If you are below manager level - it is a sweat shop. Limited training opportunities for professional advancement. Company is cheap when it comes to investing for the long term especially IT reources. IT solutions are half baked and always need a bandaid. Most operations departments run a shadow IT organization by hiring their own IT people to make ends meet as IT department is very difficult to work with.
No long term thinking/goals by upper management, after August everyone is only concerned about 1/1. Forced ranking (GE style) of bottom 10% eats away any team work or morale - no reason to cooperate or not play politics with co workers. Only way to get Stretch performance ranking is if you do not have family and willing to put in 80 hours a week all year, not uncommon to see divorce rates peaking after major integrations. It gets crazy during holidays before 1/1.
ESI was the only game in town during recession, so it could afford to pay only 70-80% market rate of base salary. But with no bonus in 2012 and employment picture better in St. Louis, attrition will eat away the talent.
Expect to see mass layoffs at all levels after the Medco integration is completed in early 2014 to compensate for loss of UHC account and to achieve promised synergy savings to Wall Street. Also the end of patent cliff savings does not bode well for 2014. Health Care Reform might save the day.
ESI will dominate the PBM industry in the future like Walmart, but like Walmart it may not be the best place for everyone. The dependence on government programs will increase - DOD, Medicare and Health Care Reform. Company management will complain about Obama and government but without the government programs, ESI will be less than half its current size.
