Pros
- Skill Development: If you have the ability and drive, working at Epic will fast track your professional growth as a new college grad. The level of responsibility given to new employees completely shadows what you would find at other orgs. - Salary: Pay is closely aligned with performance. If you are a high performer, expect your salary to scale very quickly. Note that this is Epic strategy to keep high performers vs. needing to provide better benefits.
Cons
- DEI: This is not a priority for Epic. Google what the president said about DEI. You will find an audio clip on Reddit that is telling. - Work/Life Balance: Epic budgets 45 hrs/week for technical services staff and will push you to take on additional work to fill those hours. In practice, your working time will exceed that threshold, especially if you are a high performer. It is near impossible to work your way up the ladder and maintain a healthy balance. - WFH: Epic is not flexible and has not acted on employee feedback that people want more flexibility. Staff must be in office every day, with the exception of 10 “half-and-half” days where you can work remote for half a day and pair it with vacation. However, this does NOT address the core concern that people want more flexibility in their day-to-day lives in order to better manage personal matters. I believe it is within reason to require in person work, but this lack of flexibility results in unhappy staff and higher attrition. - Hiring Strategy: Epic primarily hires new graduates, and primarily out of Midwest universities, which raises a few red flags. A) Epic has difficulty attracting talent from other regions, an indicator that benefits and pay are not competitive enough. B) Epic has short-term organizational memory due to high turnover. Executive decision-makers don’t have the same incentive to respond to employee feedback. If you don’t like a policy, you can leave and someone new will fill your shoes without questioning the policy. C) Overwhelmingly young staff means there is lack of perspective of people with growing families, aging parents, etc. Priorities of a 20-something are vastly different than a 40-something.
