I was recruited into my role just shy of a year ago by a member of leadership that I had worked with pre-COVID at a different company. When they reached out to me, I was gainfully employed and successful in my current Senior Leadership role, but I had been entertaining the idea of a career change to enable a better work-life balance and more time spent with my family.
The $10k annual pay cut I took made sense because the role was non-supervisory, fully remote, hiring bonuses (when explained pre-hire by the General Manager) issued per hire could effectively boost total comp closer to six figures, and the overall commitment to work-life balance that was reiterated in the organization-wide offer of “unlimited PTO” for exempt employees.
Because I so deeply trusted this referring member of leadership, I tried to work past some glaring red flags:
*Current written policies (including one that outlined the bonus structure or accurate job description for my role at hire or the new supervisory role assigned to me 2 weeks post hire. CA Legally required pay grades) were not available due to HCAs restructure and rebrand to TheKey— after almost a year with TheKey they still were not available at the time of my departure despite numerous requests made to local leadership who continued to claim ignorance of application of company P&P to our division.
* Because the division was new and “so different” from the rest of TheKey, there were no current metrics or KPIs for this particular role in place at my time of hire— KPIs that we were ultimately issued in 2023 were the same for all recruiters regardless of location(s) or any other means of appropriate market analysis. This meant that the work of some was inherently and exponentially more difficult than others but for the same pay and benefits.
* For a healthcare company, office leadership was lax with confidentiality. Information received from background investigations, as well as protected health information, was openly discussed by the General and Regional Managers and was frequently used as fodder for jokes and gossip amongst peers.
* The fearful workaholic mentality was described as a remnant from former pre-acquisition company leadership and current leadership made assurances they were working hard to fix it (i.e. new unlimited PTO policy) with tons of lip service given to the value of our personal lives.
But I have never seen a greater systemic effort to exploit (and then ultimately discard) employees in my professional career. Willfully and knowingly misclassifying staff (either to exempt or independent contractors), assigning one employees the workload of many, and actively punishing those who could/would no longer work 24/7 365 for already low wages without paying overtime.
I have worked in healthcare for most of my professional life and before this I couldn’t even fathom such a disregard for employee health and well-being. There is virtually no system or safeguard to protect workers or their rights. Upon my submission of these (and more) noted urgent issues to HR and having a confirmation of their legitimacy acknowledged in a subsequent investigation, I was immediately demoted from my leadership role, and repeatedly humiliated and ostracized by local leadership and peers.
After working for over 30 days without a day off to try to meet unattainable goals under extreme scrutiny and constant fear of being fired, my employment was terminated while out sick with a doctors note already provided to my supervisor with a term date effective several days before I was scheduled to return to work.
Access to all systems was removed prior to my return and the only notification or communication I have received from anyone (HR, my manager, etc) was from a Docusign generated email containing my term letter. To add insult to injury, the full details of the team effort to push me out was relayed in great detail by my former direct report to a coworker who had called my office line hoping to get into touch with me….
This brief experience has left me with pervasive anxiety, severely diminished health and what feels like post-traumatic stress. With more than a decade of acknowledged success and continued passion for Healthcare and HR, the inhumanity I have witnessed and experienced by this company that claims to be committed in its compassionate care of people has left me feeling deeply sad for anyone who chooses to trust them with their vulnerable loved ones.