material handler

director of supply chain management

division director

vice president

inventory specialist

HealthTrust

This review is of the company Health Trust and NOT of the facility at which I work.   Health Trust contracts with HCA and their facilities - sort of a third party - so while one might work at a hospital or surgery center, you report to the company and not directly to the hospital or surgery center.

These are opinions and observations I have made in several years with the company.

Management, both local and divisional, do not understand the job market and the need for market-based waged adjustments.  They don't seem to understand that even entry level jobs have to compete with other entry level jobs which pay better than what this company wishes to pay.   In short I think this is willful ignorance of the local job market to keep wages low.  All one has to do is look on any employment/job website to see what similar companies are hiring at to realize this company is underpaying.  

There is a reason this company doesn't usually post a starting wage on it's job listings.  They are trying to underpay you.

Company promotes key core values such as innovation and courage to speak one's mind (among others), but speaking one's mind only puts you on the map as a problem employee.  Company not interested in hearing about ways to innovate, instead they are focused on company wide standardization at the expense of responding to local needs and wants and at the expense of the nurses and clinical staff who are local.  Company doesn't seem to grasp that facilities across the U.S. differ greatly in size, culture, demographics, etc.   Company thinks a one-size-fits-all approach is best, which ignores local realities and ignores the needs of local clinical staff.   

Local managers (directors) conduct self-evaluations so divisional and corporate leaders do not have a good grasp on how well their directors are doing.  This combined with the fact staff are never asked to give feedback on how their directors are doing present a false picture on how directors are performing.  As long as directors meet certain numbers divisional leadership takes no interest in how they treat employees or if directors are deficient in areas not accounted by those numbers - and there are several areas which are nonetheless important for the job role but not quantifiable.

Divisional leadership was present on site numerous times (over the course of years) and not once did divisional leadership take any interest in me as an employee.  Beyond the "hello how are you doing?" they showed zero interest in having a conversation about how the job was going, how policies were working, or how my director was doing.  This lack of interest comes off as arrogant and since directors do self-evaluations they have no idea what their directors are doing day to day or if for example they abuse the salary system (taking off during the week, not putting in sufficient hours, etc.).

Divisional HR was always very courteous and prompt and professional. It's unfortunate this type of behavior did not extend to divisional C.E.O. and C.O.O.

Company takes a short view of cost savings.  While they are constantly looking for ways to save money and employ several people in this role and expend a good deal of money for this, if something isn't easy to quantify, it's not part of the cost-savings calculation.  It's easy to compare two products and say X is less than Y, but if Y requires more area to store or more hours to process or doesn't have a reliable delivery schedule, etc. then these variables do not factor in their calculations.  This is a short view and presents a false cost-saving.

Many of the people who look for cost-savings are former nurses.  Their intentions are good, but when you are not working in the nursing field in a real-world setting on a consistent basis, I feel their skills, while still valuable, are not kept up-to-date and they don't realize the challenges faced by the nurses and clinical staff who are currently engaged in real-world day-to-day realities.  Thus, looking for cost savings at the expense of how it will affect the real world is short sighted.

One must also ask, if one's job is to find cost savings and if your job performance and maybe a bonus or raise is based on finding cost savings, does this not present a perverse incentive for finding costs at the expense of what is best for patients and the staff who have to use supplies, materials and tools?  I would say yes.  

Management and structure is top-heavy and when it comes to cost savings no one seems to be raising the issue about redundant personnel and too many layers of administration.  The trend seems to be hire more people and generate more reports and data.

Company seems overly obsessed with tracking and spreadsheet numbers, but not putting these numbers in proper contexts and/or if something is difficult to quantify then it's not part of their calculus and consideration.  For example, it's easy to create a spreadsheet and claim how many items each facility has an out-of-stock situation.  But this spreadsheet does not indicate if the out-of-stock is due to the local warehouse not having the item, the supplier or vendor not having the item, if the supply was not properly ordered, etc.   The spreadsheet only presents a number and while those at the lower levels will know these questions to ask, the higher up the ladder one is the less interested you are in the details and the higher up the ladder one goes the number of reports increases and even less interest or ability to know all the details.  Numbers are numbers and without refinement or explanations behind those numbers the potential for bad policy and poor decisions increases.

Key Performance Indicators are only useful if they support the goals of the company and too often with this company KPI's seemed to be done for the sake of having KPI's instead of any meaningful way to guide policy or create meaningful change.

The best part of the job was being around a large group of very talented people both clinical and non-clinical and the facility at which I worked stove for creating a sense of family which to some extent I think they succeeded.  Playing a part in supporting these people in their jobs was gratifying.  It's unfortunate this sense of family and helping each other (nurtured at the local level) is sometimes at odds, with the monolithic inflexible ideas of corporate culture.

COVID-19  The response of this company, in my opinion, based upon my personal observations, to the COVID-19 situation could be better.  Company seems much more concerned with tracking and logging the PPE being used rather than actual results - i.e. is more PPE being procured and made available.  Again, the company seems more interested in the process and their tracking software, than in real world consequences.

Company claims it uses it's size and purchasing power to negotiation better pricing with companies and vendors and thus passing the savings on to anyone who signs on to the company's supply chain model.  However the company's quest to achieve contracted pricing (in theory lower than non-contracted) only incentivizes vendors and suppliers to raised their prices so as to offer Health Trust a "contracted price".  Similar to a retail store selling a $50.00 shirt for the "sale" price of $20.00.  Company's obsession with contracted prices and working with companies who are on contract limits what supply chain can obtain for their local facility and contracted prices aren't always the lowest.   With COVID-19 shortage of PPE became a problem, but it seemed no one wanted to admit, at least initially, that these shortages were due to a shortage at "contracted prices".  If a company is struggling to meet a surging demand and has to increase manufacturing capacity, prices usually have to go up to cover those costs - which may limit how much a particular vendor is willing to sell to a large company at contracted prices.   Prices are contracted, not volume or quantity.   It seems the rules of basic economics is lost on some people in this company.

Local director was flexible with scheduling and with requests for time off.  Local director didn't micromanage which was appreciated.  Director was very knowledgeable with policies, procedures and software systems.   This is a good start - however director was more reactive than proactive; failed to see consequences of decisions "farther down the line"; more concerned with the process of things instead of actual results; failed to see employee(s) as a true asset(s); failed to keep their part with agreed upon share of the work load; did not keep same high standards of organization and neatness in supply rooms as employee did; many people in facility found director difficult to work with; disorganized; forgetful; seemed to spend much of day managing email; poor time management.  These are all areas that can be improved upon, but if divisional leadership never takes a critical look at their directors and never gets an objective outside opinion (which is not going to come from a director self-evaluation) how will things ever change?

I really enjoyed the facility where I worked and with those people at the facility.   I did not enjoy the company I worked for.

If you are interested in applying for a supply chain position at HealthTrust, know that the company does not care about it's employees. In job postings for supply chain tech, HealthTrust makes it seem like you will be working under the company that's over the hospital like "HCA Healthcare" when it's really HealthTrust.
 HealthTrust will  give employees holidays off but use their PTO to avoid employees taking vacation time and to prevent accruing PTO. HealthTrust does not pay employees for the amount of work they do and to meet the cost of living. 
If working at a hospital, HealthTrust has little to no advancement opportunities unless upper management decides to leave for some reason.
HealthTrust gives employees little to no raises during their time working for the company. If working at a hospital, you will hear other employees such as PCT's or Nurses getting raises and bonuses but realize you will not be getting any because you are an HealthTrust employee. 

Overall, HealthTrust does not care about it's employees. Please work on finding another job while working here, the company does not care about you as a human or an employee. Horrible company!

The job itself and the workload is good but what really kills this job is management. They don’t know how to manage if you complain or give your concerns about any area that you’re in they will remove you from that area just to prove a point that they are in charge and that they don’t care what you think about the job load or the job concern. The management are very sarcastic when it comes to situations either personal or work wise. This is a warehouse where you don’t see future this is a job where you come get the knowledge and find somewhere else to go. They can’t keep people because of their lack of management when you asked to talk to the higher ups, they’ll tell you yes and you will never get to talk to them. The employees voice are never heard. Everything is about numbers get the work out and don’t care what you have to say. They are based on a point system if your doctor takes you out of work because you can’t work for one or two days expect to get a point because you’re not at work no matter if your doctor gives you a note. They don’t take a doctors note as a consideration for your absence.

It’s a good place to get your feet wet and you’ll definitely always have a job regardless of what department you’re in because turnover is so high they can’t afford to fire anyone. The people in HR are great about planning fun events as well as some others in the office that help come up with fun ideas. However don’t expect anything from management. They don’t care about employees and expect people to work like machiness but pay below the industry average. It’s actually a bit insulting how low the pay is. Managers spend all day doing very little because they don’t know how to do anything at all. When employees try to express ways of improving they’ll give many excuses as to why you’re wrong and that there’s clearly no issues. Growth opportunities are VERY slim, so if you have hopes and dreams I’d suggest going elsewhere unless you just need the experience so you can move on to a better company. One good thing is the health insurance is the best I’ve ever had. Other than that there’s not much good about the place aside from some cool coworkers that keep things entertaining.

My job was a material handler/forklift operator and a typical day would be coming in and inspecting our fork truck with a checklist of things that needed to be looked over, and doing putaways  and replenishments of the product that was received and was done throughout the shift along with other warehouse responsibilities. I learned that this company needs to work on building and developing their workforce instead of tearing them down with mismanagement and work on building morale and making it a safer place for everyone and also work on building a better company culture most people here don’t enjoy they’re jobs and that most of the new hires don’t have much encouragement to be better at they’re jobs and most quit pretty quickly because they’re not trained properly and get fed to the wolves and make them learn on they’re own. The company culture is very toxic.

The job itself is simple, however, lack of follow-through and planning by management in Springfield MO. and Earth city MO has caused frustration and high turnover. The company took on a contract with a well known national lab and chaos ensued. The lab nor ROI/healthtrust  has followed thru with making sure outpatient facilities or the hospital Roi works out of scans all their specimens to one barcode making it more efficient since the facilities would know exactly how many specimens are going out, and easier for the drivers. Very inefficient way of having couriers and quest drivers pick up at same locations, often at same time. Roi also contracts with a local delivery company where their drivers also pick up specimens. They don't scan, so no one has any idea what was picked up, if anything. Metrics oriented as opposed to people oriented, which is why the transportation department is always in need of drivers. 

Though well-intentioned, mentorship and leadership development programs are disappointingly outdated and directionless beyond formal training. They fail to establish clear objectives for participants in the field, resulting in a frustrating lack of experience and understanding. The immediate leaders responsible for imparting necessary skills and expertise are poorly equipped and untrained, exacerbating a critical skills gap that threatens to perpetuate failure and waste valuable time. Additionally, the programs adopt a frustratingly rigid one-size-fits-all approach, heavily influenced by divisional assignments. This often leads to being underutilized and marginalized due to inadequate guidance and genuine mentorship, compounding the disappointment.

I worked there for 10 months through a temp service. Was told after my 90 days that I would be put on permanently. Never happened, but yet someone that started one week before me was put on permanent right after their 90 days. Tried to tell me it was because of the Covid19. Upper management does not have a clue what is going on and really don’t care about their people. They gave us a holiday off, but for the rest of the week we had to work 10 hour shifts. I had a death in my family and they would not even tell the temp place to at least pay me for a day or two for bereavement. The people I worked with were really good people, but upper management could care less about its workers. Just concerned about the bottom dollar. 

There is simply so much opportunity to make a difference at HealthTrust; from local community work, to self improvement and work improvement.  There really isn't any limitations from what i've experienced in my first year.

As for the work...it can be very over whelming though because it is a lot of information about a lot of different systems and you have to learn how the web of relationships work with each system that is in place.  And that is where the challenge is at. From acronyms, to old and new systems..the technologies in place and keeping up with everything, policies, procedures.  Its not a walk in the park for sure but a challenging environment i think will make anyone rise up to the challenges.

What is the best part of working at the company?
Ability to listen to music. That’s it!

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
The lack of organization, professionalism and leadership. The culture is extremely juvenile and chaotic. Nepotism and racism run rampant throughout the facility. The job functions were simple to complete, the issues arise when any interaction with management is required. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
The working environment is reactive and the culture is archaic and racist. It’s starts at the higher rungs of the hierarchy and trickles down. 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Work was easy. As previously stated, there was an absence of effective leadership in the building.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Material handler 34 salaries reported	$19.85 per hour
Director of supply chain management 7 salaries reported	$73,648 per year
Division director 38 salaries reported	$179,728 per year
Vice president 34 salaries reported	$193,867 per year
Inventory specialist 47 salaries reported	$18.01 per hour

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