Pros
It is a paycheck It is a job
Cons
The paycheck is smaller than industry standard. The job will most likely get outsourced or you laid off. Optum steps over dollars to pick up nickels. Guide to avoiding working for Optum: PAY: The reviews on Glassdoor regarding pay at Optum are totally correct. The pay is well below industry standard for doing the same work. If you have a family. If you have a tight income. If you have bills or personal responsibilities of any kind, this is one employer you cannot trust to pay you well. Even if you ignore this warning and work for Optum anyways, uoi will see 1-2% annual merit increates (yet benefits and cost of living are +8% each year). You will also most likely not receive a good bonus or a bonus at all. The huge bonuses you read about in the papers are reserved fpr pay grade 30 and above (director and up). DO NOT BANK or plan on receiving a bonus very year, regardless of how hard you work and what you deliver for Optum/UHG. BENEFITS: Benefits are horrible ($2700 deductible?; Really...from the largest healthcare provider, THIS is the bets Optum/UHG can do for their employees?). Also there are all of these supplemental insurances you can but that really are over prices and amount to nothing. No pension! Fortune 6 company, made $270 billion last year (yes, with a “b”), yet no pension for you…yet GREAT bonuses for the execs. Do not work here if you have any sort of retirement planning in mind. CAREER: It is a great mystery how maneuverability works within Optum/UHG. You will hear how to come in, get your foot in the door and then you can move around. FALSE! Please read the reviews on here. If you do decide to ignore this guide and take a job at Optum/UHG, prepare for annual layoffs and jobs being moved to India. If you survive that, after taking on the jobs of people who left the company (since there has been zero growth positions at Optum, and they do not backfill), you are now doing 2 or 3 people’s jobs, for the same lower than industry pay, with terrible benefits and no maneuverability. If you manage to live through all of this, be prepared to keep exactly the same job you came into the company with…with no promotional opportunities. LEADERSHIP: Optum enjoys a “bottoms-up” leadership style. Leadership is completely non-existent, leaning on the employee to define their job duties and role son their own, and hope the teams they interact with share the same view. If you ask your leadership to, well, actually lead and make a real decision they will make YOU feel like you do not know how to do or handle your job. It was the oddest leadership style and structure I have ever experienced. The phrase I heard from leadership many times was “We are successful despite ourselves”. Wow, if that doesn’t inspire you to do great work, I do not know what will. CULTURE: Ignore all of the cultural talk. No one walks the walk or talks the talk. Optum remains a white male patriarchal driven institution. Women are NOT paid equally. Minorities are NOT treated equally. Sexism, racism, and nepotism are rampant at Optum. Optum, there should be NO ‘isms” in the workplace AT ALL. The only constant is that senior leadership continue to receive large bonuses while the culture around them crumbles to all time low levels of morale and super high levels of attrition. Again, read the other reviews on here and take employment at Optum at your own risk. You were warned!