Opportunity for improvement - Anonymous employee Health Catalyst Employee Review

2.0
May 24, 2019
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Catalyst has a big focus on employees, which translates most visibly to things like benefits, pay, paid time off, job security, work conditions, etc. The company is growing and generally regarded as a leader within the healthcare analytics space. Our culture and principles, when followed, are great.

Cons

Lack of leadership. While our CEO, Dan, is a phenomenal leader, our executive team and managers, from my perspective, have a great deal of room for improvement. There are pockets of excellence, but we generally have a lot of work here, specifically, following the company’s stated culture and operating principles, which you can find on Catalyst’s website and are repeated in every all team member meeting (monthly). On culture, there appears to be a lack of humility -- specifically listening, learning and assuming positive intent. On the operating principles, transparency is the biggest area for improvement. While Dan himself is a great leader, it can’t always be Dan. To use a sports analogy, we have a star player who is burdened by the responsibility to score every point. We need that star player to also coach and develop the rest of the executives’ and managers’ ability to lead. Everything is a priority! I have a background in growth companies, so my concern isn’t about having a lot to do. Rather, it feels like we are doing a lot of things poorly rather than doing a few things well. A great example of this is the 360 review process we recently went through as a company (any people managers, including our executive team). It seems like it was discussed throughout all of 2018, while it only was rolled out to most managers in the last handful of weeks of 2018. There has been little follow up on the 360. Shortly after the 360s wrapped up, there was a seemingly self-congratulatory announcement on a companywide call that the 360 review process had been completed. Four months later, HR staff held a webinar where they suggested team members reach out to their managers if they’d like to review the feedback, four months after the 360s ended. Which Health Catalyst do you work for? The software company, or its fierce rival, the professional services company? The chasm between the two major business units is holding the company back. It pains me to see a company that I once rated at 5 stars to go to 2 stars in just a couple years.

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Health Catalyst Response
7y
Thank you for sharing this detailed and insightful perspective. I have read and reread your review multiple times. And I believe there are important elements that we need to pay attention to as leaders and managers, and that we can improve. Let me address a few of the topics you raised and offer some thoughts as well as an action plan, which we'll also review together in today's ATM meeting, striving to exercise the principle of transparency, ESPECIALLY when it's hard. First, as it relates to the need for each of us as leaders, each day, to strive to live up to the Health Catalyst Way, I agree strongly with your perspective that it must be each team member and leader, every single day. And I agree that we often fall short, myself included. Part of our values includes giving people a second chance, but that also assumes positive intent, that each individual is striving to live up to the values every day. And each time we fall short of the values of the company it erodes the character of the company. Further, if we behave in such a way that there are some individuals who we treat as "exceptions" to the standard of striving to live up to the values, then this erodes the character of the company further. I have said in other settings and will repeat now, that no one is untouchable at Health Catalyst -- not me, not any member of our board or leadership team. We should each feel accountable, every day, to live up to the values. I know that we fall short, and I would be happy to visit privately with you about any instances where we need to address an issue with a leader, and I will keep our conversation confidential, and will also take action to address the issue as well. I apologize that you've experienced situations where leaders at the company have fallen short. Second, regarding our follow up and follow through around the manager 360-degree feedback process, I have had the same concern that you raised, for some time. In fact, three days before you posted this review, I put an agenda topic on our weekly Leadership Team agenda to highlight that I felt we hadn't done nearly enough to systematize our use of 360-degree feedback, in helping managers to become better and more effective. Yes, we have taken a few steps, and actually I have personally spent many hours reviewing the feedback for literally every manager at Health Catalyst. And, importantly, I leveraged this feedback as an important input into the 8 new Leadership Team positions that were filled. But we haven't become as systematic as we should. But we are working on it, and we'll talk about some of our plans in that regard at today's All Team Member meeting. Third, regarding the rivalry between the Technology organization and the Professional Services organization, sadly I agree with much of your commentary, and have been concerned about this dynamic for quite some time. One of the primary driving factors underpinning our reorganization several months ago, where all the product lines and all the services functions now report up to the COO was to try to organizationally "unite" the technology and the professional services groups as one, rather than having continued divisions. Also, as we hired SVP and General Managers for the business functions, I emphasized to each of those leaders how much I expected them to work "as one" across product and services, and this is a central theme for Paul Horstmeier (our COO) as he works within our company on the next chapter of our success. But these changes take time. I already see significant evidence of improvement, but I also see evidence that we have more work to do. I am deeply convinced that we will not accomplish our mission if we are not united. So we will shine a light on this issue, and we will ask for the help of every team member in making meaningful progress here in 2019 and beyond. This is something I repeatedly emphasize in my 1:1 discussions with Leaders at Health Catalyst. Finally, I wanted you to know that while these challenges can feel discouraging at times, I share your hopefulness. I believe we can change and improve. And we are working towards a worthy mission, one larger than any one of us. Thank you for your contributions these past 3+ years. Thank you for your courageous transparency in sharing this review, and I have a personal goal that we might improve sufficiently that perhaps in a year or so you might genuinely feel a desire to update your review on Glassdoor (as we ask every team member to do once a year) and be able to share that you have personally experienced improvement in each of these areas. Again, I'd also welcome the opportunity to visit with you 1:1, privately, so that I can better understand your experience. If you're open to meeting with me, just reach out to Jenn Howard and we'll set some time up. Thanks, Dan

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Pros

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Cons

As of 2025, all benefits have been suspended until the end of the year.

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Health Catalyst Response
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Thank you for sharing your perspective. We appreciate your recognition of the strengths the company had before this year and the dedication of team members during challenging times. As we shape our 2026 strategy, we’re carefully evaluating how we allocate resources to ensure organizational success, identifying where to invest and how to utilize those resources most effectively, all guided by a clear and focused plan. Your feedback is helpful, and we will continue to communicate updates as progress is made. -Ben Albert
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Pros

Great Talent & Culture: The people here are highly capable, collaborative, and committed to helping each other succeed. The partnership between onshore and offshore teams works well and is a real strength. There’s a culture of grit and stability that has helped the company navigate multiple major transitions over the years. Mission-Critical Engineering: The work involves complex data infrastructure that requires deep technical expertise. It can be demanding, but seeing these systems run successfully and support real-world operations is consistently rewarding.

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Wage Compression and Retention Risk: Compensation for tenured and high-performing staff has not kept pace with the market for specialized data engineering and support leadership. In practice, tenure can feel undervalued or even penalized. This creates risk around losing institutional knowledge and operational continuity. Stagnant Career Progression: Contrary to stated expectations, strong performance ratings do not consistently translate into meaningful, market-aligned compensation growth. The process of how compensation is benchmarked lacks clarity in practice, obscuring how compensation decisions are made and what is required to advance.

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