OPEN Health reviews

Where to start... As much as the company want you to believe it is, work-life balance isn't really a priority or, if it is, they have gone about it the wrong way. Understaffed accounts, ignoring long hours worked by writers in particular (although accounts teams also stay late these days) and team morale at an all time low is countered by.....desk yoga?...management lip-service to say that they care but then cut any perks to the job? Next, it's apparent across the industry now that OH are falling behind with benefits, in that there are none to speak of really. Pension contribution is one of the lowest in the industry and benefits otherwise are effectively non-existent. There is a push for a new pay-in system that includes private healthcare, but for most that don't use it, it's not really that useful or a nice addition. The biggest problem though with the benefits is that they're being cut left, right and centre. Company bonuses have been halted as the private equity firm that acquired the company aren't happy with the profit margin (and let's be clear, the company still grew in a time when apparently the industry is failing), but rather than addressing this head on and being transparent, the company line is that everyone still needs to push to meet their (constancy changing) targets and that being busy is 'agency life'. Promotions have now been halted, or are being reconsidered (with many only getting them through threat of leaving), and the cycle has now dropped to twice per year. This basically timelines promotions in the company now - so don't join if you're expecting a promotion inside of a year. I think as others have also suggested, diversity and inclusion isn't really great - or aren't flagged as priority by the company. For those from poor socioeconomic backgrounds or POC, I wouldn't expect too much... I think most alarmingly though, the reports across the company now of workplace bullying are increasing. I'm not sure how much this is translating into HR reports, but I have to admit that the clique-like nature of some people is quite apparent...

What can I say about Open Health? If you’re looking for your next toxic relationship - you’ve come to the right place! In all seriousness, this place is a breeding ground for incompetence. If you do join, you might notice that there is a serious lack of long-term experience across the people in senior leadership positions. The people right at the top have a lot of experience, but very little to do with account work. Then the (slightly less) senior people who do have oversight of what is going on do not have enough years under their belts to successfully lead a team, and spend the majority of their time steering clear of supporting with client work and pretending they’re busy in their very important jobs. If someone’s role is summarised by “strategic oversight” then focus more on that second word in terms of what you can expect from them. You’ll notice these people use a lot of buzz-words (probably generated by Chat-GPT) to fluff up people’s perceptions of their abilities but have very little to offer apart from that. There is a culture of “teacher-student”-like relationships, whereby junior team members are continuously patronised and spoken to like they are children (often by people only a couple of years their senior). When you rely so heavily on the work that junior people do, you’d think you’d give them a little more respect and recognition. If you want to progress, your focus will need to be on either nepotism or playing the corporate game, rather than just excelling at your job. Make sure you focus on getting in with certain cliques and people-pleasing at the expense of your own dignity, and you’ll go really far. Open Health has recently made a huge number of people redundant, both in the UK and in the US, although if you work in the UK they’ll omit mention of the US redundancies in a feeble attempt to hide what is going on. All offices aside from the London office have been closed, which left a huge number of people without somewhere to go to work. All of this followed the new investors getting stuck in last year and injecting more venom into an OPEN wound. This is a sinking ship - and the people who are left are now desperately filling their buckets with water and throwing them out of the titanic. I hope that gives a little insight. Genuinely, if you are considering working here, do yourself a favour and look elsewhere. You’ll be much happier, believe me.