Pros
1.) Work Environment I cannot think of a better reason to get out of bed and come to work. The patients and families you meet there are wonderful and you really see the difference your work makes in their lives, even if it is behind the scenes. 2.) Co-Workers For the most part all of your co-workers at CCHMC will be very friendly and helpful, especially if you're new. There are definitely a few "bad eggs", but that is going to be anywhere you work. 3.) Decent Pay I thought the pay was pretty good overall. It is definitely far from the best when compared to other major corporations of this size in Cincinnati, but that is kind of what you expect when you go into this kind of work. 4.) Work/Life Balance I'd like to start this section by saying that I worked behind the scenes in the offices at CCHMC, not in patient care. I cannot speak for the clinical side or researchers. However, I think the Administrative employees have a very good work-life balance. They VERY rarely will have you work overtime and you will generally stick to an 8-hour day with a 30 minute lunch. 5.) Affinity Groups There are quite a few affinity groups for minorities at CCHMC that are easy to become a part of and get involved in.
Cons
Personal Complaint/Con If you are a YOUNG professional trying to come into CCHMC I would read this section. If you are NOT a young professional, or would just prefer a quick summary, feel free to skip to the General section. I wanted to put this in here because I do not want young professionals to be stuck in the same boat I was in. To give you some background, I started working at CCHMC 3 years ago while I was still in college. I generally enjoyed my job, but I did notice one huge issue: lack of diversity. In my 3 years, I did not come across a lot of minorities represented in CCHMC despite their constant claims of "diversifying the workplace." In addition to that, I very rarely saw anyone in their early-to-mid 20's working at CCHMC unless they were a PCA or on third shift. The majority of people I saw that worked at CCHMC were Caucasian middle-aged women. In fact, approximately 80% of CCHMC's workforce are women. This should have been a giant red flag to me, but I was naive and very determined to work at CCHMC. After I graduated college I went on 5 entry-level interviews, and they were the most unprofessional experiences I've ever been apart of. The first interview was with an older gentleman that 5 minutes into the interview gave me a very condescending lecture about what I needed to study in graduate school when I "grow up." Obviously, I didn't get that job. The next 3 interviews were just as unprofessional. All 3 of the interviewers showed up about 15 minutes late and barely asked me any questions. I cannot prove it, but my gut tells me all 3 of these "open" positions already had someone to fill them. In other words, they were just conducting the interviews for show. These "interviews" happened a handful of times in my own department so I'm sure it happens throughout other parts of the hospital as well. I never heard anything back from those 3, but I did check on CenterLink (CCHMC's Facebook) to see who got the job and sure enough it was 3 middle-aged Caucasian women. I have no problem with this, but do not put ENTRY-LEVEL POSITION on a job that you clearly want someone with years of experience in. I also think it is great that an organization is hiring so many women (especially since I am a woman), but you do not need to exclude every other group of people to accomplish this. The last of my 5 interviews was probably the most infuriating of them all. I went through three rounds of interviews that went seemingly well. A few days later, I received an e-mail saying that I was enrolled in New Employee Orientation with a message saying "Congratulations and Welcome to CCHMC!" I waited for HR to call me with the news, but I never heard anything. I called my HR rep 2 times and e-mailed her but still received nothing. About a week later, I e-mailed the general HR address trying to find some answers. A few hours later, I got a very short one-line e-mail from my HR rep (who had still been ignoring me until this point) saying that it was a system error and to feel free to apply to other positions. No apology, no phone call, nothing. Needless to say by this point I was completely fed up and left the company. So please, if you are a young professional wanting to go into Healthcare find another hospital that will treat you with respect and not be extremely shady. There are plenty of other wonderful healthcare organizations that will welcome you with open arms. General 1.) Parking This is probably the biggest complaint of every employee. Parking at CCHMC just sucks, there's no nice way to put it. Unless you have a medical condition, you will be placed in a parking garage in a very unsafe neighborhood and be shuttled to the main hospital or satellite location. 2.) PTO This is another aspect of CCHMC that I personally think is awful. Your PTO, sick days, and holidays are all rolled into one bank. Yes, you read that correctly. Legal Holidays come out of your already very limited amount of personal PTO. 3.) Attendance If you are a person that enjoys a flexible work schedule, do not even think about working here. CCHMC is extremely strict on attendance, especially with what time you clock in and out. If you are later than 5 minutes past your start time you will get a 0.25 point occurrence. If you call in sick you will get a 1.0 point occurrence, even WITH A DOCTOR'S NOTE. Your department will keep track of all your occurrence points for an ENTIRE YEAR. For example, if you called in sick on December 30, 2016 you would get a 1.0 point occurrence on your record that would not go away until December 30, 2017. These are a big deal because occurrence points can rack up quickly and greatly effect your raises, bonuses, and ability to transfer. Some departments will even hand out "attendance report cards" to their employees… 4.) Getting Hired If you do not have an inside person to recommend you it is nearly impossible to get hired at CCHMC. The already very unorganized HR department gets flooded with 1,000's of resumes a week. Therefore, it is very hard to get noticed in a sea of paper unless someone tells HR who to look for. If you make it into CCHMC, it is extremely hard to get promoted and move up the career ladder. Finally, do not fall for the shift trick they always tell new-hires. A lot of managers will sugarcoat how easy it is to move from second or third shift into first shift. It is possible, but its not as easy as they claim. 5.) Management/Going Down Hill I know management is a huge complaint about a lot of companies, but at CCHMC it is a giant issue. Not that long ago, CCHMC was more of a simple "mom-and-pop" hospital. However, due increasing popularity over the years, CCHMC has grown into a massive corporation that is now running on a macro-level. As a result of this growth, CCHMC does not have the managers with the skill-level to efficiently run the hospital and it is going downhill fast. I'm a person that prefers quantitative facts rather than someone else's opinion, so if you're really interested in what I'm talking about look up CCHMC's ranking in the U.S. News and World's Report's for FY 2016-2017 and compare them to the previous years. You will see for yourself that they have dropped dramatically. As an added note, CCHMC used to be ranked as one of the Top Places to Work For, but it has been years since it has seen that list. I know meeting the bottom line is important, but you do not have to sacrifice your employees happiness to do so.