Lack of equity in career growth - Analytics Engineer Health Catalyst Employee Review

Thank you for your review and feedback. And thank you for your 3+ years of contributions within our professional services organization. I apologize for the delay in providing a response to you. One of the reasons for the delay was that I asked a few of my colleagues, leaders within the professional services organization, to read, consider, and then draft a response to some of the specific feedback you shared regarding your professional services experience. Here is their response, contributed by Ryan Barry, the GM of Professional Services, and Brant Avondet, the SVP of the Analytics Services Organization (ASO), for your consideration: "Thank you for your thoughtful feedback. The ASO leadership team reviews and discusses feedback from Glassdoor multiple times a year and are grateful you are willing to share concerns. The themes from this feedback frequently and quickly become our “rocks” or goals to improve as an organization and I hope you have seen that as we communicate our objectives for the year and quarter. "In reviewing your feedback, I want to make sure we address your two key concerns: "What variables are used in determining promotions in the ASO? "Promotions are evaluated based on multiple criteria such as how successful your projects are within your area of control, HR manger, peer and client testimonials, work complexity, growth in job knowledge as outlined in our Radford job levels, and compliance with company policies. I apologize if the perception is that you need to be on a client with improvement work or have a number of RWIs to be considered for a promotion. That is certainly not the case and in all of the promotion meetings I have been a part of the number of RWIs has not been a data point we have considered. We do have many examples of team members who take any situation at a “tech only” client and apply improvement methodologies as a mindset to help meet the client where they are and nudge them toward a data driven organization. This is a desirable characteristic and something we have discussed for a number of team members who have been put forward for promotion. "In doing some analysis, looking back at all of the promotions in 2020 and 2021, there were a higher number of promotions of team members at clients who were not considered a “flywheel partner” of health catalyst. As another anecdotal data point, we also have a disproportionate number of leaders and analytic directors in the ASO who have worked on a large client that has never formally allowed us to participate in improvement work. "We also have had a “rock” or goal this quarter to improve our promotion review process to make it more transparent to team members what skills and capabilities are evidence of consistent performance at a given level. Though still imperfect, the HR managers collectively provided feedback that the process is moving in a positive direction. Though this may not be applicable in every situation, as I was starting my career one of my mentors gave me what I feel today was great advice. They counseled me to not avoid the “dumpster fires” but instead to seek them out, jump in and show that I can help solve or improve the situation. There certainly is a time and season where that is applicable and not applicable – and the middle of a pandemic may not be the right timing for you to be assigned to a “dumpster fire.” Please know that we would be glad to work with you to either provide a less stressful client environment or otherwise help you find more balance. It’s true that 30 minutes on a treadmill won’t solve everything (though I feel it helps me) – and I’d be glad to meet anytime to see how we can help. "It also sounds like there are concerns that inexperienced individuals are moving up more quickly than you or others in the ASO organization. I’d be glad to talk through any of these decisions personally with you and provide feedback as to the rational for any promotion or non-promotion decision that was made. I am certain we make mistakes – but am hopeful we can continue to improve the process. "How does the Analytic Service Organization (ASO) determine which team members are assigned to new or existing client work? "As new resource requests are submitted to the ASO, we look at a multitude of variables to determine who gets assigned, including but not limited to the following: Work to be done and the optimal skillsets needed to complete that work successfully Client time-zone/Team member time-zone Team Members that have the needed skills (primary or mentor capacity) Feedback from requestor Available team members with capacity Team Members who have requested to be transferred from their current client(s) or have been at their clients for 18-24 months and could benefit from a change. "As a company we are constantly evaluating ways we can improve our resource management and team member engagement. This year we have worked to encourage all TM's to complete their skills and experience profiles in Workday, allowing us to better match our team members talents with client needs. We are also evaluating further Resource Management Organization (RMO) investments across Professional Services in our upcoming 2022 planning sessions that will further expand our capacity and forecasting capabilities. "My ask of you would be to reach out to your HR manager and let it be known that you are very interested in having an opportunity to work on an improvement project if that is one of your goals. You can also incorporate this request into your personal development plan that we encourage each team member to complete and review with their manager. While we can't always immediately find the next ideal assignment, we absolutely do want to understand the goals of our team members and it is our responsibility as leaders to facilitate growth opportunities for our team members. We also strive to provide opportunities for TM's to transition from one client to the next as project needs change or based on time." We'll keep striving towards continuous improvement, and we appreciate your feedback in contributing to this effort. Thank you again for your 4+ years of contributions here at Health Catalyst. Best, Dan