Fear-based culture, inhumane attendance policy, and unsafe staffing - Proceed with caution - Clinic Registered Nurse Swedish Employee Review

1.0
Jul 16, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The front line team members and physicians are great to work with. Great for a 20 something with no life responsibilities.

Cons

Swedish talks a big game about equity and patient care, but behind the scenes the culture is fear-based, rigid, and often unsafe - especially for staff with real-world responsibilities outside of work. The attendance policy allows for only 5 unplanned absences or tardies PER YEAR. including sick days, child care issues, family emergencies, or traffic delays. That means you're expected to be 98% perfect across 250 full time work days or face disciplinary action. (the number doesn't change if you work less than 5 days per week). There is no flexibility, no compassion, and no room for life to happen. Meanwhile, salaried leadership freely works from home, comes in late, and leaves early without consequence. My leader spends most of the day chit chatting with staff stopping them from doing work they are later spoken to about not getting done. The double standard is blatant. Leadership at Swedish is largely non-clinical, with little to no understanding of the roles they oversee. Policies are regularly made without clinical insight which not only disrespects those on the ground - it directly puts patients at risk. This isn't just bad leadership, its dangerous. Swedish also routinely fails to meet safe staffing levels even when union contracts require it. I was the only nurse on staff for a busy clinic for a day, something that leadership was fully aware of in advance yet took no steps to mitigate. They all went on vacation and left me to run the entire clinic alone. I had no guidance on what to do if something went wrong. I had to stay late to clean up the mess, and ended up being late to pick up my child from child care - which cost me in late fees. And they wonder why people burn out. This isn't an isolated case. Swedish has a pattern of disregard for labor protections as well - There are several labor law suits open and recent. If you're someone with a family, a disability, a second job, a dog, or any other responsibilities outside of work and need to commute to work in a manner other than jet pack, be careful. Swedish's public mission says "equity" but the internal culture says control, punishment, and top down decisions made by people who in some cases never went to college. Ask the hard questions before you accept an offer.

Explore other reviews about Swedish

5.0
Jul 1, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The company offered great flexibility- great manager

Cons

The floor I worked on was understaffed

1.0
Apr 9, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

+The company is severely incompetent +Trauma-bonding with your co-workers will never be easier

Cons

-Toxic management culture: you'll frequently be brought into full-team meetings where the management will circle-jerk themselves, refuse to listen to team members, change random procedures, then ask why the workers want to unionize. -The company is SEVERELY incompetent: the company blows thousands of dollars on worthless things like their own in-house AI chatbot GPT clone and refuses to spend money on resources wisely while simultaneously complaining about the budget. -Abhorrently dishonest: They let me go after bringing me into a meeting to discuss "communication expectations." They then refused to allow two-party consent for recording, fired me for apparently "violating their standards of protocol", refused to allow me to stay to gather any evidence of their random firing, and refused to respond to any emails to confirm the nature of the meeting. This was ALSO the week before the management promised everyone on our team an annual raise. -Separation is a nightmare: Not only did they lie about the reason for separation before being busted by the state, but they also refuse to cash out PTO time, and HR is a nightmare to work with when confirming details for state services.

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