Don't Judge a Company by Its Appearance - Epic Systems Corporation

If you've ever been to Epic Systems Corporation in Verona, WI you know it's an amazing work environment. That's the first thing you notice and most people would lunge at the opportunity to work at such a fun place. I was a project manager for over 2 years, which abruptly came to a close. The company comes off as a very liberal company because they have a green campus and because they stood up to the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce terribly slanted political advertisements. The company receives many industry awards and has the most satisfied customers. Behind the scenes of Epic, it is run in a much different manner, which is something newer employees don't see immediately. Management rules with an iron first and runs the company as if they were arch conservatives. They will do anything to keep customers 100% happy and that includes disposing of their own employees left and right. Upper management cares much more about their customers than their employees.

Up until the last two months of my career, everything had been going very well. I received praises from Epic physicians (including the director of the model system) on my work, received company awards, and big raises.

Yes, the hours were long. I was warned during the interview process to expect to put in 50 hours per week, so the long hours were never a surprise and not a problem for me. After leaving I looked at my time logs for the past year and I actually had put in about 54 hours per week. When I was not travelling I worked about 50 hours and when I was on the road it was usually 60. I did not have much of a personal life during the work-week, but that was fine by me. I never complained or whined about long hours like some people on the Jobvent and Glassdoor websites. The hours only felt long during the dark winter months. I always thought it was odd that my managers never commented on my hours. Even when I put in 60-65 hour weeks I never was commended for working hard. This was my first sign at not feeling respected at the company. You can work like a slave and your manager won't say anything. This likely occurs because they're too busy with their own customer projects to even realize that you're working hard and putting in long hours. Managers don't have time to be real managers, nor do they have the training. I have friends who were managers and they secretly admitted to this.

The management structure is also setup poorly. Your manager will likely have no direct involvement with your project, so you meet weekly or bi-weekly to discuss what you're working on with your manager. Your manager's sole duty is to assign you work, work, and more work. They are not there to help you grow as an employee or person. My manager, Cristin Napier, told me this on my way out that I won't ever forget: "Epic is not in the business of growing it's employees." It's such a disrespectful thing to say on so many levels. I'm sure this sort of statement came directly from Judy and just shows how little they really care about you. They want people who know how to do their jobs perfectly and never make mistakes. When you only hire college kids with no healthcare experience, mistakes will happen.

The problem with Epic is that the work never stops piling up. The longer you stay at the company, the more projects you will get assigned to. You really aren't allowed to say no to the work or they will question your commitment. They will squeeze you as hard as possible until you either break or prove that you are a superstar employee. Only the Superstars stick around. This is how they keep up the extremely fast-paced, hard-working environment. Nobody wants to be the one doing the least amount of work, so everyone works very hard and the culture is quickly passed onto new employees.

By the time I left I was a manager of two different internal workgroups, working with three different customers, and supporting various go-lives. This is definitely a lot of work, but I thought I was handling it well up until I had one mistake.

The reason that I was fired was that one of my customers, who I was just assigned to, complained about me. Basically they thought that even though I completed the work on-time, I was coming too close to the deadlines and it made them nervous. The customer was late in giving me a login to their environment, which was the primary problem. It was hardly a bad situation since all the work was completed. Nobody seemed to care that I did all of the system build for them and their go-live was entirely successful because of me (the ambulatory portion).

To this day I still can not figure out why I was fired when the project was a success. I can somewhat understand being taken off the project if the customer was uncomfortable, but not actually being fired. Not when I had such a good record on all of my other projects and received praises for my work and leadership. There was supposed to be a process where you receive verbal and written warnings before getting fired. Epic usually doesn't follow their own internal process here.

My manager all of the sudden said that I had a history of problems and blew up tick-tack things about me that she didn't even know anything about nor could she name any specific examples. She pretty much decided based on a gut feeling that I was not right for the company. They want to blow up these little things so that you are less likely to sue them for wrongful termination or something like that. Epic usually settles out of court from what I have heard.

It was funny how at the end of my tenure I had been working there longer than half the people in my division of 100. Total turnover in the project management role by my calculations is somewhere around 30% per year. The other high turnover positions are Technical Services, EDI and Developers (Programmers), but Project Managers have the highest. At the October '09 staff meeting, Judy tried to address the burnout/turnover issue that many people write about on blogs. So she throws up a very one-sided graph that shows voluntary turnover is only 7% per year. Involuntary turnover is much higher, but she doesn't want to talk about that even though clearly people who were fired were probably burning out too. I felt slightly burnt out, but only during the >60 hour work weeks.

The staff meetings were always interesting. I admit they were a very effective way to communicate ideas, strategy, and company goals. I learned a lot about running a business from Judy during these meetings. However, a few things she would say were really inappropiate and these are the things that make others call these meetings 1984ish. She has mocked past employees who said they were working long hours by displaying their hours logged for everyone to see. Like I mentioned above, she throws up slanted figures like our voluntary turnover. She has said that too many people are getting sick on Mondays and Fridays for obvious reasons. She tries to be a grammar Nazi at all times, which is kind of annoying. Overall the staff meeting is a good thing, but I want to warn new employees to keep your mind open about some things. A lot of information is filtered and the meeting can feel like a large pep rally.

The sabattical and stock options are nice, but you have to make it to your 5 year mark to get these and a low percentage of people actually do.

No severance pay was offered to me, but I was allowed to work 7 more weeks so that I could turn over all my projects to someone else. I was fired right before UGM (Epic's annual conference with customers) and was still expected to run one of the booths and give demos to customers. To put me in front of customers again after being told to leave is such a slap in the face and they were taking a big risk in doing so because I could have done something bad. I seriously thought of doing something to hurt the company at UGM. I reconsidered because I didn't want Epic to say anything negative about me to possible future employers.

Most people who are fired from Epic are too embarassed to admit they were fired, so they just leave quietly. It's tough to admit to your friends when you're fired at your first job out of college. If the company wasn't filled with people who have only worked for Epic there would be more revolting over the treatment of people who are dismissed. People don't cause a big scene on their way out because it's their first job and they hope for some kind of recommendation.

I was even slightly threatened (by Lars) that I had to be good during my last 7 weeks or I would be terminated immediately and I would not receive good references. Well, as I am applying for new jobs I found out that Epic will not give references anyways. They will only give out dates of employment and your job title. This is something Epic is forced to do because they have been sued many times in the past. To protect themselves, all managers must refer reference requests to HR and HR will not give any information. It was pretty rude to be told I would receive references and then not get them.

The company I applied to would not hire me without getting more information, so I had to refer the company to an employer I interned at during college for 3 months instead of Epic who I dedicated 29 months of my life too. Luckily I still got the job, but again Epic made my life very difficult.

The non-compete agreement is a completely illegal agreement. I have had friends who work in the Wisconsin unemployment office read it and tell me that its invalid. This doesn't matter because Epic clients and consulting firms won't touch you anyways. Epic threatens that if someone hires you, you would not be able to attend training at Epic, which can be very important for learning the applications. Entire consulting firms can be completely blacklisted from training and from UGM if they hire any former Epic employee before their 1 year mark.

As a recent (or soon to be) college graduate you probably are not already thinking about life after Epic before you even get a job there, but it is something you should consider. The reason Epic employees want to work with Epic clients or consulting firms is because they can make a lot more money doing this than most types of jobs. Being blacklisted especially in a bad economy like this is not a good thing.

To top it off, Epic will even try to prevent you from getting unemployment insurance after you're fired. They told the unemployment insurance office that I had work rule violations and should not be awarded unemployment (because Epic would have to pay part of it). Unemployment asked them for examples and they could not provide any, so I was awarded the insurance after a lengthy delay. Again, once Epic is done with you, they do a good job of making your life difficult.

Overall this job is such a mixed bag that I don't even know if I would or would not recommend it. Most of the positive things you can read in posts on Jobvent and Glassdoor, which did make the job fun. I really loved working there and went in most mornings with a smile on my face thinking I had such a cool job. One good thing, not typically mentioned in other blogs, is that I felt I learned a lot about myself and I enjoyed being pushed hard to see what I was capable of accomplishing. In a way I've been battle-tested and I already feel like a rockstar in my next job. I did have some great coworkers as well who I miss very much.

The point of this vent is that I hope it gives applicants a better sense what they're getting into when you decide to work for Epic. If you have other good job opportunities I would take those over Epic in a heartbeat. If this is all you can find then I would recommend putting in one or two years and then leaving on your own volition before you're forced out.

I hope Judy reads this and will make changes in the way this company is run. It's odd, but I still want them to be successful because I know they are doing a lot of good things in Healthcare. They just need to start treating their own employees better. The company can't continue to keep cycling through employees the way it has been. It's worked for a while, but the software applications are getting increasingly complex and experience will eventually triumph youthful exuberance.

If you have questions about working at Epic Systems Corporation you may contact me at runner123@gmail.com

I don't check the e-mail often, so don't expect quick responses.