The Hartford Reviews

Pros

After college, I did not know what I wanted to do professionally and The Hartford was a great place to begin my career. I learned several valuable professional skills during my time there while being paid a very competitive salary.

Cons

Career advancement from a sales position is somewhat limited if you plan to stay at The Hartford. Corporate seems to lack an understanding of the needs of the sales staff.

Advice to Senior Management

To improve communication between sales staff and corporate and to more effectively share best practices. Also, a need to update some of the ancient IT infrastructure.

Pros

Great promotional opportunities, educational opportunities

Cons

Very little work life balance, minuscule HR support

Advice to Senior Management

Great place to go if you are looking to move up. Very difficult place to be a manager if you have a family.

Pros

The company offers a competitive salary and the opportunity to have great work life balance. The flexibility to work from home is great.

Cons

The benefits offered are not great. They do not offer any additional time off if you are sick. Employees are forced to take their vacation days when they are not feeling well.

Lost confidence in the leadership of my group and division when they made a series of poorly calculated decisions that greatly affected the morale of our team.

Advice to Senior Management

There should be more of a weeding out process for people that don't work hard and carry their weight in the team.

Pros

Claims truly cares about the insured
Underwriters have great environment to learn
Positions and opportunities in risk management
Continuous improvement culture in claims and operations

Cons

Very difficult to overcome capital and reputation overhang from variable annuities fiasco, receipt of government bailout, and long term underinvestment in IT systems and talent.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop hiring Bank of America alumni.

Pros

Generally well managed. Industry leader particularly in the property & casualty lines of business. Good technical training. Location. Good resources

Cons

Current uncertainty about their future and how the business will look 5 years from now. Concerns about future down sizing

Advice to Senior Management

Take some big steps to fix the balance sheet. Bite the bullet rathe than prolong the cioncerns of employees and the market.

Pros

-People of the same tier tend to get along well and mostly supportive of each other.
-Flexible with working from home.

Cons

-Very difficult to get promoted; Management less than candid about not willing to promote someone. Instead, they give you all kinds of business buzzwords to run you in circles.
- Very little team building events

Advice to Senior Management

-Be candid, sincere and supportive of career development, recognize people's achievement
-Be diversified in products and markets. AARP is the only partner for personal auto.

Pros

Hartford wants to be average (no better no worse) regarding compensation and benefits. Company is genuinely interested in ethics.
Company brand is very well respected.

Cons

Local politics. Culture of strong control over individual business processes. Allow individuals within offices to set own culture which may be positive or negative depending on who is in power today. Constant reorganization.

Advice to Senior Management

Do not lose focus on the property and casualty business. Continue to leverage brand. Instead of task micromanagement, focus on a more uniform and positive work place culture.

Pros

Greate team members and harding working people there.

Cons

Management should know how to keep talent people

Pros

There are opportunities to grow within the company - if you have networked with the 'right' sponsor.

Cons

Specific to IT organization - front-line managers invariably manage through control mechanism.
Lack of integrity and business savvy/competencies.

Advice to Senior Management

Change in "old guard" HR leadership is overdue, at executive and senior levels.

Pros

Opportunity to make good money and fairly compensated for performance. Good people to work with and for. Ability to move up in the organization.

Cons

Moving up typically means moving to another location. There are less effective tools to win in the marketplace here, so employees need to work twice as hard to be successful.

Advice to Senior Management

The organization is too focused on how to create shareholder value rather than focusing on how to make the best solutions for the customer, which will in turn create shareholder value. Right tools, right people, successful organization.