West Bend Insurance Company reviews

I believe I read the word "toxic" in a couple of these reviews to describe the environment within IT at West Bend. I worked at West Bend for several years and the last couple of years were horrible. What's sad is that every former employee that I have spoken to in the past 2 years have nothing but awful things to say about their experience. What does that tell you? Yet, the CIO and senior management believe that they cannot attract talent because no one wants to drive to West Bend! The culture has changed from very pro-employee to one that fosters an attitude that employees are expendable and can be easily replaced. If someone does not agree with the direction IT is heading in or is determined to be "not a good fit" for whatever reason, they are pushed out. While there are some good leaders, there are many poor ones all the way up the food chain. I continuously hear about one of the managers still there from current employees - they don't understand why he's still managing. Its a shame because there are many very good workers that just want to be respected and appreciated.

My viewpoints are purely on the IT Organization. I do not have much experience on the business side. Overall IT maturity is very immature in their people, process, and technologies. The management there is a dictatorship. They are very unprofessional. They lack experience. They have no idea how to motivate employees. Leadership for them is through intimidation, and not through inspiration. To make up for their lack of abilities they micromanage. They don't support their employees. In fact I've seen them throw people under the bus in front of large groups. Completely classless. In the time I spent there I watched 30 IT people walk out the door in a years’ time. Be aware that they lie to you about your performance because they think it’s motivational to say are doing a bad job after you were told you did a good job on something. I would avoid this company at all costs. If you have to work there because it is the last place on Earth that will hire you then maybe look to the IT Infrastructure org only.