Benefitfocus Reviews

Pros

As with anywhere, your experience will vary depending on your department and manager. You're going to be working alongside some great people, and it's not so bad if you can maintain a sense of humor about all the absurdity you'll see.

Charleston, SC, isn't the worst place to live. Greenville is also a cool little high country town.

Benefitfocus seems to hire a lot of software engineers recently out of college (they're cheap!), and for those young people it can be a great place to get started on a career...

Cons

...But Benefitfocus seems to have a hard time holding on to the more experienced employees, and it's not hard to see why. High stress, low rewards. The churn rate is high with the long hours many employees are putting in every release cycle. Yearly employee reviews have been consolidated to one month, so every year now there's Firing Season.

The company throws peanuts at the employees to keep them placated. Things like vegetable trays once per week, a free lunch once per month, and cheap sodas. The actual benefits (insurance, vacation time, 401k matching) are solidly mediocre in the software industry. Experienced employees are no longer 24-year-olds without families, so those things matter more than cheap sodas.

The Charleston office is on Daniel Island, which is great if you're wealthy enough to live there. As a rank-and-file employee, you will be forced to drive on I-526, so no options for bike commuting! Rush hour traffic across the Don Holt bridge is a crap shoot.

A few more points: outsourcing, cowbells, open floor plan workspaces, upper management drama, and the Finance Department rules the land.

Advice to Senior Management

Treat employees with more respect, and back up your words with some $$$. Hire more employees so that everyone isn't stretched so thin. Give better feedback and insight into the direction of the company. Enough with the yeehaw stuff. The CEO emailing photos of his travels is not exactly motivating to those stuck under the florescent lights.

Pros

Promotions from within; room for growth.

Cons

Salaries much lower than other software companies in the area.

Advice to Senior Management

Pay people what they are worth, not based on how many years they have been with the company. Losing too many good people to competitors and keeping around those who are comfortable and don't seem to work as hard.

Pros

Great people and a great location

Cons

Not enough perks for those who work outside of the corporate buildings

Pros

Great people to work with
Unusual perks - Starbucks, skateboards, massages, fresh organic fruit
Good for entry level positions and Temp jobs
Occasional "fun" activities to socialize with co-workers

Cons

Each year as the company gets bigger, the importance of the individual lessens and goals fade
No clear management standards or feedback system - promotes and retains unqualified managers
Long hours, no work-life balance
Human Resources Dept completely unhelpful and will not intervene when needed
Less and less "Fun" activities and events, and more often expected to work Holidays and unpaid overtime (typically 50 - 60 hours a week without any pay over 40 - the hours are logged, just not paid)
CEO speaks about his values, goals and how the company caters to each individual, but makes empty promises and false hopes
Employees tend to be promoted based on years with the company rather than how well they qualify

Advice to Senior Management

We need a feedback system to rate managers and leadership! The people at the bottom have absolutely no voice. A way to critique management and the company as a whole would be extremely valuable to everyone in the company and would help identify the managers that are not carrying out the company goals.

Pros

Opportunity for advancement. Great people to work with.

Cons

Under staffed. Long hours are expected. Pay is just okay.

Pros

The drama was always pretty entertaining and helped me to become more sociable.

I also liked a lot of the people who were there when I was there.

I think that you can do well there and enjoy it if you have a huge unchangeable sense of your own self worth. The upper management will sense that attitude and respect it.

Cons

The main issue is that the only thing the management respects or likes is working long hours and lots of confidence.

Missing either of those traits will make you not a good fit for the company.

Advice to Senior Management

I like the current outsourcing path that the company is on. It really helped me in my career and I think it will help the other people who currently work at benefitfocus. So, don't hold back.

Pros

Free star bucks coffee and 25 cent drinks. Vacation time accumulates as soon as you start employment.

Cons

No support for learning new things. Each release cycle goes between the two extremes of not having enough work to stave off boredom and work 60+ hour weeks. Management has no interest in any input the people "below" them have. Very unprofessional management, which constantly incite drama amongst themselves.

Advice to Senior Management

Acknowledge that you appreciate the work your employees do. Consider suggestions they may make instead of ignoring anything that conflicts with your own views of how things should be done.

Pros

- free food several days a week
- Good people for the most part - it's nice to work with people you can learn from.
- on top of new technologies in certain areas of the company

Cons

- long hours and almost no personal life
- low pay in comparison to other software engineering jobs in the area
- In most product areas, there is such a high demand for bug fixes and "emergency" patches that it has become a "burn and churn" type of environment.
- If you are not part of the top clique of friends, you might as well settle into mediocrity and get some experience, then move on.

Advice to Senior Management

Get back to the basics of what makes a company a place people want to work. It's nice to have a job in this economy, that's true, but it seems like you guys take advantage of the bad economy to run people down. Let up on the hours. Give people their lives back, and they'll be more willing to go the extra mile when they really need to. Your company may be your whole life, but it's only a means to an end for the people you employ.

Before you push new products, make sure the ones you have are solid - or throw them out. Customers don't want to fight all the time for something you sold them to work.

I personally had a terrible experience at Benefitfocus. However, I do see that it has potential to be something great. Take a few steps back, slow down, and regroup on the basics.

Pros

Good fellow employees and environemtn

Cons

Senior managemetn is focused on their own paychecks

Pros

I enjoyed working at Benefitfocus. Everyone was very nice and welcoming and I could always find help or advice when needed. I feel I have learned so much and had a good experience working for such a fast-growing, software company. I enjoyed working with and learning from all the people I had the opportunity to work with. One Place was a huge event for this company and I am glad I had the opportunity to help out as much as I could. And Fun Fridays were always something to look forward to!

Cons

This is a growing company, and I could tell a lot of people had many tasks on their minds and deadlines to meet. I tried to help out as much as I could, but I feel like I could have had more projects/responsibilities to help ease the workload of others, given the opportunity.

Advice to Senior Management

The management at Benefitfocus does a really good job at showing employees they are appreciated. Even if it is a simple card where some team members signed it, just for recognition of something small that you did, it never goes unnoticed. This is what I wish many other large companies would take a lesson from as employee appreciation and recognition is always important.