Mayo Clinic is reorganizing at the cost of some jobs

ROCHESTER — Department-wide staffing changes, including layoffs in some cases, are happening at Mayo Clinic.

Officials at Mayo Clinic describe the changes as a process to “grow and evolve its workforce.” But an impacted employee says the action is an example of the “new cold shouldered Mayo Clinic.”

Employees have been privately discussing Mayo Clinic’s “re-organizing” efforts since this summer when some people working for departments like communications and the Center for Digital Health were notified that their jobs were eliminated and they had 90 days to find another position within Mayo Clinic.

The scope of changes and the number of jobs lost is not clear. Some insiders have said multiple non-clinical departments could be involved.

Karen Trewin, who according to her LinkedIn profile has worked as a senior director in Communications Services since 2022 and had spent a total of 13 years in the department, recently wrote about her experience in a social media posting on Oct. 15.

“It was one of those things that I absolutely saw coming, but I was still shocked when it happened. A first-thing-in-the-morning meeting landed on my calendar with my department leader and HR rep,” she wrote, though she did not name Mayo Clinic in the blog post. “Still, when I heard the words ‘re-evaluating’, ‘re-assessing’, ‘re-prioritizing’, ‘re-organizing’, and ‘your job is among those being eliminated,’ I felt like a coach with a Gatorade cooler full of ice water poured over my head. I was so out of my element — and I can’t stop thinking about this — I actually said, ‘thank you’ before leaving the call.”

Trewin did not respond to requests for comment.

Mayo Clinic did not respond directly to questions about why these department “reorganizations” are happening, what departments are being impacted or how many of Mayo Clinic’s 49,000 employees in Rochester are losing their jobs. However, Mayo Clinic Communications Director Andrea Kalmanovitz did issue a general statement in response to staffing questions.

“Mayo Clinic continues to grow and evolve its workforce to meet the needs of patients today and into the future. When changes involve staffing, this often includes hiring for new or changed roles with a focus on hiring from within Mayo Clinic,” wrote Kalmanovitz. “In limited situations where changes impact individual roles, we support staff through Mayo Clinic’s employee transition program, which is focused on redeploying talent to new roles within the organization. Mayo Clinic retains many staff members who go through the transition program.”

Mayo Clinic will host a Rochester All-Staff Meeting on Monday to share “updates on Mayo’s Bold. Forward. strategy, ongoing and new efforts to support and celebrate our staff, and ways you can participate in Mayo’s work toward the future of healthcare,” according to a public employee Facebook page. It is not apparent whether the meeting has any links to the department reorganizations.

Employers with 50 employees or more are required by federal and state law to report large layoffs to the state. Minnesota’s Department of Employment and Economic Development has a State Rapid Response Team that oversees layoff reports. That team stated this week that Mayo Clinic has not recently reported any layoffs.

When companies reorganize or layoff employees, it is often for financial reasons. IBM has a long local history of laying off employees due to monetary concerns.

Mayo Clinic has also cut staff for financial reasons,

mostly through attrition. It cut 250 jobs due to increased costs and reduced Medicare payments in 1992. In 2009,

Mayo Clinic leaders described as layoffs as an action of “last report.”

However, Mayo Clinic’s financial numbers are strong and up from 2022 and 2023. It reported a historic quarterly net revenue of $5 billion in the second quarter of 2024.

If finances are not driving the workforce changes, Mayo Clinic could be restructuring to better implement its $5 billion

“Bold. Forward. Unbound. in Rochester”

plan. Mayo Clinic did not respond to questions about that.

Speaking anonymously for fear of retaliation, one longtime employee speculated the department reorganizations and layoffs were about making Mayo Clinic “more competitive.”

“The vibe is definitely about changing Mayo to make it more competitive in a challenging reimbursement environment and positioning for AI advances in decision support and initial diagnosis, as well as automating prior authorization claims which our nursing staff spend enormous amounts of time on,” wrote the employee, whose job is being eliminated. “I think the lede is ‘Mayo adjusts administrative staffing to meet financial goals.’ Not really that revolutionary. But it’s a shock to those of us who bought in on the employer for life things 20+ years ago.”

That employee described the changes as creating “… a new cold shouldered Mayo Clinic.”

Word about the reorganizations and layoffs has spread to the Glassdoor website, where employees anonymously review companies.

A reviewer on Glassdoor who described themselves as a communication manager with more than 10 years experience with Mayo Clinic wrote in July that it was “humbling to support the cutting edge medical care provided at Mayo Clinic.” However, they no longer felt that their job was secure.

“In an effort to make the workplace more agile, reorganizations and refocusing efforts have left employees in the dust — sometimes with 90 days to find a new role before being let go. I used to feel like a valued member of Mayo Clinic, but I increasingly feel like a line item that can be cut at will,” they wrote.

Another anonymous reviewer, a senior product manager with more than three years of experience, described Mayo Clinic as a “Strong company, strange approach to reorgs” in an August review.

“Several departmental redesigns lately that lead to RIF (reductions in force)/layoffs. The decisions appear to be made solely based on behavioral interviews and not based on experience, team member reviews, internal equity, or insight about the product and department,” they wrote.