CVS Health reviews

Benefits: 1. Expensive! High Deductible Health Plans are essentially the only affordable option. They do have one PPO that is just insanity from a cost perspective. 2. Employees are their test cases for new PBM networks/benefit offerings/restrictions. This year it was the 'value formulary' which didn't even ensure that Class B drugs were included. Class B drugs are those that have been proven safe in pregnancy & breast feeding. Considering half the population is female this is a gigantic oversight 3. Maternity leave is a short term disability policy. 6-weeks for a regular delivery, 8 weeks for a c-section. CVS has also been known to raid female employees PTO banks to 'pay' them while on leave even with confirmation in writing not to do so. I know three employees that this happened to in the last year and all then had to 'pay back' the difference in the form of not receiving a check. Companies of similar size have found ways to make 12 weeks paid leave work for their employees but CVS as a 'Health Care company' doesn't seem interested in doing what's right for their female employees. Work Environment: 1. Locations are primarily driven by the type of work that is done there. If you're ok with the following a move to RI to continually advance may not be in the cards for you: TX - IT professionals, RI - Corporate/Retail & some PBM, IL - Professionals and PBM operations, Scottsdale PBM operations 2. Work life balance all comes down to your Sr leaders. There are some that explicitly say that 50+ hours every week is what they expect. Others are good with 40 3. Re-Orgs: Happen every six months or so. Most don't have enough time to make a material impact before another occurs. They bill this internally as being 'agile' but all it does is create more chaos 4. Transform Care - A signature product the PBM is developing - if you see this listed in job openings, run. Literally, do not apply. This team is now on it's third iteration of staff (the first two waves were laid off) because deadlines were unrealistic to truly build things to work the right way. 5. Reviews: CVS still believes in ranking employees against each other come review time. There is shuffling of employees down in scores to meet these objectives. Employees know about it and quite frankly it's demoralizing and in today's workplace a terrible tactic for keeping and retaining quality talent. Besides, that 'Meets' will get you a 1.5% raise while an Excellent or Outstanding will get you 2-2.5%. How very generous of them. They do also offer bonuses, but again, all based on your rating. A meets will not guarantee you full bonus payout - closer to 75-80% (if the company also met their goals). Stock bonuses also exist for 'high performers' but these take five years to vest. 6. Leadership: C & E level get out there and talk a good game but in reality quite a few at the SVP level have no business being 'leaders'. There are stories of leaders cussing out employees in front of full conference rooms (PBM Innovation group specifically) and leaders like this are continually promoted because they suck up to the right people regardless if they are toxic to the culture. 7. Layoffs every year: November. Like clockwork, every single year. Because we have to meet street expectations. Some leaders are even callous enough to refer to layoffs as 'cost cutting measures'. Nevermind that they just let 400+ people with families go right before the holidays. Sure lives up to their Core Value of Caring. 8. Silo'd. Divisions do their own thing without talking to the others. They could be far more innovative if people would stop being so protective of their 'turf' and actually doing what's right for patients and employees by collaborating.

I think the biggest con is CVS Caremark has completely lost sight of it's number one asset, the people working for them. I feel like this company is an open relationship with consultants and it's complicated. Many of our projects, programs, etc end up being half baked because we outsource a majority of the work to consultants that don't understand our business. Secondly, this is not the company to work for if you are looking for good work life balance. I am all about being accountable where possible for that balance, but this company doesn't allow for that. I'm a workaholic and I even feel overworked. I worked about 80 hours last week just to keep up and meet objectives with my project. Sadly, managers don't see this as an issue. The company's attitude has shifted away from allocating resources appropriately and seemed to have learned it saves on operational costs to overwork their staff. The company is then baffled why there is a huge turnover rate (especially on the PBM side of their business). There is also a ton of red tape in this company. If you are trying to drive change, institute a new process, or just have a great idea you want to implement, good luck fighting that battle. The new healthcare plan is also terrible. It's insulting to work for a Fortune 15 company that generates billions of dollars in free cash flow to turn around and say they simply can't afford to keep our current health care plan. The company tries to position it as its saving you money, but that's only true if you don't have any health problems. They barely contribute to the new HSA plan and your front end deductible costs are huge. The company is all about adherence and health to its clients, but they sure make you not want to even go to the doctor with our current health plan Since Tom Ryan left, the company has definitely taken a turn for the worse. Yes it's more profitable than it's ever been and the company is growing exponentially, but it's been at the cost of the company being a great place to work. I know my cons are long, but don't take them as some disgruntled employee. I have worked at this company for a long time and used to love it here. Everyone I talk to feels pretty similar around the company.