Arthur J Gallagher Reviews

Pros

The company has a great corporate culture that enables all of it's employees to be happy with their job. The management is always willing to assist you with any needs.

Cons

The only problem that I had with my experience with Gallagher is: They acquire so many companies that its hard to keep up with all the changes in the office makeup.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep doing what your doing. You make everyone in the company feel important and your doing it in a way that the other insurance companies are not.

Pros

Shared values and strong ethical practice

Cons

Corporate to Acquisition Partner communication & Execution could be improved

Advice to Senior Management

TBD --- ---- ----- ------ -------

Pros

The flexibility and work/life balance varies by office but in my office it is amazing. Tons of flexibilty in hours and you can do your job without being micromanaged.

Cons

The medical and dental benefits are not very good. The company doesn't seem to have much organization at headquarters.

Advice to Senior Management

Give your employees better medical and dental benefits! The fact that a 10,000 life company has only 1 medical plan and the dental plan does not pay 100% for preventitive is beyond me - especially since half the company is benefit consulting!

Pros

Large database of resources and education tools.

Gallagher grows primarily through acquiring small businesses. The takeover of a small company is pretty transparent to the small company's employees.

Cons

Medical Benefits are embarrassing. There are 9,000 employees all over the nation - number of different medical plans to choose from? One. That one plan - $600 IN NETWORK deductible and 80% Coinsurance IN NETWORK after that. One employee had a baby costing $8,000 out-of-pocket.

If you work for a small company that gets acquired by Gallagher, the incentive is for the owners of the small company (now employees of Gallagher) to manage a certain level of growth and profitability for 3 years until they get another payout after 36 months. It's possible for the mindset of the small business owners to change from entrepreneurial visionaries to corporate tools handing out Gallagher edicts as employee morale decreases by the month.

Advice to Senior Management

Mandate the newly acquired companies to train the newly acquired employees in all of Gallagher's numerous resources.

Have more professional people present the Webinars. Most of them are embarrassingly bad; the speakers sound like lightweights.

Make the newly acquired companies' owners stay for 5 years before a payout. 3 years is too short and it's too easy for the owners to run out the clock. With a 5-year mentality, the owners that sold out are more apt to think longer term.

There is of course a benchmark for revenue growth and/or profitability for the owners to meet during their 3-year buyout contract, but make sure there are employee retention benchmarks as well. The small company I work for lost two high-level employees after 1 year and significant clients (revenue) to go with it. We just lost three more mid-level employees after 2 years. The company Gallagher bought is not even close to what they are going to end up with.

Pros

Meritocracy; good feedback from management; nimble company. Hard work was usually recognized verbally and, situation permitting, with compensation. Good opportunities for growth.

Cons

Could be long hours; still some growing pains

Advice to Senior Management

Overall, a good experience. Company offered some flexibility to take your career in some different directions. Sales drive decisions but that's to be expected in a consulting group. Very ethical group.

Pros

Very strong and functional managment team within regional and branch offices however, cannot access HQ in Itasca since I've had little interaction. Local management very good at recognizing and acknowledging employee contributions. Level of knowldege and expertise of insurance industry very solid.

Cons

For a compnay of it's size in a few areas Gallagher lags in accessing and developing competitive salaries and benefit plans.

Advice to Senior Management

Would suggest instituting some type of company internal surveys to gauge how employees perceive the organization, i.e., to get feedback from bottom up.

Pros

A great place to learn working under pressure. This place will give you a lot of opportunities to work on challenging tasks. It is a great place to build experience. Think of this place as a boot camp where you can learn important working skills. Working here will give you a great answer to the interview question, "How do you handle working under pressure?"

Cons

Unfair management and very poor communication from management. It may be frustrating to work here because management seems incompetent and at times dishonest. Don't expect to stay here as a lifetime career. You need to speak up and stand up for your rights. It seems management does not value integrity.

Advice to Senior Management

Treat employees fairly.

Pros

There are nice co-workers to work with.

Cons

The management has exceptions that are not obtainable. Home Office has way too many in house requirements for reports. They have a report that they run every Tuesday. The management wants to be sure that the reports are perfect. If so, they feel that they are meeting the goals that they are doing well. In the meantime the examiners can't keep up with work that is not on the weekly report and management does not offer any solution. It is "Fly under the raider" attitude. Everything else can go unattended. The client is not getting "A" service as they claim. The attitude towards working extra hours is expected in order to keep up with extremely heavy work flow. Told that with more work comes job security. Employee's can't voice their concerns about not being able to service the clients according to best practices. If you voice your concerns, you get brushed off by stating that everyone should be happy to have jobs with todays economy. They do not meet best practices.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to the employees with concerns.

Pros

Very indepentend branch system. Each office is free to develope its own client basis.

Cons

Veryold structure. Very much a family insider organization. Relatives are everywhere. Turn over is constant in the middle level officers.

Advice to Senior Management

Clean out the dead wood. Retool the benefits and compensation package.

Pros

The management made all the difference in the world. You are expected to pull your work load and get the job done, but they acknowledged your hard and made sure you were compensated. They also treated the employee's to perks for a job well done. i.e. ice cream socials, bbq cookoffs, flex hours. They also offered EXCELLENT training programs so you had the tools to do your job...

Cons

The work can get demanding and sometimes weekends are necessary. The turn over has become a problem as well.

Advice to Senior Management

Start hiring new management since the best just left.