Heska Reviews

Former Employee – worked at Heska full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – The people who work for this company were great and easy to get along with. The benefits were fairly priced. An extra week of vacation is earned after 3 years of employment and 7 years of employment.

Cons – First off, I was far under-paid for what I did with this company. I worked there for almost 5 years and never had an opportunity to advance. I also felt under-appreciated for my work.

Advice to Senior Management – Take time to praise all employees instead of only pointing out errors and making them feel bad. Increase pay levels to market value.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Heska full-time

Pros – Small company environment
Not much else

Cons – Mediocre salary at best
High turnover

Advice to Senior Management – Sell the company to a competitor

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Heska full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Good pay. Good benefits. You can work there forever if you keep your eyes closed.
Another reviewer mentioned the Pathways program. I agree that as a program it had potential. The most remarkable outcome of it was that each session devolved into a b!tch session about Heska management and their incompetence and unwillingness to actually listen to and involve employees. What did management do about this feedback? Not a word. No response. No action. No improvement. Probably because the managers said "aahh, what do they know anyway? I have the education. They are just blue collar grunts. Why don't they just do their job and be happy they have a job at all?"

Cons – Poor management and atmosphere. Management-employee relations sucks. A good ole boy network of managers that fosters incompetence and cronyism.

Advice to Senior Management – Value employees. They know more about their job than you do. Don't make critical decisions about their job in a closed-door meeting without consulting them.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Heska full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – The products, coworkers, and pets at work are the best part of the job.

Cons – Everything else-pay decreases year over year, dishonesty, attempt to instill fear instead of training, lack of transparency, lack of trust, lack of employee appreciation, and management's relentless commitment to making the same mistakes over and over again while expecting different results

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Heska

Pros – Heska has great benefits and good products. They have strong R&D and stand behind their products, that's why I stay.

Cons – Heska keeps letting go of good people. Every year it seems they place blame on good VP's or Senior Managers as to why the company is not growing at the rate they would like. Current Executives walk around like their the only important ones in the company. Internal culture has gone down hill since they let their former VP of HR go a few years back. I used the love this company, now I can't stand going to work. They have some major improvements to make, people keep quitting, and their new senior leaders seem self-absorbed and unappreciative of developing their employees.

Advice to Senior Management – Value your employees, ask for their advice, make employee meetings worth going to.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Heska

Pros – The employees are great. You can bring your pets to work. You work in an industry that makes a difference.

Cons – Management has a master-slave mentality. Executives are very clique-ish. Continue to make the same mistakes over and over. The company doesn't have a lot of there, there any more. Very frustrating place to work.

Advice to Senior Management – Seek the advice of employees in the organization. Bring back the suggestion box. Nurture your strongest employees to ensure they stay.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Heska

Pros – Undoubtedly, during my time working at this company most of all employee survey's resulted in that we all believe in the mission and values of the company. (to better the lives of companion animals through innovative veterinary science.) As a result, of having this common thread I made friends at work.

At one point, back in 2003, the company invested considerable amount of money in Pathways to Leadership. A life-skills intensive training designed to teach skills to communicate more effectively, be more organized, deal with confrontation, and how to accomplish more at work and at home. Each employee went through the training within small group sessions. As a result, the training "brought down walls" between departments and for a while moral was better. Some people wholeheartedly tried to apply what they learned which made a difference in being able to find solutions to issues between departments. This lead to more understanding of processes, and overall a happier, lighter working environment.

I also felt like when I made an honest mistake, I was given a chance to try again without being ridiculed. This is something that I can only appreciate now as I reflect back on my experience.
In time, I was able to build my confidence in my role there and this has been a quality that I will always have with me now. How great !!

Heska also had super group health care benefits. No one can argue what an incredible perk having just a $20 co-pay is......

Also, the company didn't skimp on office furnishings. We always had comfortable chairs, nice cubicles, clean, & warm or cool facility to work in (depending on the season), kitchen/break areas, small exercise room..... the things that make the place where one spends 8-10 hours a day the most comfortable as possible. When I needed office supplies, materials to do my work it wasn't questioned, I got what I needed.

In addition, at the time I worked there we could bring our dogs to work with us provided we followed the guidelines.

Cons – During my employment at Heska, in essentially the same department, I survived 6 different managers. I will provide examples, but I can summarize my experience with Heska management in one word : weak.

What do I mean by weak ? Weak means uneducated about the products and services. Ex: The most recent supervisor I had, after they were in the position for a year, did not know where one of our main products was produced. I was really embarrassed for this person.
Weak means the inability for a manager to take a stand on an idea or observation they think would better the company for fear of rocking the "good old boys club." Same mistakes are made over and over again.
Weak means the complete lack of any capacity to not only acknowledge, but foster team members initiatives to help grow business ..... because manager feels... threatened ? I would think it would make a manager look good to have success stories within their team. (I never was able to understand, I tried throughout several meetings with HR to resolve issues. I received input but no resolutions, no follow up.)
Weak also means a general sense of unprofessional management. Ex. 1: annual reviews were late, incomplete, and sloppy. Ex. 2: manager showed up continuously late for department meetings they themselves scheduled.
Finally, weak means lack of planning. No overall plan for department, direction of where to focus energy to generate profit. Mostly, our department ran like "flavor of the day."

The Pathways to Leadership was a great idea and I think the program has potential to enable a company go from good to great. It was unfortunate that it was not supported and enforced by upper management. After the honeymoon of learning new skills was over, the practice of it for the most part went by the wayside.

Because the management was so weak I think this made employee relationships amongst each other stronger. (unfortunately an "us against them" mentality.)

My overall impression having worked at Heska : This is a good company to gain some work experience but not the place to grow your career.

Advice to Senior Management – Establish accountability for all management. Hire a consultant, someone who is neutral to the company & establish some criteria for when hiring management - no lip service, just use some standards. Have mandatory, ongoing management trainings, optional doesn't work.