NJM Insurance Reviews

Pros

-Pension plan, + 8% match on 100% for 401(k), + 90% subsidized health/dental, +$50k free life insurance, +ridiculous (lots of) days off after working there a while.
-If you are not a crackhead/convicted of a felony, or incompetent AND in mid/upper management, you will never be fired.
-talking to people around the state of NJ, they will say "oh you work for NJM? I love them". Immediately a positive to be working here in the minds of NJ citizens. This is because customer service and rates are the best in the state and have been for decades.

Cons

-As others have said, I.T. department is 20 years behind the times... but I think they were 30 years behind the times 5 years ago, so things are improving... for most employees, this wont impact you at all.
-Wages are below average in most job positions, (but the benefits more than make up for this).

Advice to Senior Management

management already realizes that NJM's tech needs to be updated, and will get there "soon". this is the main thing holding NJM back.

Pros

Benefits are great. Close to home.

Cons

1950's management style. Someone walks around to make sure everyone is at their desk when the bell rings. Yes, there is a bell.

Advice to Senior Management

The list is endless.

Pros

Benefits are not as miserly as one would think.

Cons

Being good at intimidating employees is a good managerial trait. Never had a layoff but many people are fired instead.

Advice to Senior Management

Quit

Pros

decent salary and benefits, very low level of technical skill actually necessary.

Cons

Who last heard of developers wearing ties every day? The IT dept is in a cold basement with no cell reception. The team leads vary from incompetent at best and malicious at worst. There is nowhere to escalate issues (management doesn't care) and successes go unnoticed. Oh yeah, don't expect any exciting projects. It's going to be dreary and frustrating. Think about this, it's an insurance company which doesn't allow customers to manage their account online (because they haven't built the system).
Also, your supervisor gets emailed a list of every website you ever visit. You can forget about any social media or email.
Security keeps track of when you come in the door, and being late (you're locked into your schedule) will get you a trip to HR.
If you're a smoker, you can forget about it. There is no smoking on company grounds, so you'll find yourself going for a drive off-property. Yes the campus is huge and walking to have a smoke is pretty much out of the question.

Advice to Senior Management

NJM is somewhere between the big bang and the extinction of dinosaurs. Your employees feel opressed and all the good ones seem to quit.

Pros

Regular Hours, with little required overtime.
Good Benefits, Pension and 401K, Medical, Vision, Vacation
Nice Campus.
In-House, company subsidized cafeteria.

Cons

A very conservative organization that is 20 years behind the times technologically with a culture that is hard to change and bring into the 21st century. A work culture mired in the 1950s as far as supervision goes.

Advice to Senior Management

Empower employees more. Trust employees to be able to do the job they were hired to do. Implement newer management philosophies and methodologies, such as six-sigma.

Pros

The only positive about working at NJM is the benefits.

Cons

They treat you like a factory worker and have the punch card culture in place.

Advice to Senior Management

Please come into the 21st.

Pros

The benefits are the best. Good health insurance, plus dental, time off, paid family leave. Pay is sometimes below what are companies offer. And there are some honest, good hard working people at NJM. Flex timing is also good.

Cons

In one word, politics. This is why I want to leave NJM, the office politics is absolutely bad. I hate coming into work.

Upper management is always in support of team leads and those they "favor". If your team lead is not happy with you from day one, your going to hate coming to work in the mornings.

There a number of people in the IT dept. who are in higher levels of software development (level 3 and 4) who have NO business being at that level because they have no clue as to what or how to do things. The upper level managers just promote them because they like them.

And forget about complaining to HR, they are doing only what upper management tells them. Its a complete waste of time to talk to them! I have tried and have been given the "politically correct" answer, which means "we can't help you, upper management is always right".

Your never allowed to give a review of your immediate supervisor. When this idea was purposed one of the senior most managers said no way. So no matter what the real truth is your team lead or supervisor has the final say on everything. Even if the facts (hard facts) show otherwise upper management just turns a blind eye to it.

There are so many hard working people in IT for sure, but they never get enough credit, and its unfortunate that others who don't deserve the credit get it anyway because of bad team leads and upper management.

Two things, for those of you who are applying currently to join the NJM IT dept, if you like to play the game of politics (only caring for yourself, looking to get credit for other people's work, putting others in trouble) then please do apply for a position.

If you DO NOT like office politics, hurting others, getting passed over for promotions, and doing extra work for people who have no clue of what their doing, then PLEASE STAY AWAY FROM NJM (West Trenton office)!! If you don't believe me then please go ahead and apply, and if you get a job here then ask others in the IT dept. how it really is. But please don't be shocked to hear the real truth.

Advice to Senior Management

PLEASE stop the office politics! You lose so many good and hard working employees this way. Currently your trying to fill several positions in the IT dept because all your good employees left because they can't stand it anymore. Please work on bringing up moral in this office.

One suggestion, why don't you let team members rate their team lead or supervisor or manager on a number of different points (strengths & weaknesses), and from this they can try to improve themselves so that there is better moral and happier teams, instead of making it so difficult to work each day for people who don't care at all.

Pros

Benefits, annual bonus, on-site cafeteria.

Cons

Secretive, clandestine management style that seems lost in the sweatshop mentality of its manufacturing forebearers.

Advice to Senior Management

Bring your policies into the twentieth century. Publish your salary bands and job classifications so employees will know where they stand in the organization.

Pros

Nice Facility. Regular hours. Good work- - home life balance. Most staff really want to do a good job. Customer service is one of the best in the industry.

Cons

Corporate Culture and Management Attitudes toward employees are years behind the times. Management distrust of the capabilities of employees. The Paternalistic Corporate Culture that has endured for almost 100 years. But, now employees are smart enough to know how to do their jobs, what they want from life, and how best to contribute to an organization.

Advice to Senior Management

Empower employees more, allow more freedom for employees to do what they are paid to do with less micromanaging. Your Information Technology is about 20 years behind the times but you need to evolve the technology and processes so that a revolution of same does not overwhelm the user departments and other corporate resources.

Pros

Great work-life balance. You work your 8.25 hours and are out the door. Nice people overall. They have free soup in the cafeteria, and the middle management folks really know their stuff. It's an old company, so there's a lot of tradition and pageantry in respecting that history. It's a solid performer with great dividends and bonuses for both employees and policyholders.

Cons

Micromanaging from upper management to the point that middle management cannot do their job. People at the VP level should not be down in the weeds worrying about department-level day-to-day items. They won't put anything down in writing, and make up rules they hold people to with no documentation to back it up or rules to reference.

Advice to Senior Management

Let employees know about the educational opportunities available to them, especially their job matrix.