As a Manager is very difficult to justify the chaotic mess and lack of resources on a daily basis in Carelon CCA. I’m sickened on how little the Executive leadership cares or understands the employees and the work we actually perform. A VP making $500k to a Million dollars you should know more than me not less (and not need consultants to do basic processes) and care how we affect our members and that isn’t the case..it’s all about bottom dollar and realigning teams to send offshore and automate even those processes that should have a human touch. When you receive your AIP and merit that is how much the company cares. Don’t take the excuses; oh we didn’t perform well or at least we got something that is NOT acceptable. Know your worth and value. I’m telling you the layoffs are never stopping. Leadership may say we are growing and expanding to use AI… it is a setup to push the overall initiative of cheaper labor and non human touch. Gail, board of Trustees, VP’s….you don’t deserve our respect. I respect my responsibility for my team and our members. Do better.
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Not saying this is ideal but big companies work much like the caste system. Hard work will only take you so far when there is no real merit-based system. Part of growing up is coming to terms with this.
VP and above is where we have the least real-world knowledge of how the company really operates. As leaders, they run on what they think things should look like and manage to the expectations of external stakeholders, competitive intelligence, and internal fiefdoms. i.e. good luck getting an ounce of humanity from them when they are incentivized by bonus, stocks, and perks that the typically worker will never see. If only lower management would now and again calibrate the distance between real and ideal so that actual change can happen.
StaffVP is about as high as you might be able to work up the chain. But getting to StaffVP requires political sponsorship more than anything else. To get the right people to believe you will have had to have had a lot of exposure to multiple upper leaders and a few backroom conversations to express loyalty. This means most of those positions are already compromised to the existing political morass and of no real good to the work force. They are more lackeys to VP and higher who have no clue and no appreciation for anything more than managing laterally and up.
Director-level is where you see the most day to day influence on work. If your director doesn’t know your day to day, then you are sc--wed. Directors who have subject matter expertise, relationships with customers and upper management, and the ability to understand more than what a PowerPoint deck can convey are the good one. Too bad most of directors are not interested in doing more than the minimum. They are more likely to hoard knowledge from ignorant upper management to keep their jobs and subvert the latest shiny ball. Can you blame them? No one on ones, no coherent translations of strategy, everything sounds like a financial target versus a clear path forward with the support of upper management, and every thing is on fire with equal importance.
Managers. Well this is the biggest mixed bag of incompetents, idealists, and hard drivers who might become something good if only. Too much variation here except to say - whether you are touching someone at the lower levels or the higher levels - they can shape your day to day and be good by shielding, filtering, focusing, and winning resources. Or, they can be in it for themselves and totally missing the point. Don’t make the mistake of taking your manager lightly - stay neutral to positive. But the minute you trip into negative land ask yourself whether it is really them, the system, or you.
One last non-management category - beware of the state run media. These are content creators - administrators, project managers, chief of staffs - alongside of management this lot has little better to do than to schedule meetings and hound people for updates that will ultimately be cut, mangled, and misconstrued on the editorial floor. These are mostly well meaning people but their value is to bang the gong on the greatness of their fiefdom just like state-run media. There are entire teams dedicated to crafting PowerPoint slides and status updates (often more than actual people who get work done!!!) If you have never seen these decks and upward facing updates then you will not be able to connect how your work is being translated up the chain. You should ask. The reality is most of these materials are created in silos and socialized after being committed. These are quite literally moving the target to where the arrow landed.
Don’t take it personal. Take note and take care of yourself.
Respect is earned and I have seen very little in this companies leadership that deserve any.