Micromanagement is the Amica way. They do not like autonomy and they only want yes men. If you push back on anything status quo, no matter how much it may benefit others (speaking as a prior supervisor), you will be blacklisted. If that’s not enough for you, here’s a bit more:
WFH - Amica put everyone in WFH to keep business going during Covid. However there was very little effort to keep up engagement and as such, the company was very quick to start forcing people back into the office ASAP. Some departments allow two days a week WFH, but there’s no consistency. Company line is that the amica culture requires people back in the office, so there is zero consideration for more than one day a week WFH in most offices/departments and hybrid is out of the question. However they allow full time WFH for the employees from the branches they just closed…because it benefits the company.
Pay - below industry standards. WAY below. Used to be able to say the benefits made up for it, but they don’t make up for it as much as they used to.
Promotions - zero consistency here. If you get in with the right manager or are willing to move all the time, you’ll promote. Otherwise you’ll be told you’re doing great, they wish you could promote you, you’re already performing at the next level, but keep working hard for those 2.8% merit increases…And you can work your tail off and be a “superstar” and they’ll just give you more work to do without any additional recognition. Conversely I’ve also heard a supervisor say they couldn’t give a promotion because they have different standards and higher expectations than others. So if you get on their team, you’ll have to work harder to get opportunities given to others. How is this okay?
Work/life balance - better in some departments, not so good in others. My current department has people logging in and working late most days, logging in at night, logging in on the weekend, working while on vacation (when they even take vacation…). I am able to get all of my work done in my working hours, so I can live my life outside of work - not sure if people just aren’t efficiently working or their workloads are that much more than mine. Either way - this is not okay.
Pricing issues impacting goals - many years ago amica lowered underwriting standards so we could grow. Unfortunately we grew way too quickly and our loss ratios showed it. We then took the hard opposite approach, dramatically increasing rates countrywide, leading to our long term policy base - those customers who would stay with us, refer others, and were extremely loyal - to become priced out. Customers - and these were good customers - hated leaving us but could not afford us when we were $1,000’s more. We are bleeding our customers and struggling to write new policies.
Tech issues - so many. So bad.
