Pluspunten
-Progressive Claims Training is great! -Good salary (benefits not so much) -Gainshare (in addition to your base salary, if the company does well, you can get an additional bonus at the end of the year) -You learn a lot...and as a former Progressive employee, other companies want you (because of your training and the fact that Progressive has high standards/goals/numbers for their employees) -The employees-as trite as it sounds, I have met some of the best people having worked at Progressive (from training to office coworkers).
Minpunten
-No work/life balance-as much as you are told that Progressive wants you to have work/life balance, they do not do anything to help you achieve that. Either you let your numbers plummet or you stay late/work from home/work on weekends to keep the "good numbers" in hopes for a raise -They do not value outside training. Progressive feels Progressive knows all/knows best. Don't expect to have them pay for or support you getting insurance designations, join insurance organizations, etc. They feel you only need to know what they teach you. -Management trains you to handle claims in a certain way, so you handle claims as such. If a customer argues enough, management will give in...not because it is the correct way but because they want a good NPS (net-promotor score....ie customer service survey). They live and breathe those surveys and all rules go out the window if that survey score can be increased -Not a lot of opportunity for advancement, unless you want to move to Cleveland (and who wants to do that?) . There are many jobs at their corporate headquarters in Cleveland, but again....who wants to do that? -Progressive Claims is a very process-oriented department. Do not think outside the box, do not vary how you handle your claims....follow your "process", your "checklist" and you had to have done a good job (not true). -Coworkers are pit against one another to get the best numbers. As far as I'm concerned, I'm not competing with my coworkers. We are a team. I do the best I can (which was an "Exceeds"). Don't then give out my bad measurements to the team (and vice-versa) and claim you are doing it to create healthy competition. It's a jerk move. -Progressive restructures their organization every few years. Basically, management gets top-heavy so they demote and/or let go many managers. In a few years, they see that each manager has too many direct reports, so they do a mass manager hiring. Then a few years later they again see "too many managers" and repeat this process. I was with the company 6 years and they had done this right before I started. About 2 years into my employment, they cut managers. As I just left (year 6), they are getting ready to go through another downsizing (right before the holidays, which is especially tough). -Progressive claims to offer claims employees opportunities to work part-time or a flexible work arrangement (work 4 10 hour days instead of 5, 8 hour days). These opportunities are few and far between because it is left up to manager discretion as to whether their department can "handle" the work arrangement. In one position at Progressive, I worked 4 10 hour days. When I moved to another position (a promotion), I was not allowed to work the same schedule. One employee in an office of 30-40 had a part-time schedule and another has been repeatedly denied part-time (I can't vouch for that employee's work product, so I don't know if there is any reason behind it). -Claims employees work holidays (when other insurance companies are closed) and Saturdays. What is silly about working these days is that bodyshops aren't open, rental car places aren't open, police departments aren't open (to get reports), so you basically call the customer to tell them you'll have to call them back the next business day to do anything on their claim. And it makes for employee resentment-who wants to work until 6pm on Christmas Eve???? Really????