Zurich Financial Services Reviews in Chicago, IL Area

Pros

Great salary, great benefits, great opportunities.

Cons

Company has large focus on cutting expenses. 24 of us just were notified on 09/15/11 that our positions will be eliminated. The jobs are being outsourced to a contracting company located in Poland.

Pros

Career developement
Good management
Stable work environment
Mentally stimulating work
Great collegues
Great benefits

Cons

Salaries plateau at each job grage and promotions are slow to devlope because many people stay in the same job for many many years

Advice to Senior Management

Hire more younger employees...marketing dep has done this successfully and brought energetic and creative people into a team that collaborates well, advances new ideas and is entreprenurial. Also, rotate job rolesso employees are challenged to learn new skill sets and build broader networks within the organization.

Pros

The people at Zurich are wonderful. Everyone shows care for fellow employees and there is never a problem in asking for help or advice on any issue. The newly designed workplace is accommodating and allows for great collaboration. The senior attorneys are all very knowledgeable and reputable.

Cons

If I absolutely had to create a con, it would only be that sometimes the work got monotonous. But overall there were many various experiences.

Pros

Pay and benefits are decent. Company is financially sound (we're told). Location is good, close to mall, shopping, in-house cafeteria, Starbucks, dry cleaner, barbershop and dentist.

Cons

Work/life balance in claims is non-existant. Extreme micro-management. Middle managers have not authority to make decisions, which slows progress/action. Forced ranking of employees along performance curve, so there are always "winners and losers", despite actual individual performance. And the company is shrinking through RIFs as functions are outsourced to India. There are almost more yellow contractor ID badges in the building at lunchtime than employee blue badges.

Advice to Senior Management

I would encourage leaders pay attention to what the EE engagement surveys are saying, and hold leaders accountable for the results. They are horrible, and speak to a need for change at the top vs endless action plans for jeans on Friday. Engagement survey results should be speaking volumes, but bad results are blamed on lack of leadeship at the front lines, instead of taking accountability at the top. Biggest advice, stop looking out the window for blame, and start looking in the mirror.

Pros

Zurich still has some good front line employees that try to do their best for their customers.

Cons

This company is only about cutting costs/consolidating operations, with little regard for employees or customers. They are moving any job they can find offshore in an attempt to cut costs. Many of the senior managers are 'yes' men that are only interested in protecting their job, with little encouragement for creativity. Employees have been told that 'if you don't like it, we can find someone else' and discouraged from communicating problems. The operations leadership in the US is a joke, since they don't understand IT. They have outsourced much of the work which provideds huge disincentives for folks to get things done, and has resulted in a group of folks promoting poor systems since that is the only way they can survive. The company delays hiring staff replacements dumping the extra work on existing employees at a short term method to keep costs down. This used to be a good place to work. No more.

Advice to Senior Management

Back off the outsourcing and start rewarding employees for doing a good job. The outsourcing has introduced massive beaurocracy, huge inefficiency, and is ruining your customer service. Also, properly staff your front line staff.

Pros

The company tries hard to promote employee development, advancement, and career satisfaction. However, an employee is only as successful and happy as their manager allows them to be. The company touts flexible work arrangements, plenty of work/life benefits, great bonuses, and wonderful 401k matching PLUS pension. PTO, days is decent

Cons

Your direct manager holds the keys to your future and your happiness. The manager/director dictates whether you can work from home (even occasionally), have a flexible work arrangement, works to develop your skills and help mentor you and help you advance within the company. If middle management doesn't like you or doesn't want to see anyone get ahead, get a nice bonus etc, forget taking advantage of what the company has to offer.

You can complain about these issues year after year in the employee "engagement" survey, but don't expect any changes in how your department is run (though senior management seems to be taking enterprise-level feedback and making some changes as of late).

Advice to Senior Management

Let employees do (anonymous) reviews of their managers/directors

Pros

Salary, benefits, work life, work structure, bonus

Cons

To many lay offs over the past 5 years

Advice to Senior Management

Speak to your employees and place them in another position before lay offs

Pros

Good vacation, 401k match, great people, on site cafeteria, fitness center, credit union, nice facilities, convenient location, close to good shopping & mall. Most areas allow work form home and flextime.

Cons

Current management is terrible and very short sighted in their decision making. A lot has been outsourced and more consultants on site than I have ever seen. There is a high expectation to work well beyond 40 hours a week with no comp time or extra pay. It is a very lean operation with lots of work, not a lot of worker bees and way too many managers.

Advice to Senior Management

Open the door to suggestions from employees and take the time to understand the day to day operations of the business and how decisions affect this.

Pros

Great people
Good benefits
Exciting challenges and opportunities
High ethics
Opportunities to advance or do something different laterally
Communication is improving from Senior Management

Cons

Sometimes a silo mentality as opposed to working toward common goals
Long-term employees undercompensated; budget and performance management process do not allow for remediation

Advice to Senior Management

Critically review the cost savings benefits of outsourcing compared to the loss of legacy knowledge
Bring together the various areas to truly function as "One Zurich"

Pros

Good co-workers
Decent working conditions
Sushi in the cafeteria isn't bad

Cons

Arrogant, thin skinned, mean-spirited senior leadership lacking integrity or moral courage
Forced (i.e., artbitrary) performance rankings
Political connections and style rewarded/valued over substance
Too many consultants. Too many former McKinsey consultants -- all of whom appear to have a pathological need to be the smartest person in the room.
Inability to consistenty identify and manage to a set of priorities -- constant, disruptive, and destructive change.

Advice to Senior Management

Try to create an environment in which all contributions are valued.
Attempt to achieve a meritocracy based on performance to replace the entitlement mentality currently modeled by senior management.