Marketers, DO NOT WORK HERE! Run away! - Marketing FBL Financial Employee Review

1.0
Sep 27, 2022
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Benefits were great (top notch health insurance), most co-workers were generally lovely people, and the office is nice. That's pretty much where the "pros" end.

Cons

Where do I begin? Management (in Marketing dept.): With the exception of a select few people, I found them to be two-faced (read: very fake nice) and do not have good work/life boundaries--thereby, you're expected to also not have good work/life boundaries. Personal growth: Not a priority for management at all. You're a cog in the machine. When it comes to promotions, they are exclusively for management "bootlickers" (whether they work hard or not) and “yes” people. Others who are great at their job and sincerely work hard are not rewarded and are generally overlooked. Management keeps a literal “high-potential” list. Work environment: FBL is “Churn-and-burn” when it comes to new creative and/or marketing campaigns, because no one ever says “no” to the Sales/Management teams or even “could you please wait a day or two?” If you work here, you won't have the autonomy to say no either. Everything is super-high priority, ALL the time. It's all an emergency, no matter how arbitrary. There's no time to be thoughtful about your work, even creative work. Throwing away and and re-doing work is the norm here, because projects constantly change. It doesn’t matter how much work/time/effort you’ve already completed on a certain priority. Long term, this is extremely exhausting and frustrating. Workloads are heavy and practically unmanageable 85% of the time, and there is no personal autonomy to say no or ability to ask for help or even to ask to delegate to someone else. Burnout is high and it's a "do less with more" environment. General work environment is very inflexible (this may have changed since I last worked there, but I doubt it). For example, you could go to dr. appts and such, but you needed to be in your seat during work hours (8 a.m. thru 4:30 p.m.) and you’re not leaving before 4:30 pm—it doesn’t matter if you worked 16 hours the day before and are salaried, for example. If they let you go home early say, the day before a holiday, it was like, 3:45 or 4. And then they acted like they were doing you some HUGE favor and that you should be super grateful. And, finally, the toxic positivity. Even though working here sucked, the expectation was that you would have a good attitude and be happy/smiling about anything and everything that happened—no matter what steaming pile landed on your desk that day. Bottom line: Please, don’t work here. I promise there’s something better out there for you.

Explore other reviews about FBL Financial

5.0
Aug 28, 2022
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Got to be involved in contributing to actual decisions

Cons

None that I can think of

4.0
Jan 5, 2017
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Obviously the benefits and people are great as other reviews have commented on. Place is clean, wellness is good, and people are friendly. Technology is about middle of the road, FBL wants to be not a leader, not a follower but right in the middle and they do a good job of this. Most managers including management team are approachable and willing to listen, middle level management has been shakey but getting better. Lower level management is about a 50/50 shot, this needs work. M-team is strong and lead the company well, they seem to care about the staff.

Cons

Some of the negative comments are unfounded and simply aren't true and basically represent sour grapes. The ex-CIO from Nationwide almost destroyed IT, while some change is needed, as in all companies a total over haul was unwarranted as was evident in the end. The new CIO while young brings a better understanding of what FBL is all about and while some hard decisions had to be made, as is with any new management change, they were needed. The negative here is that continued management changes has stressed the staff to the point of breaking, this needs stabilized, that's on m-team, the staff in IT is excellent and ready to work. Agile need solidified as well "where it makes sense", one size shoe doesn't fit all

4
See reviews by: Helpful|Rating|Date|All