Heart is in the right place but high level of mind-blowing mistakes
Pros
The company cares very much about employees. The benefits are excellent and thoughtfully put together. The talent acquisition and hiring process from soup to nuts was truly a VIP experience. I felt respected and valued with every interaction. I really believe in Quest's mission, especially when they drive their medical vans into underserved communities and provide free services. We also grew vegetables in the office to share with communities without ready access to vegetables. A lot of philanthropic work, which inspired me no end. Quest is trying so hard to give the best possible services and solutions to patients, doctors, communities, partners and I think they're doing a great job and will continue to to evolve for the better every day. I had a lot of fun working there. I felt like I made a difference. I was proud to work at Quest. The culture in the office that I witnessed firsthand is healthy and people across the company are very nice. It is not a toxic place. I can't speak about departments in other regions or outside of the office, because I wasn't close enough to it. But if the employee attrition rate is in the public domain, a prospective employee could find it and draw conclusions. But don't base an entire assessment on the attrition rate. Many of the jobs on the road or facing the public day in and day out or are very challenging and many factors drive any company's attrition rate.
Cons
Inability to get anything going. Continually getting in their own way. Important projects just swirl the drain year in and year out, get miraculously resurrected for a minute or randomly sunset, then back down the drain and lots of wasted resources on re-work. And sadly, lots of employees who feel like they can never reach the finish line and feel personal pride. Quest was a company lumbering along 3rd in their category and then covid hit and all of a sudden they were in the spotlight with big revenue and prospects, but still operating like a family-owned hardware store. The leadership team is not accountable for what they do or fail to do. Employees are not inspired or guided by the C-level, who operate like little countries in Europe with their own things going on vs. a guiding braintrust of decisive leadership. Any success employees have is because they have been able to overcome the C-level; success its in spite of the highest level of leadership, not ever because of it. Quest makes mistakes that are just mind-blowing that make one think, no way a Fortune company just did x,y,z. Also, the culture is strange in that lower levels of the org chart are somehow simultaneously disempowered from action, tied to red tape, yet the most vital processes are missing. They focus on the wrong things. Meantime, the executive echelons have zero constraints. If you Google the lawsuits Quest is in, it begs the question, how was x,y,z leader able to do that without any checks and balances whatsoever? And why are we routing around in the couch cushions for funding and laying off the best, most dedicated employees to save money when the lawsuits Quest's management got the company into cost 10s of millions? It's like constantly stepping over dollars to pick up dimes and perpetually squeezing around the elephants in the room. Also, layoffs, which every company across the US dealt and are dealing with, were handled with great compassion. However, we found out about the layoffs due to a leader leaning over an open staircase discussing it on their cell phone not realizing (caring?) that their conversation was echoing down a flight of stairs into an open atrium and lots of people heard and spread the news before they were officially informed. Then, said individual did it twice more that year. BUT...these are not reasons whatsoever to not work at Quest. Don't let a handful of anecdotes or employees drive you away from a great place. I think of Quest as the island of misfit toys with a great heart who will "get there" eventually. Most companies have a lot worse things going on. And the tide is changing. A new level of exciting, contemporary leaders are being seated and I think it the next few years will be groundbreaking and fulfilling for Quest employees.
