Thread regarding Wellcare Health Plans Inc. layoffs

the positive thing is Wellcare/Centene contacted those of us let go to generously extend the severance pay due to the Covid & the unstable job market right now. I thought that was a very nice gesture.

So far no known layoffs in IT. Not sure if they still planning for this or postponed due to current pandemic

@3Ekih, it’s a common practice in business world, to prevent class action suits (to show they weren’t age bias).

Centene did not provide a list of names and ages on their layoffs. I was one let go, and know there were many over the age of 50 let go.

Why are they showing ages of people being laid off?

Ok thanks for the update , maybe the spreadsheet they sent me only had the business sector I reported to. It just showed position and ages

Actually they let go of quite a lot more than the 20 people noted below. They weren't all at the WellCare headquarters on Henderson Road. Read the threads here, but also check out the Centene thread on this Layoff site. You'll see a lot more going on.

the company only let go of approx 20 folks during the 1st RIF from the list I’ve seen. It didn’t include names , only ages .... unfortunately I’m one of the 20

any recent buzz about reductions in IT or due to covid19, can we assume reductions postponed for now.

Eventually? All offices shouls be closed immediately! This virus is spreading like fire. Employees should not still be coming into the offices on Monday. This is a pandemic and the CEO is oblivious to this. They should shut it down this weekend as other states are going into complete lockdown mode. HR needs to react fast and close the doors starting this Monday.

Guarantee HR is watching this site. From what I understand, most of them will be doing so from St Louis eventually (after they’re done gutting the legacy workforce for their new imperial leaders)

Stay safe and virus free, everybody. The important stuff is happening outside of Centene right now. Hold your loved ones close.

Centene should shut down all offices ASAP because of the coronavirus. It is insane that employees are still allowed to come to the office to work.

In the same departments, there are people departing end of March, end of June, and end of year. I'm not going to say how I know this because it would identify my department and those I work with, but it's not IT. You should assume that people from Centene are monitoring this.

For the person who posted about group layoffs, Any info on location and department?

Does anyone know what departments are being laid off?

There's a group laid off as of end of March, another group as of end of June, and from what I've heard, groups phased in up to the end of the year. All I can say is that it is eerily quiet in my area and my group has a lot of remote/telecommute employees.

Yes, more layoffs are planned. However, the timing is going to likely shift thanks to this virus stuff. The meeting in St. Louis may or may not take place as scheduled thanks to travel restrictions. However, the decisions are largely already made. They will never go through a large layoff when this virus is going around - it would not play well with the press and Niedorff's messaging.

Also, IT is nowhere near safe. It was one of the highest, if not the highest cost for WellCare. Leadership will swear up and down that there are no changes coming and that everything is fine - do-not-believe-that-hype. Just don't. Many people are feeling a sense of calm since they made it past day #1 - don't delude yourself. Update your resumes now so you'll be ready.

The Georgia offices were told to work from home for the next 2 weeks.

Expect that after this difficult period with COVID-19, Centene will accelerate layoffs because their costs have gone up, affecting financial performance, and/or the share price continues to tank. Is anyone finding things eerily quiet as well?

To the person that keeps complaining about his/her supervisor and claims to work very hard, such a good employee...well, keep working hard, get stressed, get that blood pressure high, and don't use gym like your supervisor, you are just a number in the Centene world and you will realize all that once you get laid off which will probably happen to most of us after June.
It's 2020 people, work smarter not harder!!

Are any teams being allowed to work remote due to covid-19?

I don't think anyone should apologize for pointing out others who are not working near what is expected. As someone who completes double the productivity expected of them each day, I can see how it would be frustrating to see others barely working at all. Bumping up the expectation for productivity is ridiculous when it is well past what you were told when you were hired. That is not a supervisor creating a more productive team. It is a supervisor not advocating for alternative options to support their team. Those who work hard know if they do.. it should be everyone's shared goal. Let's even say one team mentality to be super cheesy. I can at least say, my everyday never allows for a gym extravaganza...

I guess I should apologize, I wasn’t really confused just was trying to look for the positives out of the situation, but they are some valid points and my post was inappropriate ... the feedback on the leaders can be given during those pulse surveys and trust me upper leadership look at those things closely.

Are you confused by the supervisors talking for hours about other things not related to work and making taping noises from their cubical that other employees can hear while there on the phone with members? Or are you confused by them walking around the department wandering aimlessly and talking to other employees again talking about non-related work? Or are you confused by them constantly used there smart phone and going on you tube and hide it since they sit in the back? Whats confusing?

Let me see if I understand, so they push their teams to perform above & beyond , they walk around talking to team members, their at their desk eating while working , they go to the gym together (Vitality) ... I guess what stands out the most to me is that the teams they manage is performing well , you’re saying Centene should get rid of these leaders ??????? I’m confused ... :-(

To the person below... I am sure you do plenty of work. However I can tell you as a fact that the care management supervisors the main Henderson office do the absolute minimal work. Two in particular who are gym partners will sometimes take up to two hours of there lunch to go to the gym. After taking there two hour lunch to use the gym they will come back to the office and take another hour to warm up there food and eat at there desk. Then the two of them talk for hours about other stuff other then work which the whole cubical aisle can hear. If there not talking to each other about nonsense then there either on there smartphones at there cubical, making taping noises from the cubical or walking around the department wandering aimlessly and talking to other people in the department. This is what is called easy money. On top of that they expect there care coordinators to be robots and consistently make between 100 -140 calls per day when were only suppose to be making 80-100 calls a day. They consistently push there employees but them as supervisors have no motivation to push themselves to do anything productive but will make sure they squeeze every last ounce of sweat from there care coordinators. If I were Centene I would look at what these actual care management supervisors do in there 8 hour days because I can guarantee you its not much except to dump more work to there care coordinators and then take credit for what the care coordinators do since they themselves(supervisors) don't do squat, This is the truth...100% truth.

To the commenter that is talking sh– about us taking laps around wit every two hours.. Coding is hard... so sorry that we need to take a walk every couple hours and clear our heads/come up with solutions while bettering our health. Plus this is not a 9-5 operation. We do plenty of work that you don’t see looking out the window during your meetings.

Any news as of what's going on with the quality department at the NY market?

Sorry to hear about your situation.glad you got offer and wish you luck with next move. But if you see wit campus you can see same people roaming almost every couple of hours and playing TT which gives the feeling that there is not much work. As previous posters said there is more abuse in various departments.When you sit in meeting rooms you can see through the windows same batch of people walking around building or on phones. No professionalism at all. If there is no correcttion with these now in future more people needs to suffer.

Please don’t start attacking each other and making comments about who deserves to be laid off etc, spread love and support each other during this difficult time , I was let go during the first phase and it was been a pretty scary experience , I don’t wish this on anyone , I have a family that depends on me and the thought of not being able to provide for them is heartbreaking, I don’t wish this feeling on anyone. Sure the severance is nice and it is temporary assistance but it will eventually run out, I’ve started another position with another company making a lot less money than I have bills until I can find something better. Please show love and support for each other and uplift each other for those still in the company. This includes the I.T. people commenting about other I.T. Folks and the negative post against work at home folks ... it’s already stressful enough without the hate and negativity, add encouraging things like who’s hiring and other opportunities available etc

I agree to the previous chat. There are too many undeserved manager promotions in the recent months in EIM(IT) that we wish Centene would look into these deeper. Lot of people are promoted as managers in a rush just before the close. They dont add any value and are just overheads. Hopefully centene realized and protect the actual workers

Do we have any update on when we going to get org charts and roles. Are they still going to retain all the management positions in IT. All the departments in IT seems so confident and feel like nothing happened. We hace so many middle management and so called tech leads who just do chit chat n flirting except work.these people cant take decision in meetings or provide technical details always look for excuses to skip meetings or say will get back so that they can check with others to get more info and pretend they are the primary ones taking shots...

Don't forget that Centene is much larger than WellCare was, and they did it without the loose WFH policies that WellCare allowed. They've proven their model - and it works for them. They don't need to really care if it inconveniences people to the extent that they quit. Being progressive and in-tune with today's workforce isn't part of the game plan and there's no real pressing reason to make them change their mind. Now that we're on the precipice of a downturn in the economy, they have all the more reason to ignore the WFH concern (the only exception is the virus because it would cause bad press if they weren't sympathetic to that cause)

you forgot to include no rollover PTO!

Keep in mind that it’s cheaper for companies to find ways to make people leave. They don’t want to have to pay severance. So, they take away things like causal dress policies and work from home. If that doesn’t work they might try clock watching or using the software already on your desktop to monitor your productivity. They will spend months making it s— just a little more hoping they shed more people.

Removal of WFH was confirmed in HR town hall meeting and some markets are already planning on people coming back in. Facilities people have been on floors doing head counts. If you walk the buildings, there are plenty of empty cubes and entires floors sparsely occupied in Tampa.

There will be plenty of space. Don’t forget that REN7 is moving along quickly and was planned to be occupied by WellCare. Also, the second wave of layoffs and reorganization are coming. Somewhere around that 60-day Mark once leaders meet in St Louis. Both of those will help make room. In the end, WellCare may will likely move out of some of its currently occupied locations at Idlewild and WIT.

So will everybody who works from home eventually be asked to work back in the office? The problem is there is not enough office space now to accommodate them now. I see a big issue with care coordinators here in the PHS department. There is no room for work at home to come back to the office. What will happen then? Will they layoff the remote employee who is work at home or will they layoff off enough employees so the remaining employees have allotted space in the office? Any insight on this would be greatly appreciated.

Correction to my previous post - “What’s pathetic is that Centene does NOT see the value and that some teams are successful working remote.”

To the previous poster - “get over” the WFH issue? Many of us don’t work near a Centene office and can’t just pack up and move. Some of us can’t afford to break leases, sell houses and return to Tampa. We live paycheck to paycheck, some are raising kids alone. While it seems remote people have it easy, I bust my @ss at least 10 hours a day and work more than I ever did in office. What’s pathetic is that Centene does see the value and that some teams are successful working remote.