The Hartford Reviews

Pros

Generous time off plan, decent medical benefits, things we all took for granted back when the economy wasn't in the tank.

Cons

Poor training before they let you loose. An insurance company should be a pillar of integrity, values, and morals, they certainly preach it through all the training courses. But it's really hard to create a culture of high ethical standards when the training mantra at The Hartford is "Fake it 'till you make it."

And that's a practice preached long after training. All this boils down to is it's ok as long as you leave the customer with a FEELING of well being. It matters less if you do the job right or wrong, as long as the customer feels great about it. Where's the ethics in that?

Metrics are ok up to a point, but when the metric is more important than actually taking care of the customer and associated issue, then they become self defeating.

Advice to Senior Management

Take a long hard look at the direction the company is headed. The lack of technology is a joke. Yes the remote worker program is proving to be a success, but what good is it to remote in and use antiquated software? This could in theory be a company one could dedicate their life to, but with the highly competitive nature of this business, I really wonder if the leadership has what it takes to keep this company alive in this turbulent business environment. SEE SELF DEFEATING IN CONS SECTION.

Pros

Benefits package is inherited from Catalyst360's parent company (The Hartford). Good PTO policies. Lots of people spend their entire working lives here. Operations works very hard and promotes from within.

Cons

Promotions outside of operations are slow because nobody ever leaves, training is slow even when there are budgets for it, and risk-taking is discouraged.

Outside of operations, there are far more cheifs than indians and it shows. Managers love giving themselves new titles so you see ridiculous situations like an AVP with two reports and a director with no reports.

Nobody pays for projects that go down the drain or lost accounts, nobody's in charge of sales or marketing, and the last new business came in the door in 2008.

Advice to Senior Management

It's contact center work but there's no reason the company has to be a dinosaur. Tell everyone what a successful year looks like at every level and how you're going to get there. Communicate directly with the people who do the work and make you money.

Pros

The work / life balance is very good. They promote the remote worker program, which has been very successful and helps maintain that healthy work / life balance. (Is not a substitute for daycare by any means.)

Cons

There is constant organizational change, making it extremely challenging to understand roles, responsibilities, and reasons. It is a very top-heavy company. They keep reducing the number of individual contributors but keep adding more senior management for reasons that are not very clear.

Advice to Senior Management

Continue promoting the remote worker program - it's great. Stabilize - there has been constant change for 5 years. Change is good but it's hard to succeed without some stabilization periods. Every week (for months) someone is brought in or being promoted to a senior management level but the individual contributors doing the actual work are being reduced and asked to take on more without additional compensation. From a low-management level perspective, the organization looks like in inverse triangle (top heavy in leadership) vs. the typical pyramid.

Pros

Lots of business lines, lots of opportunities

Cons

Too many businesses creates lack of competent focus

Advice to Senior Management

Sell off non core business lines

Pros

Work life balance is among the best

Cons

Favoritism, Old boys' network make it hard to envision future within

Advice to Senior Management

Get out of concensus driven, clan based decision making

Pros

A lot of good people there (Management included), adiquete training before you are on the floor, diverse co-workers, generous PTO plan

Cons

A lot of work to be done, I barely ever looked at the clock during the day, you have to answer phone part of the day, certain days can be blacked out for PTO time

Advice to Senior Management

Keep doing what you are doing. They generally listen to the employees on how to improve work flow. Try to get rid of the pointless memos

Pros

Great compensation and work/life balance

Cons

Limited opportunities for management, depending on the role.

Advice to Senior Management

Seek out roles with upward mobility

Pros

A very ethical company that knows how toretain top talent. A good time to get involved especially in the SI & T branch.

Cons

A large company that can be somewhat impersonable if you are not used to corporate america. That could be good or bad depending on how you think.

Advice to Senior Management

Continue to give praise to employees. Ambiguous projects/assignments can be somewhat intimidating so it is important to chec kin often with employees about their progression.

Pros

The Hartford will provide you with a good amount of Personal Time off, (if you get to actually use it), a competitive benefit package and an average compensation package as compared to the industry. They have a good reputation in terms of their Insurance training and their Commercial products are fairly competitive, depending on where you are selling them. They have a rich, 200 year history and respectable Combined Ratios. They offer a 401k AND company funded pension, which is becoming less and less the norm in the industry. Overall, they offer a good package for new employees

Cons

The Hartford is a Bureaucratic shell game....if you are only concerned with CYA (Covering your ***) and can surrender your ego to be nothing but a pawn to Senior (cough, cough) Leadership, then you could probably do quite well there. If you say have .......morals , ethics or any integrity, you'll find the work environment disturbing, unfair and devout of any real direction. Great job if you are relatively mindless or a premium kiss a$$. Be prepared, within any role at Hartford to experience unprofessional behavior, in addition to front line, mid level and Senior Leadership, lacking any clear direction, training or incentive to grow your career. I was there long enough to see many plans, including Mr. McGee;s latest "3 Pinnacle" or "3 Peaks" or whatever, be presented from Senior Leadership , but no direction ever sent to mid or front line management on how to carry our these directives.
My Advice would be before you devote a portion of your career to working for a company that thinks it's still 1950, look around, there are many forward thinking, progressive (not Progressive) Insurance companies that would serve you well...Travelers, Liberty, AIG, Chubb, etc...

Advice to Senior Management

If you are employed at Hartford get used to saying.." How did they ever get that job"....then, get used to everyone saying...."Well, that's The Hartford"..... The Hartford was on a downward spiral, long before Mr. McGee took over. Under his brief Leadership though, a culture of cut-throat, cover your own a$$ tactics are apparently at the forefront to achieve success. The Hartford might look okay on their Balance Sheet, but a closer examination at an employee level shows the lack of credible leadership to take this company into the future.

Pros

Great company, a lot of different places to go

Cons

Depending on your position, limited room for upward mobility

Advice to Senior Management

Support and encourage your direct reports