Organizational Behavior at Cigna Healthcare
This paper tries to analyze the prevailing organizational behavior at Cigna Healthcare, one of the largest healthcare organizations in the world, by understanding the key patterns or trends that constitute its overall organizational personality.
Cigna Corporation is a globally renowned U.S. based health services company, “formed in 1982, as a result of the merger of Connecticut General Life Insurance Company and the Insurance Company of North America (Cigna.com, 2010)”. Headquartered in Bloomfield, Connecticut, Cigna caters to the health, wellness, safety and security needs of approximately “66 million clients worldwide including employees and organizations, brokers and consultants & individuals and families through a strong network of nearly 30,000 dedicated employees by selling insurance and related products through its subsidiaries in 29 countries, globally (Cigna.com, 2012).” The main products & services offered by its healthcare division include, “healthcare products & services, group disability, life & accident insurance and international insurance coverage (Cigna.com, 2010).”
In addition, Cigna also boasts of nurturing one of the finest corporate cultures that warmly welcome employees from diverse cultural backgrounds, having different sets of beliefs and thought processes, since it keeps the workplace environment charged up with loads of energy, enthusiasm and endless mutual learning opportunities, that serves as the basis for constructive brainstorming and effective problem-solving through breeding of innovative ideas, triggered by divergent thinking and open communication patterns, that in turn help it to understand the psyche of its global customer base, uncover and decipher their diverse covert needs and proactively meet them in order to always stay ahead of its competitors (Cigna.com, 2012). Conflicts arising from a clash of ideas are resolved by analyzing and weighing their pros and cons, opting for the best one out of the lot and then using constructive persuasion techniques to seek buy-in of all the group members towards the selected idea by equipping them with the vision and empathy required to view its efficacy, instead of trying to make them comply with it, in a formally forcible manner. To sustain the health, positivity & tranquility of the workplace environment developed by the organization, the following four leadership teams have been formally created (Cigna.com, 2012):
1. Enterprise Leadership Council ─ A group of senior executives, who meet quarterly to promote global cultural and business goals in the programs implemented at the workplace.
2. Advisory Steering Committee ─ Leaders belonging to Cigna’s globally located team including HR veterans, who meet bi-monthly to monitor the overall global policies and business integration.
3. Business Leadership Council ─ A proportionately created team of employees, managers and senior leaders, who also meet bi-monthly to define workplace diversity objectives for departments and business units.
4. Colleague Resource Groups ─ Consisting of employees who meet often to discuss “basic” concerns pertaining to discrimination, sexual harassment, etc.
The company also highly proclaims of portraying a socially responsible corporate behavior by not allowing corporate success to impede its duties and responsibilities towards the society at large. This remembrance, according to the healthcare giant, is constantly and indelibly engraved in the company’s thoughts, actions and words, manifested in the form of its strict adherence to environment-sustainability friendly and transparent corporate governance practices, driven by a steely work ethic, powered by an organization-wide accepted and followed integrity-laden code of ethics, that serves to bind the company together with its key internal and external stakeholders (Cigna.com, 2012). What ethics mean to Cigna is evident from the ethics and compliance training programs that both new and old team members, regardless of their job profiles are mandatorily and regularly required to undergo, and the unrestricted autonomy that an employee, investigating a potential issue pertaining to violation of any element of the ethical code of conduct is granted, along with the serious repercussions like termination that can befall on any soul posing as an obstruction for him (Cigna.com, 2012). Previously mentioned open communication culture combines with a strong work ethic to translate into a collectively valued and respected grievance voicing system in the company that allows all team members to freely communicate any grievances, issues and complaints to the higher authorities about anything regarding the company, including its workplace environment, policies and procedures, incidents of problems with a co-worker (s) and even situations where they felt being dealt a heavy hand by the company, with full assurance of being patiently listened to and helped in all possible ways. However, a strong attachment to ethics and morality does not deter the company from following a purely merit-based recruitment policy that only hires “cream of the crop”, and compensates results-driven performance (Cigna.com, 2012).
At face value, though, the above mentioned claims do project Cigna in a favorable light, as a dream company offering the most employee-friendly work environment, leading anyone to assume that the firm undoubtedly does score very well on the employee job satisfaction index. But, this is only half of the picture. The complete picture is best viewed using the clairvoyant vision of glassdoor.com – one of the many websites containing an ever-increasing database of reviews about many companies , including Cigna and truly heart-felt anonymously written experiences of both current and former employees associated with it, thereby, unearthing “what lies beneath” the outside glitterati.
Analyzing the most recent ones out of the available 184 employee reviews paints a mixed picture about Cigna, showing employees joining both pro and anti-camps regarding the overall organizational personality of the company, with more belonging to the latter group. For example, a Disability Claims Manager, currently working with the company spilled the beans on the so called “fairness & transparency” trumpet blown by it, clarifying that not only are the pay levels lower than the average industry standards, but also other benefits like promotions are based on nepotism and networking instead of performance & competence, thereby, challenging the concept of performance-based compensation in the company. If this is not enough, then “95% of all hired employees are either relatives or reference-based” (CIGNA Reviews, 2012), putting a big question mark on the merit-based recruitment policy practiced by Cigna, leading to widespread frustration and demotivation amongst sincere performers. Even the company’s HR policy and strategy is under the scanner, says a current Senior CIGNA Quality Analyst, pointing towards the high attrition rate and serious hiring issues (CIGNA Reviews, 2012), the company continues to grapple with, thanks to “out of place” HR practices, including a complacent attitude of the HR department, in the form of notoriety exercised in following-up with candidates as well as a weird and unexplained urgency exhibited in cancelling previously advertised jobs across various departments without any prior notice. Moreover, the rampant outsourcing of long-term projects to temporary contractors instead of permanent ones continues to erode the company of its talented workforce that is quick to join competitors like Aetna or Travelers, where employees have more prolonged and stable careers (CIGNA Employee Review, 2011). Apart from all this, Cigna’s biggest crime is violation of the “integrity” norm surrounding its attitude towards the employees that it harps about. Performance appraisals are totally subjective with a few “blue-eyed boys” of the management, already earmarked in advance for promotion every year. A shoddy grievance voicing system of HR is mostly concerned with defending the management, with an employee-manager workplace issue brought to its attention, only undergoing a superficial and perfunctory investigation instead of a serious and detailed one. Despite such weaknesses under its belt, employees still enjoy the leadership practiced by David Cordani – Cigna Corporation’s President & CEO, whose proactively “open and forthright communication efforts like regular e-mailing, blogging and video-conferencing, according to a current CIGNA Director, help keep the work environment healthy, and employees involved” (CIGNA Reviews, 2012).
The above discussion once again brings to life, the age-old proverbial saying, “all that glitters is not gold.” And this time, it applies to Cigna Corporation’s Healthcare Division, the crux of whose woes lies in housing a poor HR department, that seems to have forgotten the main purpose of its existence i.e. employee welfare, and has adopted an apathetic and insensitive attitude towards them (employees). What is more painful is that this behavior is favorably tilted towards the senior management, making employee concern take a backseat. Though, a “silver lining in the cloud” does exist, in the form of a strong corporate leadership from the company’s CEO, but unfortunately, it cannot serve as a saving grace for Cigna, since on an average most of the employees in any company, by virtue of their jobs, hardly get an opportunity to interact with their company’s CEO, and mostly do so with their departmental managers, who are expected to follow various workplace and employee treatment policies formulated by the HR department , as part of managing their day-to-day departments’ functioning, thereby, making the HR department seriously responsible for strongly enforcing compliance of these policies. Cigna needs to be reminded that the strength of any company lies in the quality of its manpower or human resources, who seek refuge in its HR department, that not only is responsible for providing them with their monthly paychecks but also making their stay with the organization, a fulfilling and an unforgettable one through safeguarding of their rights and protecting them from any injustice. In fact, not many people know that being the first entity in the organization, with which the prospective employee interacts during the personal interview round, the HR department, actually performs a marketing & sales function. During the interview, it showcases the organization’s most attractive and employee-friendly policies regarding workplace culture, compensation, bonuses, leaves, employee recognition & reward practices etc.to the candidate that actually try to “sell” the company to him, and act as a potential factor that determines his/her decision to join or not to join it. This initially started thread of self-promotion gains impetus when the initially made promises to the candidate actually turn true upon his induction into the organization, which then spread outside as a positive word of mouth about the company and its employee-friendly corporate culture, thereby, planting seeds for the creation of a globally renowned brand. Today’s corporate juggernauts like Apple, Google & Face book have behind them, “a strong & responsible HR department”, among other things, as a powerful common factor driving their success.
Thus, in order to get back on track, Cigna needs to “pull up its socks” with respect to better management and functioning of the company’s HR department. The company, first needs to get the basics right i.e. increase the existing compensation levels to match up to the market standards, not forgetting that a plum salary offer is the basic motivator for anyone to change a job. This would reduce high attrition considerably, though, not get rid of it completely, since frequent “job hoppers” lacking permanency and stability in life are found everywhere. But highly competent and results-driven employees have very few chances of leaving the company if their skills & hard work is duly and timely compensated and they are provided with occasional doses of true reward and recognition.
Finally, another much more important thing that Cigna needs to immediately work on is walking the talk i.e. practicing what you preach. There is no place for deviancy in behavior of the HR department from the prescribed set of norms that Cigna as an organization claims to “live” by in the form of the “integrity” factor that fabricates its code of ethics and makes the company pledge transparency, honesty and openness in its activities and operations with anyone, be it an outsider or an insider. Cigna in order to develop leaders from amongst its current and future breed of employees, first itself needs to step into a leadership role that can exhibit the behavior that needs to be modeled by them. This means a complete revamping of the existing recruitment system as well, by making it stick to the original stance of only hiring “cream of the crop” employees, through a stringent, impartial & purely meritocratic selection procedure, that leaves no room for shoddy or nepotistic hires.
I would like to conclude by saying that working on the above mentioned grey areas would definitely help Cigna regain back its lost employee trust and credibility in the market as a preferred employer, and this time, with a truly increased real employee satisfaction index.
References
CIGNA Employee Review. (2011). In www.glassdoor.com. Retrieved from http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-CIGNA-RVW820879.htm
CIGNA Reviews.(2012). In www.glassdoor.com. Retrieved from http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/CIGNA-Reviews-E119.htm
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