Humana – “Not for me!”

Pros

Humana pays very competitively compared to other insurance companies or even other customer service jobs. The training was adequate and the work environment was suitable. Generally team members were fun to be around. Humana was very up-front with its expectations from employees.

Cons

The benefits, while cheap, were not what I expect from an insurance company. The only options are high deductible plans, which do not work well with some people. Advancement is mostly lateral, and favors time invested with the company over actual skill/production. I was there two years and found it extremely challenging to move up. Communication from leadership about changes in procedures is often counter-intuitive and it is difficult to get questions about it answered. Sometimes they "forget" to tell you very important things about changes in the company. Managerial quality varies greatly within departments. The sick policy is draconian, forcing you to be written up regardless of if you have a valid doctor's excuse or not. I saw one representative who was written up for having an emergency surgery.

Advice to Senior Management

You need to start offering much better feedback on suggestions from employees. Nothing discourages people more then them making a suggestion and hearing nothing back. There needs to be a better means of reviewing managers to determine who is productive and who is not, and those who are not productive need additional training or to be restructured into a different position. Refresher courses for employees should be available upon request after approval from supervision.