Below Minimum Wage Pay in a Very Disorganized Company
If there is any chance for Quest Diagnostics to completely fall of the boat, it is to have a subsidiary as ExamOne. This place is ridiculous. It is some sort of telemarketing company, that is responsible for life insurance applicants’ medical exams at their homes. It is a good merger, because Quest has the lab necessary for testing the blood specimens. The problem is that since the lab in Louisville is responsible for Kentucky and West Virginia, hiring of Mobile Examiners has to be done in a semi virtual form. Plus, since they cannot guarantee any work schedule, they don’t hire full time or part time phlebotomists, but they very creatively call it “on call” position. This also means that they can call you and rely on you all day long, but they will only pay you if work is assigned to you and completed according to very questionable rules. It is very stressful job. No one knows how much work will be available, when and even if there will be anything, because sometimes applicants do not show for the appointment or they cancel it. So, you don’t make much money at all. The company compensates you a very a small amount for canceled appointments, but it is not worth it and you have to fill out forms and wait for someone’s approval, which wastes more of your time. This is why they call it “on call”, because they do not want to pay you for your time working for the company.
They have a lot of employee turnover, but they do not disclose it and keep looking for lost souls who are
ProsNone
ConsYou don't matter, because you are just a low level money sucker, and if you don't like it, they will hire the next one to work for no pay.
The first bit of this review is to satisfy the indeed prompted topics. At the end you will get the message I want to share to prospective hires. I would recommend reading the full thing, but if you can only read one portion, please read my final review and its bullets.
Typical day: My main duty as a contract specimen processor was to enter data that processed COVID-19 samples. I had some other duties related to this, but generally my job can be described as putting barcodes on test tubes 400-600 times a day.
What I learned: I didn't learn any valuable technical skills in this role. I became very efficient at my job, putting up "astronomical numbers" according to multiple supervisors. This won't particularly translate to any job that isn't specific to data entry.
Management: Simply put, I empathize for the supervisors and shift leads who serve as messengers, because they have to deliver very poor messages from upper management to the processors. The supervisors and shift leaders who serve mostly as day-to-day supervisors and messengers for upper management were hit or miss (the three in this role when I left were fantastic!), but once it got above them, it was pretty universally unfortunate.
Workplace culture: You work, you get your breaks, and that's about it. No culture in this position besides the 30 second conversations you give to other processors because you crave any human interaction after staring at a computer all day. The face of Quest isn't horrible though, properl
ProsOT available if specimens to process, peers were generally amicable, very straight-forward tasks
ConsDropped promises of bonuses, horrific onboarding, lack of growth opportunities, explicit denial of further training within job duties, overall mind-numbing position
1.0
Quality Assurance Analyst | Chantilly, VA | Oct 2, 2020
Quality Assurance Department was very Toxic
I worked in the Quality Assurance Department. At first things were great but I soon learned that I worked for the worst department due to the two-faced petty and ridiculously moody managers that were on power trips like I'd never experienced before. I am a woman, and honestly it was the first time I had female bosses and boy did I learn some unpleasant lessons. Up until I worked there, I had always had male bosses and I can say without a doubt that working for the two female managers here was the worst 6 months of my life. They would talk about other people behind their backs (one manager would put jelly beans out in the department and then she would talk trash about other women that she thought were eating too many jelly beans! The pettiness doesn't end there! Even though she took it upon herself to buy the jellybeans and put them in the MIDDLE of the department, she was so petty she put a sign up requesting donations to refill the jelly bean dispenser! This woman made more than $90K a year and was petty and would talk trash about a nice lady from the lab over JELLY BEANS! She would also write down the exact minute others would leave for lunch as well as the minute they returned. If they were 3 - 5 minutes over she'd talk about them behind their backs and if she felt it was becoming too frequent (we're talking literally 3-5 minutes) she'd snidely mention it to them. Meanwhile, she would take LENGTHY lunches, come and as she pleased, and stand around the department e
ProsNOTHING
Conslow pay, barely any paid holidays, overworked, petty managers, no windows
Good:
-Had some fun work events (though my department was so busy we couldn’t participate, or if we did it would add to our already extreme amounts of overtime)
-Nice Coworkers
-Sometimes they would bring treats
-Training program improved after we got a new team lead
Bad:
-Production environment encouraged unethical cutting of corners and would praise those employees.
-Training was nonexistent when I arrived.
-Expect between 30 minutes to 3 hours overtime every single day. Then, after consistently working hours overtime everyday, sometimes going 12+ hours without eating drinking or using the restroom, you might be denied the yearly bonus that gets smaller every year.
-There are 2 types of successful supervisors: 1) Knows the job extremely well and is great at troubleshooting, training and answering questions. 2) Doesn’t know the job of the employees under them very well, but are great at managing people. The Screening Toxicology supervisor was neither. You couldn’t ask her help with a question about the job. You couldn’t ask her for any help of flexibility with your hours. She was chaotic and inconsistent, pulling the department this way and that because she reacted to everything any employee told her without even trying to look at the big picture. Which was also confusing because at the same time she treated her employees like lying children trying to get out of work. If you were sick, she would assume you were lying. She would talk to other employees about OTHER
ProsCoworkers, free labs/blood panel every year, Lab Week
Quest makes everything more complicated than it needs to be. They have mandatory trainings online that you have to do that aren't worth 2 cents... if you fail they bring in a stranger to retrain you in that area. There are frequent changes on how they want you to collect specimens without warning. The phlebotomist are expected to act as a lab tech and know how to do things that they really aren't qualified to do. The psc centers are staffed with one phlebotomist and no one to greet patients or assist with questions. They converted to a check in tablet for wait times that many patients have trouble with. This is supposed to reduce wait times for patients but is often frustrating for them and the staff. If there are questions about orders you're left calling doctors and helplines which is stressful and time consuming. Managers are spread out and if you have an issue it's hard to get a hold of them unless you use your personal phone to txt which is not paid for by the company and is an unacceptable form of professional communication. Wellness screenings are done on one system,drug screens on another ,and most everything else on the care360 program which is awful. They also ask for a credit card at the time of service for the estimated insurance amount that insurance will not cover as a way to get people to pay down debt. If they have a balance and can't pay they will be refused service until it's paid. That shows that they care more about profit than patients that may need nec
ProsPay is decent
ConsYou have no work life balance. Ridiculous attendance policies. Management is hard to contact
glad i dont work at a place where alot of discrimation, brown nosing and favoritism occur
there was alot of brown nosing by employees and management showed alot of favoritism. I had a supervisor lie to me about getting a raise and making me believe it for 6 months then finding out hr never approved of her and my managers proposal. In fact people that made too much in my department kept their pay which two other supervisors stressed to me that was not right for them to be there. Also certain people could work poorly and get away with it because she was a good brown noser. Alot of flirting with married supervisors from other employees that was very noticeable especially when this young immature 19 yr old would brag about what they were doing behind this so called happily married supervisors wifes back. emailing, texting and him telling her about personal information about everyone in his department. If we are to respect supervisors they make it very difficult especially seeing this kind of behavior. DO NOT WORK THERE IT WAS FRUSTRATING THE LAST 5 YEARS OUT OF 13 THAT I WAS THERE. Clinical processing was like a circus very poor management and working alot of overtime because of stupid meeings that took away from our processing time. It was ridiculous to especially have fortune 500 say "Quest is one of the best places to work". This is making fortune 500 look pretty bad they obvious dont get the inside story on this place. My friend who was pregnant was going to get fired because it was so hot in the department she thought she was going to pass out because the air con
Prosbenefits
Conspoor management, discriminating and supervisors that lie too much to their employees
I worked for Quest for 4.5 years in two different regions. My last position was a Float in the San Gabriel Valley. My first 1.5 years was great. I was a part-time then full time employee. I started at a infectious disease clinic in Northern California. I must say although very fast paced, it was one of the most rewarding jobs I have held in 32 years as a Phlebotomist. I had one of the top 3 supervisor/Lead in my career. They helped me excel at customer service and were always there for you, instructing you on the way Quest did business and what the expectations were and gave you the knowledge to not only meet them but exceed them. Again this time was so great.
After my transfer to the metro LA area, it was a nightmare of a job, not the duties, but the Supervisor and the Lead are at the bottom of any managers I ever had, so disorganized and created internal strife because of their lack of management skills. Impossible to get any time off, it took me three years to get a vacation, for one week. Working open to close with 2 hour lunches, that were split and given no notice of this. Told my work schedule by text with less than hour to report, or no message and just went to my previous days assignment, as a Float you do not have a set schedule it's day to day, again I knew what job I took, it's not how this is supposed to be done though. Unbelievably incompetent supervisors who had 5 employees that they gave anytime they wanted off too. I worked six days a week with no notice of
ProsSteady Work, advancement
ConsShort staffed, rife with bad supervisors, management
Implemented Six Sigma and Lean practices to develop efficiency-enhancing workflow/process improvements to accommodate increasing responsibilities necessitated by staff reductions (process improvement from 2.2 Sigma to 4.1 Sigma within 10 months).
Constantly analyzed and controlled inventory, utilizing specialized computer systems (Peoplesoft, Stockclerk, etc.), established strong relationships with customers and vendors, standardized materials ordering and eliminated waste. Reduced on-hand stock by 40% and increased its availability to customer at same time.
Utilized extensive Microsoft Office Suite skills to establish and monitor laboratory supply process controls, developed charts and graphs to compare performance against target and baseline and predict procurement trends.
Maintained close vendor relations to minimize or eliminate open orders, utilized substitute distributors to prevent reagent and lab supply shortage, addressed product recalls. Maintained vendor score cards and managed minority spend in accordance to State and Federal regulations.
Utilized Customer Service skills to address client issues; collaborated with multiple members of SLT, managers and supervisors across various departments including Sales, Client Solutions, Account Management, Logistics, Field Operations, Lab Operations to present a satisfactory solution to escalated customer issues.
Created and maintained customer satisfaction metrics, motivated staff to exceed clients’ expectations, int
This use to be a decent company to work for years ago. I left after almost 9 years at the company as a Medical Technologist. Instead of treating us like employees they treated us as factory workers and tried to make us more and more productive. It was more about quantity instead of quality. They have drastically reduced previous benefits which weren't bad in the past. You also need to punch in and out for lunch and they place the punch clocks right in your department clear across on the other side of the building so you can waste a few minutes getting there and back so you can't even enjoy your lunch because you are constantly looking at the clock. The new CEO is focused on money and doesn't have a healthcare background. I have never met a company so focused on not getting you the benefits you deserve. For instance if your BMI is over so much they make you pay more for health insurance which is already very awful. The raise have been awful and every year it's another excuse, every year were are "in a transition year" setting up for a better year. When I left I thought I would get pro rated profit sharing but they instituted a new rule that you must work there at least 6 months that year to get it. Just another example of them doing everything to try to compensate you less. My former co-workers say it's getting worse and many have had to quit because they are adjusting their schedules they had for years to a more dynamic schedule basically getting the absolute most t
Prosnational company easy to transfer, quality co-workers
Consbenefits, work/life balance, heath insurance, treated you unprofessionally
Micromanaged to death
Would rather support belligerent customer's than employees
Low wages compared to other companies for doing similar work
Very immature work environment e.g., convergys
Ever move watched
Reprimanded for every minute things
Does not care about it's employees at all
Mandatory Overtime
I am not disgruntled. Current employee. I left my job to come to Quest Because I believed they were a good company to work for. I am trying to keep you from making the same mistake. The Call Center position rather they call it Insurance Risk Interviewer or Tele Underwriter basically you are working as a contractor for various insurance companies e.g. state farm, all state and handling their customers medical interviews. With such personal questions being asked many customers are in denial about their medical conditions or embarrassed or don't want high premiums for smoking, etc, so naturally you cannot please them all and will have belligerent customers or customers looking to fight you on every question. Instead of recognizing these things management blindly abides by the debunked the customer is always right even when they are dead wrong and you’ve done nothing but to get through the interview the best way you know how. They will not support you no matter how nice you are or how well you handled the customer. You are wrong you will be written up they will find something wrong even the way you breathed or coughed during the interview I am not making this up. Please
ProsMedical, dental, vision, stock
Consmicromanaged, disciplined for every little thing, no support
Questions And Answers about Quest Diagnostics
What is the best part of working at Quest Diagnostics?
Asked Dec 5, 2019
Benefits
Answered May 12, 2022
The hours and pay
Answered May 12, 2022
What is the work environment and culture like at Quest Diagnostics?
Asked Feb 25, 2016
Some leads are back stabbers. They put themselves first in finding mistakes, Do not know what grudge this person has against me but i am looking to leave ASAP.
Answered Oct 22, 2020
Hard any constructive criticism in the PSC in CA supervisors hardly a available or respond. Site lead is always over run by a other shall we say very "assertive" who will be the narc and it the group load bestie. They talk behind everyone's back morale is low and positive feedback and giving support is frowned upon. Misery loves company. As a newbie it is a disservice to my learning. I wish I could speak to my supervisor or group lead but they are besties with the one person that gives me the most grief.
Answered Apr 16, 2020
If you were in charge, what would you do to make Quest Diagnostics a better place to work?
Asked Nov 15, 2019
Eliminate the family and friends program. It doesn't work when everyone is related. Favoritism and double standards happen.
Answered Dec 19, 2021
Pay more timely
Answered Nov 25, 2020
What would you suggest Quest Diagnostics management do to prevent others from leaving?
Asked Mar 20, 2017
Quest needs to pay their mobile examiners mileage
along with the hourly drive time .
Answered Mar 2, 2022
Stop putting Cliques and Buddy Groups in charge of whole Departments! Better Training! Take away the God Complex from the people in charge of Training the New Hires and Temps in Lenexa, KS.
Answered Nov 28, 2020
Do you have to go to school to be a phibotomist or is it on the job training
Asked Jan 27, 2016
Quest Diagnostics is not on the job training. Candidates must have at least 2 years experience, and strong phlebotomy skills in pediatric and geriatric blood draw. I have been with the company for 6 years, I started with 8 years of hospital experience. Every job posting for Quest diagnostics states the requirements I listed above.
