Genworth Financial Reviews

Pros

The company offers competitive compensation package and very good benefit including complementary Long Term Care insurance and pension. Typical working hours with good work and life balance. Employees are encouraged to take training. The education support program is excellent, up to $15,000 per year for eligible degree.

Cons

The company is not tier one insurance company, therefore, it is challenging to compete with other top tiers competitors. The employees are friendly, but not necessarily competitive or driven by excellence. Performance review was not very helpful in providing feedback or recognize top performers. People who are young and want to grow rapidly may find the company not exciting to work in.

Advice to Senior Management

The company needs to develop clear and realistic strategy to compete in the market as a second tier level. I don't think the strategies the Senior Management chose in the past few years were consistent. And I doubt how many employees or even leaders were inspired or even understand the game plan. The company should change mindset from sales number driven, to compete with a holistic and integrated plan with niche products and better execution.

Pros

had good ties with GE

Cons

the analysis work was super boring.

Advice to Senior Management

the insurance industry is pretty boring, find interactive ways to make it exciting for the employees.

Pros

There is a strong culture of encouraging advancement and growth. There are always training opportunities to take advantage of, and the education allowance can make getting additional education possible (though it's through reimbursement, so it's not as simple as "free school"). Beyond that, management at every level, and especially at the higher levels, genuinely cares about the employees. The company also does a lot for the community through sponsoring events, charity drives, and encouraging employee volunteer work.

Cons

However, and this is a huge however, if you start out in any sort of lower level, then while you CAN move up (and can do so fairly rapidly), your salary will never match market rates because of the caps they place on raises and promotions. Salary increases, even for top performers, are capped at very low levels, and salary increases with promotions are based off of previous salary, not market rates.

Advice to Senior Management

Eliminate your rigid compensation guidelines. If you want to retain quality employees, you have to pay them. The current method actually encourages people to leave the company since you're helping them fluff up their resumes but then not paying them anything close to what they could make elsewhere. That makes no sense.

Pros

The hours were great and a very family feel in the office.

Cons

The pay was not the best.

Advice to Senior Management

Be open and honest with your employees.

Pros

Fairly good benefits although worse in the last several years
reasonable compensation
Some solid leaders throughout the company
Leadership communication improved over the past 2 years
Opportunities if you actively push/pursue them

Cons

Shaky performance over the past years has resulted in a uneasy workforce in some areas. Lowering morale. Layoffs during the downturn took a toll and leadership didn't handle well. Not encouraging to associates.
Slow and sometimes incompetent HR
Some management leads with fear tactics instead of building teams that want to perform and getting involved.

Pros

The benefits package is very good at Genworth. Educational opportunities are always available. Most of the employees are good to work with.

Cons

Sometimes work life balance can be an issue. Leaders do not always lead. Senior Leadership messages are sometimes distorted as they are distributed by ineffective lower level leadership.

Advice to Senior Management

Do more Skip level meetings. You will find out a great deal concerning your leadership some positivie and some not so positive. Remember feelings are fact.

Pros

Genworth is a truly international company.

Cons

Genworth provides insufficient local autonomy.

Pros

collaborative environment and low pressure

Cons

Limited opportunities For advancement a pond growth

Pros

Lots of challenging assignments especially if you speak up and put yourself out there.
Smart, energetic people who are very passionate about their company.
Never a dull moment.
In certain very few places, there are very strong leaders.

Cons

The company is very poorly run with frantic fire drills and erratic decision making. Most of the people at Genworth are miserable, and they've lost faith in senior leadership and the company. People on the outside don't want to join Genworth, so the company has to give them more money than the existing staff, creating inequity for long-time employees. They get rid of quality talent for no apparent reason.
Everyone is simply exhausted.

Advice to Senior Management

Things need to change at the top. Would suggest that most of senior management moves on, so the Board can change the leadership from the top.

Pros

I met a lot of smart and committed people.
They let me explore my own projects

Cons

Every year they had layoffs for 5 years straight. That is no way to run a company. No clear professional career path. Upper management had no tact. Poor HR planning. We would hire people and within two months fire them.

Advice to Senior Management

Need better HR planning and clear company wide direction