Pros
-Occasional opportunity to work with great colleagues, clinicians, researchers and leaders from other areas of Duke Health (PDC, Finance, Performance Services, clinical departments and service lines, individual hospitals, etc.). If you are interested in joining Duke, skip applying for roles with the Strategic Planning team and go straight for these other departments.
Cons
-Ineffective, insecure leaders at the Strategic Planning department level that regularly trash other executives across Duke behind their backs, and also blame the staff below them for the bulk of the department’s issues. Despite this, they are still successful at “managing up” well enough to the point that it is largely unknown to others outside the department. -A department culture that fosters micromanagement, blame, politics, burnout and an inability to make decisions regarding prioritization of work. -Extremely inflexible department leaders and policies. If something comes up in your personal life and you need even just a half day of PTO, the department wants you to submit it at least two weeks in advance. Never mind the fact that we don’t have patient caseloads or any rational reason for this. Also, working from home is prohibited... for anyone below the director level. This particular policy, along with most others, have significant double standards. -Strategic Planning leadership plans all-day “team-building” workshops and other extracurricular activities nearly monthly with required attendance, but at the same time assigns a mountain of work due either that same day or the day afterward. Staff end up working until midnight, while trying to keep up and maintain the charade that “everything is just perfect!”. -Unless you are one of the department leadership’s favorites, having friendships with others either within the department or in other Duke departments is highly frowned upon. -General lack of appreciation for diversity (racial/ethnic, diverse skill sets, etc.). To be successful in the department, at the bare minimum you need to look, act, speak and have the same skill set as department leadership. Other backgrounds, viewpoints and skills aren’t valued. -Be prepared to have baseless accusations thrown your way on a daily/weekly basis. On occasion, these will be written up into some variety of HR warnings/actions. HR has been complicit in letting all of this happen in the process. -Lack of judgement regarding the character of individuals brought on at the director level or above since the start of 2018. It has been a mix of bullies, mean girls, princesses and child sexual predators (seriously... just google it). Or a mix of all of the above. -Unbelievably high turnover. -If any of these work culture issues are raised, even in a delicate manner, you will be treated with disdain for not being “on board”.
