Health Catalyst

2.0

Jul 30, 2020

Recommend

CEO approval

Business Outlook

Pros

I believe the employees at Health Catalyst truly embody the Health Catalyst way - we are smart, hard working, humble people. We care about the success of our clients and want to make a difference in the world using data to drive better decision making in healthcare. The pay is really good. In fact, if it wasn't for a good salary and the genuine, caring people who work here, I would have left years ago.

Cons

With the above said, the Professional Services division of the company needs some serious house cleaning. Product Managers don't have roadmaps for their products, don't announce product features regularly, don't clearly track or manage bugs, or have a process where people (clients and employees) can request new features. In fact, many teams can't really agree on what their product is, or does, or offers. You're expected to make it up as you go along. If you want some supporting documentation and direct a client to HC Community, our client facing web tool, it's a mess of links to old, out dated, poorly written materials. Somehow, product managers aren't responsible keeping this information up to date and written professionally. I'm not impressed with the leadership in Pro Services and neither are my peers. Are these managers really good at getting client adoption of products for the long run, or good people managers? Two different things. What publications are product managers reading? Do they share that information in a collaborative way to build trust? Do they pay attention to how other software companies conduct themselves and communicate information, and try to replicate that on their own teams? Do product managers follow software development best practices? I see none of this. Further, there is no clear way to express our frustrations with the incompetency seen here. Culturally, the Professional Services leadership team and Hiring Team is made up entirely of white men, with the exception of one female executive. The Pro Services division receives an email from this group every two weeks and none of the information communicated reflects the work I do, or the changes I want to see. Despite cultural pressure internally and externally to reflect on why representation in this needs to change, nothing really changes. Who decided the group should be made up of leadership team members only? Probably the leadership team. A recent "re-org" in Pro Services resulted in the layoffs of a few people and shifting of others into new roles. Some of that shifting meant people were promoted into positions with significant responsibilities and not surprisingly, these people are white men - longtime employees. Time and again as certain people are promoted, roles are shifted, teams are formed, and workgroups are established, women and minorities are sidelined to Affinity Groups. We watch as poor decisions are made, work is disorganized, products struggle, clients asks hard questions we can't get answers for, and simple tasks like documenting materials are largely ignored. We will never be a first rate company as long as this is allowed to continue.

Health Catalyst Response

Thank you for sharing this perspective and feedback. Your experience certainly does not reflect what we strive for at Health Catalyst. There is some challenging feedback in your review; I will try to address three of the primary themes in your response. The first theme I believe I heard relates to inclusivity, and more specifically, the need to avoid bias in the making of decisions, including key leadership hiring decisions. I want to first share that this is an area in which we strive to be world-class, and we acknowledge that we have much more work ahead of us to achieve this important goal. I am encouraged both by the increased focus on standard hiring processes companywide, and by the rollout of training to identify the implicit biases each of us may unknowingly bring to the decision-making table. I believe strongly that inclusivity is one of those topics, the importance of which cannot be overstated. I want you to know that we are deeply committed to getting much better in this area. Secondly, you shared feedback related to Product Management at Health Catalyst. As you are likely aware, we launched our Product Development Lifecycle (PDLC) and New Product Introduction (NPI) processes several years ago to bring a higher level of product management discipline and rigor to all new product development, business justification, planning, forecasting, pricing, and all marketing activities associated with bringing a new product to market. Using the PDLC and NPI, we hope that the market, our Clients, and our Team Members all gain a clear understanding of each of our products, our services, and the improvement we strive to enable across major financial, operational, and clinical areas of healthcare. Your feedback points to some areas for improvement in these areas, and I appreciate the time you have taken to highlight specific ways we can do better. You also shared several ways in which you believe the Professional Services division of our company can improve, including communication. In this area, I encourage you to be courageously transparent with us. In each of these biweekly communications (which I receive as well), I see some consistent language repeated: “These emails are intended to increase communication, invite discussion, and seek feedback.” I agree with each those communication objectives, and I encourage you to share your thoughts for improvements to this periodic email with your Manager, any Senior Leader, myself directly, or via our anonymous “Ask Leadership Anything” page on Spark. Finally, if you would be open to a private 1:1, my assistant Jenn Howard can help us find a time to connect remotely. Thank you again for sharing your perspectives, and I apologize that you your experience at Health Catalyst hasn’t measured up to our company’s values and mission. Best, Dan

Clean house in Pro Services - Data Engineer Health Catalyst Employee Review

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