Working at Cerner Corp. — Reviews by Employees

Cerner are well established in the UK now, and I still think HOW??

Since day 1 they had Americans who had no Idea about the NHS and the UK healthcare Market come to the UK to help implement the solution. They spent most of their time 'livin it up' getting drunk, and travelling to European destinations whilst the UK associates worked long hours with no visibility.

PAY: The pay is average, associates work well over the 40 hours. If you work harder you might get a £100 night on the town award or a certificate to put on your wall if you are into that kind of thing.

RESPECT: Most of the clients that I visited had a negative image of Cerner. It took a long time to establish a good relationship. Also the American associate had no respect for the NHS, so what do you expect back?

BENEFITS: As standard, as with most consulting companies. Pension, Health, gym allowance. Yawn yawn!

JOB SECURITY: Not bad, but Cerner have always managed people out of the company depending on the climate. BTW.....the UK HR department is a complete joke, they have no empathy and treat employees like numbers as instructed by the HQ in KC. Quite sad really.......anyways......I shouldn’t get too emotional :P

WORK/LIFE Balance: If you are looking for a work/life balance, forget it! Cerner is not the place for you. I worked 60 hour weeks on a regular basis and as a result I lost many friends, a girlfriend and my life!!

CAREER POTENTIAL/GROWTH: If you are an American then your career will grow. If you send emails at midnight then your career will grow. If you go to the pub with managers and execs your career will grow. If you are a attractive woman and flirt, your career will grow. If you are asian/black your career will shrink!

It still surprises me the most of the workforce at Cerner is ethnic maybe 60% (in the UK), yet if you go to higher level management you will find it difficult to find an ethnic exec/senior manager. I am sure many ex-employees will back me up on this.

LOCATION: Two buildings in Paddington. Sheldon and Point. No complaints there.......good locations for sure.

CO-WORKER COMPETENCE: At times I felt like a baby sitter, most of the associates are young grads who get excited when you give them a company phone and laptop. The smiles on their faces remind me of my son who is 6 years old! Having said this, there are also many experienced individuals who I loved working with and learnt soo much from them.

WORK ENVIRONMENT: Is good, considering. Offices are clean and swanky.


To Sum up, if you are looking for work as a graduate and are desperate......then join Cerner for 2 years and then leave (as most people do). You can easily increase your salary by 40% and find a more rewarding company. If you are an experienced and are desperate for a job, then I would suggest signing on to Job Seekers Allowance. Stay well away...........you have been warned!

ANY job will be better than what you'll end up with @ Cerner. The pay is horrible...70-80 hour weeks, constant travel...and don't even dare ask for a weekend off (you'll be chastised). Understand that you will be gone all the time and not have a clue what you're doing. You'll watch a few videos (CBTs), take a couple of quizzes...and poof, you're on the road. Cerner makes a killing on support - and you don't get any training, any rest...what you do get is 12 hour shifts at hospital after hospital (if you're lucky, you get the 7am-7pm shift). If you get the night shift, well, it's rough. Especially as you might have the day shift the week before, then the night shift the week after, then back to day...very hard for the body/mind to continually adjust to the shifts, especially factoring in the travel.

No respect...none. The managers aren't trained. They are the most pitiful bunch I've ever encountered in my working life. I'm assuming they don't get paid well, either - Cerner doesn't like to invest money in training, despite the dog and pony show they present when you interview. Managers aren't there to support you. You're travelling Monday-Friday, you're exhausted, and you get help from your manager if you have questions or request a day off. In fact, they'll tell you if you can't handle it, you'll be replaced. That sounded fantastic to me and I quit!! : )
I knew that a job was not going to rule my life...and there were plenty of other places to work when I bailed. (more than 4 yrs ago, and I am still dumbfounded by this company's tactics, looks like nothing's changed)

Product: Cerner's reputation in hospitals is very bad. They will have to change the product, or they'll be squeezed out of the market, just like they were kicked out of England!

Like someone said before, I worked with some fun/smart people. However, at least 80% of my Compass class was gone at the 2 yr mark...roughly 32 of the 40 people were gone in 2 yrs (just like me)....off to greener pastures. On the positive side, Cerner REALLY makes you appreciate the next company you work for! LOL

No work/life balance...job security seemed absolutely fine, but this was a few years ago....not sure what's up now. The managers were told about the turnover rate, and to fix it...but nothing was ever done. We were never in fear of losing our jobs - they will let you work until you drop and then replace you. They're paying you so little for the hours worked, that they are getting a MUCH better deal than the employee.
Like others said, if you have a problem, don't bother discussing it with HR, they ARE NOT there for you! They are a bunch of vacuous Cernerites...I'm not sure why the department was even formed!

My point, STAY AWAY....this place was HORRIBLE!!!!!!!! And what an idiot the CEO was...oh lord, listening to the 4 hours of babbling at Town Hall was brutal (and mandatory). "Beer and Viagra?!?!", Neal Patterson, CEO @ Town Hall in front of 5,000 employees. What a dumba**!! You would think that moron would have learned after the e-mail debacle...then I hear he put that e-mail on a large screen at yet another meeting 7 years later, my goodness, brain dead!?!?!!? He needs to leave that alone, or the stock is going to nose-dive again! I never understood how this company didn't get sued. (no overtime pay, sexual harassment, discrimination - they are breaking federal labor laws!) Beer Fridays...giving a bunch of recent college grads unlimited free beer, and then wondering why there were problems!?!?!? This place is a circus! A complete joke!

They don't care about "transforming healthcare", they enjoy fleecing their clients and employees alike...and send employees who don't have a clue what they're doing to support the clients (ask someone about ACEs before you take a job here).
Cheap product (no wonder clients are so pissed, but by the time they figure it out, they've already invested millions and it's waaaaay too late to back out), horrible customer service, horrible pay, horrible cube working conditions....just plain horrible!

Someone recently told me about this site...can't believe I'm still so pissed about my time spent at this sweatshop several years later. I guess moving on to another company and being treated with respect and as a valued addition to the work environment really showed me how awful Cerner treated us. Thankfully, I am long past them...just wanted to warn you!

If you like waking up early Monday morning catching a flight, working the rest of the day with jet lag and ten days worth of work to be finished in four days. Then work until late Thursday afternoon and then catching a flight back and if your lucky you will get back really late Thursday night or Friday morning. Friday you will spend the entire day in meetings, again with jet lag. Saturday you need to have your time sheet finished, do your expense report and plan your next trip. Sunday you wake up and need to do your laundry and pack for the trip on Monday and then you get to do this all over again week after week until your body finally breaks down.

After working for this company for three and a half years and dozens of hospitals you will likely become ill and might never be able to work again. If your in your twenties you can might make it, if you are in your forties or fifties make sure you take out the Long Term Disability Plan, chances are you are going to need it.

you are only as god as your last fail, you will never hear what good things you do or have done,

You can read all of the comments already out there, but I will verify a few and make a few of my own as it pertains to my experience.

Cerner hires 80% internal and 20% external. What that basically means is they hire a lot of College kids and put them in to the Velocity program. Velocity is a 2 years'ish program that moves them around quickly so they can get up to speed and then places them in the field for up to 2 years. Basically warm bodies for professional services dollars. Long hours and lots of travel. Typically out on Monday and back on Thursday every week. The glamor of travel wears off quick I'd imagine which explains the burnout rate. If you can make it past that then you will likely move thru the ranks internally and you may find it a rewarding place. I believe it is partly to weed the herd and partly to have those "warm bodies" to sell.

That being said, my experience is slightly different as I didn't come out of college to them. I was already well into my career and hired for a specific skill set. So the long hours and hard work were more of a "you get out of it what you put in to it" scenario. As others have mentioned if your lazy and un-motivated, you probably wont make it at Cerner. They also tend to thin the herd by letting the bottom 5-10% go each year. It is usually a quiet thing, but a few years back they actually called it a layoff and the stock price took a dive. So needless to say, that was the only year they actually called it a layoff.

So now to my experience and discontent with them. I was in a sales capacity with them. And my only real discontent besides the normal hoopla (management inexperience (this is a real issue for them), very very political atmosphere - what can you do for me, Good Ole Boys club, etc... and benefits that look good on the surface until you really pick them apart) is that they have no respect for sales talent or what seems like any desire to retain said talent. Biggest complaint amongst sales related roles is very slow commission payouts and what might be said to be a desire to do everything in their power to "not pay" their sales people. Back in February, commissions were actually delayed payout due to Neal Patterson going through every sales persons payouts line by line. That is unheard of and got a good laugh from my colleagues at other organizations.

Needless to say, I decided to move on after 5 years with them and have not looked back. I enjoyed my time with them and I respected my colleagues immensely. At the end of the day though, I needed to move to do what was best for me and my family.

The best advice I can give to all who may read this is if you are considering going to work for Cerner, be ready for a couple years of hell and be very social and make a lot of friends quickly and you will do well. If you are at Cerner and burned out, the grass is greener and get your resume out there. You won't regret it.

The worst company I have ever worked for! Since I started working for Cerner I have been treated with no respect, long hours, reminded that I'm lucky to have a job by multiple "suits", and so-called managed by incompentent "kids". The current so-called leader that is overlooking the hospital that I work at, came out of college and has no practical experience in the computer networking field. (I think he had a suit on when he came out of the womb.) He doesn't understand what Network Administrators and Engineers do, and the only time thre is any interaction with him is when the VPs at the Hospital have a complaint and he needs to "chew some ass". Cerner is constantly screwing up systems at the Hospital. They don't have a clue on what they are doing and they even admitted this to us at the conception of the project. "We're not sure how to do this but we're going to get it done!" They're getting it done alright. Just waiting to see when they screw something up and it affects a patient.
As I stated before, this is the worst company I have worked for by far! They love to hire kids out of college, pay them cheap and then burn them out. They don't care because there are more kids out there to fill the space of the ones that leave. Retirement Plan, doesn't exist. Their Retirement Plan is, "Buy the stock now, it's high. All of the "long-timers" have cashed theirs in so that they can move to sunny Naples, FL and retire. #3 in charge already has and a more "suits" have made there way down South to Naples, FL too.
If you're a good "ass kisser", love long hours with bad pay and don't care about an out-of-the-office life, then Cerner is for you. Otherwise, find another job somewhere else! When the economy gets better there are will be a lot of people leaving Cerner for a better company, and it won't be hard to find a better company - GUARANTEED! What goes around, comes around!!!!! Sorry I won't be there to see it!

So...I am looking into this company and from the reviews, I am not too excited. The position is a Velocity Delivery Consultant. The job description/recruiter says that there is 80% travel (goto client on monday, returning on thursday). looks like the salary is in the mid 50's.
a couple questions...

1. can anybody cast light on this position in particular?
2. if you are out of the office so much, is the overtime suggested in the forums realistic?
3. If the travel is true, where might I expect to be headed to/how long do you spend on a particular client?

Have been unemployed for a while and weighing if I should put my energy into this company. Any constructive input would be greatly appreciated....
Thanks!

I have to agree with my Jewish friend from New York. I am from a relatively hickish area but I must say, "them there people not only sleep with their relatives, they eat them too". I worked long hours and had very little sleep not to mention my health went to putz while I worked in there. I worked with a lot of very young people who made a paupers salary. They dressed terribly and talked about how they partied, drank and slept around right after their workout in the company gym. I worked with one PM whose suit made him look like a clown (he was barely out of diapers) and I think he went to his mother's closet and dug out something fom the 80's with shoulder pads. He was always talking about how his girlfriends who wanted expensive purses and jewelry- who knows, maybe he was trying to hide something from us and these were his shopping friends- either way, he never did any work. My gag refIex took over every time I went to KC and rode that funky blue bus from the airport to the sleezy hotel that btw had some creepy crawly problems. Once I arrived to campus via another bus, it was always "show time". There was no real problem solving it was very much a dog and pony show for their clients. Just once, I wish the clients would read some of these responses. I made good money but it was not worth the 16 hours a day I worked so that the CRE's could get their bonus and buy another summer house. Ugh. The training was the worst with all of those ancient looking web based computer classes. Before I left, I really spewed out some of the corruption of my "inner circle" to my bosses boss who happened to be clueless and one of the youngest members of my group. You see, if you were not female, really old, previously a BIG Cheese somewhere else, wrinkled and/or fat then you were not accepted. It was always against company policy to recruit clients but it happened all of the time if they were big cheesy people. AfterI left and the person who took my place left a couple of months after me. If you are there now, good luck and if not, find some other way to break into the healthcare computer world. Sayonara.

I have to agree with my Jewish friend from New York. I am from a relatively hickish area but I must say, "them there people not only sleep with their relatives, they eat them too". I worked long hours and had very little sleep not to mention my health went to putz while I worked in there. I worked with a lot of very young people who made a paupers salary. They dressed terribly and talked about how they partied, drank and slept around right after their workout in the company gym. I worked with one PM whose suit made him look like a clown (he was barely out of diapers) and I think he went to his mother's closet and dug out something fom the 80's with shoulder pads. He was always talking about how his girlfriends who wanted expensive purses and jewelry- who knows, maybe he was trying to hide something from us and these were his shopping friends- either way, he never did any work. My gag refIex took over every time I went to KC and rode that funky blue bus from the airport to the sleezy hotel that btw had some creepy crawly problems. Once I arrived to campus via another bus, it was always "show time". There was no real problem solving it was very much a dog and pony show for their clients. Just once, I wish the clients would read some of these responses. I made good money but it was not worth the 16 hours a day I worked so that the CRE's could get their bonus and buy another summer house. Ugh. The training was the worst with all of those ancient looking web based computer classes. Before I left, I really spewed out some of the corruption of my "inner circle" to my bosses boss who happened to be clueless and one of the youngest members of my group. You see, if you were not female, really old, previously a BIG Cheese somewhere else, wrinkled and/or fat then you were not accepted. It was always against company policy to recruit clients but it happened all of the time if they were big cheesy people. AfterI left and the person who took my place left a couple of months after me. If you are there now, good luck and if not, find some other way to break into the healthcare computer world. Sayonara.

How to start? I suppose you will have to take this with a grain of salt as it's coming from a New York Jew-as you likely know, Cerner is anti-semitic, anti-gay, anti-black, and anti-anything that doesn't conform to Kansas City blandness and Cerner kool-aid.

So I was hired as a client executive from IBM, a place where speaking your mind and discussing new ideas was welcome...I learned this was not the case in about 5 minutes at Cerner orientation. The fact that a 22 year old was telling me when I could go to the bathroom and when I couldn't should have been a clue. I asked if pay was based upon cost of labor or cost of living (yes, I know, I live in the most expensive city in America). A different 22 year old idiot (fit the Cerner stereotype, blond, sleeps with Cerner executives, etc.) gave me a response that didn't answer my question. I called her out on it, and she responded with a circuitous response of 'cost of labor.' I asked why she didn't just answer me the first time, and I was awarded with an HR action the following day...

My boss pushed hard to get me hired-as soon as he found out about the HR action, he made my life a living hell. Not only was he an incompetent fool, who responded to my questions with 'figure it out,' (if he wasn't belittling me), he was a fat, disgusting, know it all. Furthermore, even an idiot as stupid as this man was able to figure out Cerner stinks...he resigned 4 months before I did (which was a welcome exit).

My last boss, who is actually a nice guy, was a first-time manager who actually tried to help me. Unfortunately, he was long since drunk on the Cerner kool-aid to be of any help. I almost felt bad when I resigned shortly after he took over for the jerk, except I was elated that I found a job where people are treated with respect, there is an actual chance to generate new business (Cerner relies heavily on its install base), and the people weren't unsophisticated hicks (I was mortified and appauled at the inherent lack of sophistication both in Kansas City and by Cerner executives)

I used to shudder every time I boarded a flight to KC...it holds a special place in my gag reflex, although that is unfair due to my experiences at Cerner (KC, although devoid of culture and a terrible place for any Jews who are used to real cities, has good steak, barbecue, and terrible poker players at the riverboat casinos). For anyone who is not an unsophisticated hick who likes kissing butt, I suggest you look elsewhere for employment, particularly if you're not from KC.