Epic Systems

• Fantastic health insurance
• Tasty food at the cafeteria
• Flexibility of job responsibilities (though this can also be a con if you've been encouraged to bite off more than you can chew)
• Most coworkers are competent and smart
• Decent salary (depending on role and tenure)

The pressure to never say "no" or turn down opportunities for extra work.

Upper management is increasingly out of touch.

"Flat structure" means no opportunity for internal career growth, unless you're interested in management.

Pressure to "drink the kool-aid" starts on day one. Monthly all-hands meetings are accurately referred to as "work church" by some employees.

CEO's thoughts and opinions are taken to be word of God.

You are one FTE taking on the work of 1.5 or 2 FTEs.

As others have mentioned here, the COVID-19 response from upper management has been abysmal.

And this might be personal to me, but it's something others might consider a con: working for a multibillionaire every day is morally draining. Some people find the work meaningful, but after a certain point, it's hard to care about enriching the doctor-patient experience when you know the hours and hours you put into doing so serve to line a rich person's pockets. Seeing Epic get into the payor market and take advantage of this country's broken health insurance system has also been demoralizing.

Listen to employees and let them give truly anonymous feedback. We're nervous about giving honest feedback because it's never truly de-identified. You'd get a much better sense of what opinions on workload and culture are if you let people speak freely and without fear of punishment.

Stop pushing the "never say no" mindset. It's fine for some people, sure, but for many people, especially the high achievers you like to hire, the pressure to always say yes creates neurotic, burnt-out employees.

Be more transparent. The company pays a lot of lip service to being transparent. In reality, the way that rankings, bonuses, and salaries are determined is a black box to rank-and-file employees. The COVID-19 decisions have had a similar black box feel to them.

One sends a concerned, articulate, data-centric email into the ether and receives either a milquetoast, opinion-based, "you're not a team player" response or no response at all. Some of the people on the COVID response team are nothing short of callous.

Put epidemiologists with experience and empathy on that team, not customer satisfaction representatives.

My final piece of advice: bring in some fresh blood. No, not more new hires to exhaust. Judy and Carl are out of touch. It's time to retire.