Cons: Compensation: Having been with the company for a little less than a decade at the team management level (SCS), my compensation is lacking. HR continues to promote that they offer a competitive salary and that they do a market analysis to ensure compensation is on par. However, I find this difficult to believe when the merit increase program raises my salary incrementally year after year. Success sharing is a bonus, not a part of my salary. Upward mobility: Amica rewards managers who are mobile and can move from branch to branch or department to department after one or few years which often includes a promotion. If you have reached the mid-senior management level after starting in the Future Leaders Program and are not mobile, I'm sorry to say that unfortunately, you will experience diminishing returns as far as your salary is concerned. Gaining an additional responsibility, such as exposure to a special project to help with career development, is not the same as earning more pay, and hence, a promotion, as a result of being mobile. I've been sold this, and quite honestly, it's a bit insulting, as often times, at the mid-senior management level, we're often at capacity and cannot take on more work. If I'm being given more work, I need to be compensated accordingly. Linear career track: If you're located in the corporate office, there are more varied career opportunities, including being in Learning and Talent Development as a trainer facilitating the Future Leaders Program, being an Innovation Analyst, or being an SCS Operations Specialist. Amica did recently open up the Ops Specialist role to employees not located in the corporate office but only to a limited extent. If you're located in a branch or department operation, it's very difficult to move into these specialist roles which is disappointing, and feeds into the lack of upward mobility I spoke of earlier. Micromanagement: I enjoy being able to encourage autonomy with direct reports. Unfortunately, with the recent adoption of Workforce Management, I'm now required to micromanage my team which only leads to feelings of disengagement in the long run for those I'm tasked with supervising. We're all adults. Having to track my team's whereabouts is not what I'm about. Disconnect from senior leadership to front-line employees: Often times when a new initiative is rolled out from the top down, it takes quite a bit of time to gain buy-in from front-line employees. Who can blame them when they feel that senior leadership is vastly removed from what they do on a day-to-day basis? I can try my best to promote things in a positive light as a supervisor, but that doesn't remove feelings of disconnectedness that many front-line employees feel.
