Pros
I met some wonderful team members with Sandpiper, some of whom remain dear friends even after leaving.
Cons
There are a number here but I'll try to be brief: 1. No 401k - not when I started and not during benefits enrollment for 2021. Please don't misunderstand - it's not that they don't offer any employer matching. They don't offer any 401k withholding option at all. 2. Leadership is obsessed with a multitude of corporate fads and lingo, many of them outdated up to an including the presentation of Who Moved My Cheese circa 1990s during the 2020 leadership conference. 3. Most concerning and the primary reason/warning for my review, after my departure, I was dismayed to learn that the company DID NOT OFFER COBRA to extend my dental, prescription or medical benefits. Because I believed this was a mistake or possibly illegal, I spent a number of hours speaking with 7 different people including 4 supervisors at the company hired by Sandpiper to administrate their COBRA program. Each time, notes were made on the case and communication was dispatched to Sandpiper and each time the response came back that those options were not made available by Sandpiper, despite the fact that I had been continuously covered during my employment with them. Please note that I would not dare to put something like this in writing if I did not have a complete phone log of the individuals I spoke with, dates, times and case numbers as support for my statements because if it isn't illegal to do this to an employee, it should be. 4. On the subject of COBRA, I was offered a Vision Plan only. I paid my premiums for the first 3 months immediately and made early payment on the 4th to ensure continuous coverage and then scheduled my vision appointment with my regular eye doctor. A week before my appointment 6 weeks after filing for continuation and making payment, the eye docs office called to tell me that I was no longer covered. After speaking with 2 more people at the benefits company and 2 people at the vision plan company, the finger was pointed at Sandpiper for not processing my paperwork as submitted by the administrator. Another case was opened just for that (since cases were already open for not offering dental, prescription and medical) and was not resolved within the week so I had to reschedule my appointment. About 10 days later, I called the benefits program to follow up because the vision people STILL did not have me active in the system and I had to reschedule my appointment yet again. During this particular call, the supervisor I was speaking with, while both me and the vision company were in conference call, put us on hold and called Sandpiper's contact with the benefits company directly to follow up with why she hadn't processed my paperwork. When the supervisor came back on the line, she told both me and the vision plan agent that the person she'd spoken with said they'd process the paperwork. However, a week later, that still never happened. I ended cancelling my COBRA vision plan after paying 4 months of premiums and not receiving the benefit of that. To date, I've never been reactivated in the vision plan system and I've now been waiting nearly 45 days to get my refund. I don't know whether these failures to offer COBRA coverages were a deliberate retaliation against me or simply incompetence on behalf of the company, however, during a time of a global pandemic, a company requiring frequent air travel of it's unconscionable not to offer them or an alternative.