I worked at Anthem for a total of 28 years. When I received an offer for early retirement I had mixed feelings about taking it. I decided to take the offer and run. It was the best decision I've made for my career. The environment is TOXIC. The management that has been there for many years in VA still cares for the associates welfare but senior management does not. The management there is interested in the bottom $$$, not about making the company and associates successful. It is a sad, depressing, toxic, leaderless place to work. I feel sorry for anyone who makes the decision to continue to put up with the environment because they feel they aren't employable elsewhere due to their age, race, experience or other reason. Take back your power to control your environment, your choices and self-esteem to move forward and leave Anthem behind.
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"Wait a minute... You worked for a company . . ."
But wait a minute: What do you actually know about Anthem and the situation surrounding this retirement program? (Apparently, very little. Otherwise you would not have left a snarky comment like this.)
I am actually a former Anthem employee who got caught up in all of this, and I know the real reason for the "early retirement" option. First of all, Anthem got rid of their pension program long ago, so they were not necessarily sending people off financially set for an early retirement.
Secondly, the "stipend" they gave people was something like 90 days worth of their salary. (This notion that people got a "boat load of money" is pure conjecture on your part.)
And finally, the impetus for this "early retirement" was to encourage people to leave the company so that they could eliminate thousands of IT jobs across the country so that they could consolidate these jobs into just a handful of chosen locations in specific cities--including the CFOs home town of Atlanta, GA. Coincidence? (They have been pushing people to leave for the past several years so that they could give these jobs to someone else who lives near one of the chosen IT centers.)
This had absolutely nothing to do with anything like altruism or a desire to take care of associates, did not give anyone "a boat load of money," and was a blessing only in the sense that the people who took this retirement offer would not be forced to move to some place far, far away for the last few years of their career. It was also a blessing in the sense (as the commenter clearly stated) that they would no longer have to work in a toxic environment.
This retirement offer was purely a business decision that was largely devoid of any real concern for the well being of fellow associates. And the commentor was fully warranted to make all of points that he made.
Wait a minute... You worked for a company that paid you to take an early retirement, and you're complaining about leadership that doesn't take care of it's people?? I view your very scenario you described above as nothing shy of a huge blessing!! Getting paid a boat load of money to have the opportunity to find something else, that seems like leadership at Anthem does care about it's people, and doesn't just lay off folks when times get tight.
So true and so accurate.
I remember better days thought, things started to go really bad around 2008