MetLife Reviews

Pros

Work life balance & very firendly peers.

Cons

Poor management, vague project definitions, poor feedback mechanism

Advice to Senior Management

Need to hire competent people to manage projects

Pros

Great benefits. Great efforts at diversity. Some great people that one has to seek out.

Cons

If they cannot put you in a box, very difficult to make a contribution. Does not promote exceptional performers - even small groups are very distanced from each other - no entrepreneurial encouragement.

Advice to Senior Management

Horizontal communication is all but lacking. Encourage cross-departmental work in International - it's very small and should work together.

Honesty about difficulties - will engage employees.

Pros

Customer base to work with

Cons

need more support and more examples of how to be successful

Pros

Health benefits, name recognition, educational

Cons

The new "team" structure closely resembles a pyramid. If you are not a high producer, you will be used as food for the senior/higher producing broker. You have no chance at getting support to grow your own book of business.. Trust me...do NOT bother trying...even if you are fresh out of school.

Advice to Senior Management

Your senior brokers were once lower producers...

Pros

Nice atmosphere in most groups. Though they are quickly being eliminated, Met has all the comforts and advantages of working for a large, sucessful company such as holiday parties (depending on your officer, that is) and other company sponsored events.

Cons

Growing in the Met system can be counterproductive for your career. It's great experience at first but you quickly see diminishing returns as much of managements decisions are based on politics and relationships rather than hard work and knowledge. If you want to do well at Met, be a good politician.

Advice to Senior Management

Review how the officers are running their departments. There are real discrepencies in salary between the various financial groups. It is also well known that many new hires are brought in at higher salaries than the existing employees. Another frustrating factor for veterans of Met is that when you grow within the company, promotion amounts are extremely small and often timed with normal merit increases to make it seem as though it's bigger than it really is. There is a lot of talk about talent retention but no real action. My advice to a young, new employee at Met would be to get 2-3 years of good experience and move on to a new company.

Pros

Flexible Work Arrangement and Women Friendly

Cons

Culture and politics play a vital role

Advice to Senior Management

Recognize employees

Pros

-Great management team
- Work Life Balance is definitely understood and respected
-Great working locations
-AMPLE opportunity for career growth

Cons

Snobby leaders in some areas
Change in management not always clear

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to your staff and be mindful of the potential leaders around you.

Pros

Training allowance to help to get started and also training to that is adequate to be abreast of the industry. very good products and a variety of options to offer clients. Very good computer based training available when you have the time to study.

Cons

Very complex underwriting and complicated applications. also very scattered locations that are needed to get an application approved and issued. Also due its large size not always easy to find the place to get answers on status of applications.

Advice to Senior Management

Simplify the application process for business written. Also with the training have a better way of ensuring that it is consistent to what is expected of the agent when in the agency.

Pros

its a job to have in this economy

Cons

always short-handed and needed to continouly hire staff

Pros

Company culture is very well rounded and management takes the time to work with you on your development plans. Overall, the company takes care of it's employees.

Cons

Can be somewhat slow at making decisions across the organization. The company is pretty large and can seem somewhat like a silo environment.