Press Ganey Reviews

Current Employee – been working at Press Ganey full-time for less than a year

Pros – Positive and strong leadership
Great company culture
Open and honest senior leadership

Cons – Press Ganey is in a high growth phase right now, so at times work can be crazy but I know that in the end it is all worth it.

Advice to Senior Management – Keep up the good work!

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Press Ganey full-time for less than a year

Pros – Press Ganey has a strong history of improving the patient experience. While improvement has become a buzz word in the industry, Press Ganey has long been committed to this issue and it is the core essence of the business and mission of its team. The company is equally committed to looking for new ways to improve the patient experience in the 21st century by supporting its clients with new products, services and solutions. The vibe internally and externally is that Press Ganey is poised to continue being the industry leader and will continue to make a positive impact on health care for years to come.

Cons – To use a sports analogy, Press Ganey needs to ignore the "noise" -- those out there who say it can't, shouldn't, doesn't or won't. It can be distracting when people -- competitors or other naysayers -- espouse negative statements about your mission and purpose, but Press Ganey must not let this be a distraction.

Advice to Senior Management – Continue staying positive and encouraging all employees to reach greatness!

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Press Ganey full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Just saw a demo of Press Ganey's new physician survey tool -- looks great and innovative. I like the crispness of the presentation. I think this will position us well in the marketplace.

Cons – Nothing really as I think things are going well.

Advice to Senior Management – Look to do more efforts similar to this.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Press Ganey full-time for less than a year

Pros – I cannot think of any at this time.

Cons – Management has no idea what is going on. Hired as a 6 month consultant to hire, was told 3 weeks in that I will be hired at the end of my contract, then three weeks later they changed their minds.

Advice to Senior Management – Get a clue.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Press Ganey full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – The organization is a highly influential industry competitor, and directly helps the South Bend community with a cultural commitment and focus that is unsurpassed. This is a direct result of operational efforts to improve brand reliability.

Cons – Sr. Management overlooks the leadership qualities and capabilities in employees and prefers to bring in outside leadership rather than provide opportunities for internal staffers. More importantly, leadership is quick to downgrade top executives in favor of outside management as a result of an ineffective belief that such tactics might improve the organization's diminishing credibility in their industry. For instance, replacing the COO was a horrible and damaging business decision. The organization's "good 'ol boy" mentality is the only reason the previous COO was not terminated - it was obvious that operations was failing under inneffective leadership sowed with distrust, and misalignment to clearly established company goals and values - but instead a new COO was brought in (instead of brought up from internally) to "fix" the damages, and the previous COO was promoted to President of Operations.

Prospective employees are shown smoke and mirrors to establish that the organization cares for its employees with a deep commitment and likewise is extremely customer focused to the point that clients always talk to a live person when they call the company rather than talk to an automation system. On the surface this seems like the perfect type of company to work for - family centric, employee driven, customer focused - except - behind the smoke and mirrors is a close-minded, distrustful, stagnant, and transactional autocratic leadership where leaders rule by fear and consequences.

Employees cannot express concerns with leadership without fear of serious reprecussions including immediate termination, which is just another fear tactic to help ensure that internal operations runs smoothly and successfully.

Advice to Senior Management – Trust in your own employees and cease the practice of bringing in outside leadership as a perceived solution at solving inefficiencies in management - especially when you've tried and failed at bringing in multiple outside leadership multiple times in a short period of time, none of which has been effective!

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Press Ganey full-time for more than a year

Pros – People are friendly and will bend over backwards to help you at this organization. Very thorough and competent Compliance team.. Best Contract team I have ever worked with- they are tireless and meticiulous. Very responsive Account Management team.

Cons – This company is out-dated, tedious and creates more internal work for themselves than any company I have ever seen. The amount of "CC" emails that every employee is on- is ridiculous- way too much unnecessary information on a continuous basis -with no strategy or thought to make changes. If you encourage change- you are frowned upon for speaking up.

 Upper management is the problem here -from Sr. VP down to VP. A different approach or change is discouraged in this company. This management style and culture would work better in a repetitive environment- such as a factory or assembly line- but a challenge a market where the competition is far more innovative and streamlined than PG.

Marketing and Product Management - no changes in messaging or product ingeunity . Total lack of creativity. In more than 18 mos- 1 new feature- Quick Reports- that was a tiny improvement in the solution- Too much data, too little openness to change or streamlining- and sales leadreship churns through new business sales on a regular basis, (people are not aware they are gone for months.) As a result, ZERO sales growth and competition is eating away at the PG market share- ( PG's pride and joy.).

Many of us had high hopes for Pat Ryan and his new managment team to bring change. Pat Ryan is personable, charasmitic, intersting person. Unfortunately, he is one person who can't change the biggest challenge of all- Press Ganey internal team who have been there far too long and think continue the way we have always worked and everything will be fine. In this changing market- this lack of foresigth and vision will continue to erode PG's business. And no amount of analytics, 300 page reports, or PhD statisticians will be able to fix this slow moving, red -tape company. They are their own worst enemy.

Advice to Senior Management – Advice: Replace the "good ole boy" mediocre management and bring in new Product Management, Marketing and Sales leadership. Even Pat Ryan's charisma and sincerity won't be able to change the "Stepford" mentality (responding to clients, product, and sales the same way we have always done.) and lackluster performance until an overhaul of internal change is done. If factory, assembly-line mentality work is for you with tons of emails to always read- this is the place !

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Press Ganey full-time for less than a year

Pros – Forward thinking company where innovation and integration are highly praised.
Team environment where individuals are never too busy to teach and often place team goals ahead of individual goals, but even in this setting, individual contributions are well noted and praise given.

Cons – While teamwork is strong, in my time, there have been no team-building events to further this strength of the company.

Advice to Senior Management – Leadership is great. New vision and direction to maintain our industry leadership status.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Press Ganey full-time for more than a year

Pros – employees are passionate about their ability to impact the quality of healthcare, and this resonates throughout the company. There are some of the brightest and innivative minds leading the teams and momentum is positive. This is a fast paced environment where creativity and vision are rewarded. Communication from leaders has never been better!

Cons – Travel to South Bend isn't the easiest for the expanding group of employees in other locations, but the establishment of key offices in Chicago and Boston is helping

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Press Ganey full-time for less than a year

Pros – The company has some excellent employees at the ground level.

Cons – There is massive turmoil and backstabbing at the middle management level, the senior managers are inexperienced and in over their heads, and the executives have their heads so far in the clouds that they can't see what is really going on.

From my individual perspective, the workload is unbearable. People keep quitting the company and they are not replaced, so their job responsibilities fall on other already overworked people. When I asked for help, I was told to "work more hours." When I demonstrated that I was already working 60+ hours per week, I was told to "work more efficiently." I'm doing the work of 2.5 people in 60 hours, so I'm already extremely efficient!

The company seems top-heavy with management; for example, there are at least 5 layers of management between the average worker and the executives in a < 1,000 person company.

Salaries are on the low-end of acceptable and the fringe benefits are Spartan. The health care coverage is abysmal, which is ironic because Press Ganey purports to be a leader in the health care industry.

Advice to Senior Management – Interview some of your ground level employees. Realize that the middle management turmoil is

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Press Ganey full-time

Pros – Lurking below today’s problems is a company with a noble mission, an inspiring history, and some remarkably talented and enthusiastic employees.

Cons – There is an understandable assumption that when people leave a company under negative circumstances, their sour grapes attitude is the reason for their negative publicity. They can’t accept their own responsibility, so they blame their bosses or senior leaders or the organization itself. They can’t accept change, even when it means growth, and they can’t accept constructive feedback, even when it’s warranted. But the oceans of talent who have left Press Ganey in the last few years, as the company has grown more rigid, less science-based (in spite of the valiant efforts of a bright and ethical research & analytics department), and less customer focused (with lots of words being thrown at the idea of customer service, but policies that prove those words dishonest) tell a different story.
     Many of us left voluntarily, after years or even decades, with tremendous sadness. We loved the company and our mission, and we tolerated insane hours and unproductive policies because we believed so strongly in the fine work we did, improving the state of healthcare and changing people’s lives. We supported, even embraced, numerous changes, even when they negatively impacted our work-life balance over the years. But when at last the mission is obscured, expectations move from insane to impossible, clients become treated essentially as “marks,” nepotism runs rampant, and incompetence is wildly rewarded and promoted (to be fair, there are occasional fair and justified promotions, but they are the exception), often to the level of senior VPs, you must see that something is very wrong.
     The mission is becoming obscured by prioritizing sales over service. After the brightest and most creative minds are hired, they are expected to exhibit a skill set different from that for which they were hired and are bound by intransigent and unwise policies. The scientific research now takes a backseat to compromised ethics. It's rampant throughout the organization: consulting reports to sales (which undermines their very reason for being), account managers are worked beyond their ability to function effectively, much less optimally, marketing is shown only the glossy reflective surfaces so they are unprepared for valid pushback, and the research team’s scientific approach is devalued at every turn. The result? Press Ganey’s clients stay because of its large database, and, frankly, inertia. (They've said it themselves.)
     Worse still is the culture of fear. Those of us employed at Press Ganey for, let’s say, at least five years (many of us far longer) have seen the climate get worse and worse, with more panicked speculations about where the next axe will fall, what the next incomprehensible policy change will be, which talented individual will disappear next. True, the toxicity of the environment was increasing for several years before Pat Ryan’s emergence on the scene, but it continues to grow exponentially. In my job, I encountered dozens of colleagues each week, and almost no one could keep their fears in this noxious environment a secret. A few of us did keep our constant feeling of dread to ourselves, even surprising others when we left; we were by far the exception.
     A keen eye will take a look at the dates of the postings here and will notice a sudden flurry of positive reviews in late February. Is it a surprise that a data-driven company has noticed that the numbers weren’t looking good? No. But to manipulate the data in such an unscrupulous way…well, it should be shocking, but in the current climate, it is not. Whether the intention is to lure in well-meaning talent, or to present a pretty picture to the next corporate buyer, the campaign to present a positive picture of what is truly an unhealthy company is unmistakable. A business that cares about its image works to repair it, not to obfuscate it.
     Corporate does not have to mean unethical. Hard work does not have be unrewarded. High standards and accountability do not have to mean terror. Many, many of us “refugees” have kept in touch with each other and with those who remain behind, and we have learned this: Those of us who landed on our feet elsewhere are reminded that a driven, thriving environment can be exhilarating, personally enriching, can bring out our very best work, can propel us to exceed all expectations. And those who have fled or been fired from Press Ganey describe the feeling of the great weights of managerial bullying and personal despondency being lifted.

Advice to Senior Management – To those of you who are reasonable and ethical and still believe in the mission of this once-great industry leader (and I know there are still a handful of you there), PLEASE fight for Press Ganey. We know it can’t (and shouldn’t) be the bold little start-up it once was, but I genuinely hope, free of schadenfreude, that Press Ganey could once again be the shining star of a company that celebrates innovation, honors its mission, and does its very best for its clients.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend