paralyzed, and that doesn't feel like a healthy culture.
For the most part, I have always enjoyed working at NH and proud to tell people where I work, but that is slowly changing and fading. I believe things will get better, as all companies operate on cycles, but some of these changes have brought in a new culture that also feels like it is here to stay. The old NH is gone, and I believe that was the intention. They wanted to bring about change, and they have succeeded.
