Parallon is kind of like the red-headed stepchild of HCA. We do not get the same amount of perks or the same treatment of our parent corporation, which is a shame, because I think if we did, it could be a much better place to work. My department is severely understaffed with high turnover, and the amount of training they give you for doing your job is pretty dismal, there is a bit of a sink and swim kind of attitude in the department. It has gotten better since I started, but still needs a lot of improvement and better processes put into place. There is a pretty high turnover rate, which can most likely be attributed to extremely low pay for what we are doing and also for the fact that everyone in the department is pretty much constantly overwhelmed with work. Upper management/director/COOs don't seem to take into account that the dept. is understaffed or when people are out for vacation, the same amount of production is still expected. The morale in the company as a whole is pretty low, you can feel the negativity when you walk into the building. It is hard to care about working for upper management that has no care for their employees, which you can often tell by the way they handle certain personnel issues, such as employees who have deaths in the family or are out sick. There is very little tolerance for interaction among coworkers. I get that we are all there to work, but we spend more time with our coworkers than our families, so at times it is nice to have a little flexibility there. The pay is DISMALLY low for the job that is performed in our department. We are seen as basically data entry, but there is a lot of juggling and stress that comes along with our roles that management is obviously not aware of or doesn't care about at all. There is definitely a trickle down effect, we all know that the horrendous culture and policies are handed down from above our managers, which makes for a workplace that can be hard to survive in, much less thrive in. You constantly feel as if you have to watch everything you do, as people love to point fingers and spread gossip about everyone else. There is also a tendency of some managers to point fingers at people and a good bit of "throwing under the bus" also occurs in the department. Also, the company needs to shift its employee retention policies as far as action taken for poor performance and unprofessional conduct. Basically the only way to get fired is to have attendance issues, which makes for a few coworkers who are rather unprofessional and do low quality work who are still around and nothing is really done about it. Those of us who are professional, do great work and care about it are often saddled with the burden of cleaning up other people's incompetence. What we do is really integral to the organization as a whole, and if upper management would shift their strategies and increased pay, it could be a great place to work.
