Great place to work if you enjoy sinking ships and an "old boys club" culture
Pros
The Daniel Island HQ is a great place to visit if you are an active person who likes to ride bikes, walk/run, and eat out assuming your not expected to work all night to make up for the time lost during the day doing whatever the purpose of your in-office visit! Pre-Covid they had on-site Bootcamps , food trucks, beer on Fridays, and local business discounts. You are guaranteed to get at least 1 ugly t-shirt and a few cheap random branded marketing products a year! Last but not least, they have a generous $25 Gift American Express giftcard program at Christmas for most associates!
Cons
At the Start of 2014 (First full year as a Publicly Traded Company) Benefitfocus had great Leadership from the top down, a clear vision, and a full staff ready to take the platform to the next level. The amount of tenure and expertise within this company in 2014 was mind blowing and Shawn was truly leading the way. Then one fateful day, these greatest minds came together to talk strategy, the same strategy at the center of all growing healthcare technology companies with data warehouses developed prior to cloud technologies, "How do we get all our data into one warehouse so we can provide industry leading insights & enhancements for our clients?" The solution is simple, invest in the technology and the associates to get it done as quickly/correctly as possible, and trust that the up front costs may be heavy for a few years but will pay off exponentially when its all said and done. This is where the decision makers controlling the money started to "drop the ball". With each new CEO and Technology Executive came a new round of "I can fix this" research projects leading to redundant recommendations, all to be met with a "Hard No on your Investment Needs" every time! This explains the majority of the executive turnover in this company. After Shawn left, the clown show really took off, vision & top level communication ceased to exist, and the platform for the most part has been stagnant ever since. As a Result of continuous ball dropping, Benefitfocus is now years behind its competition and running on a skeleton crew of mostly new hires, tenured "check collectors" who lost all hopes and ambitions long ago, and a handful of leaders who are trauma bonded to their OVERSIZED teams, stuck due to life circumstances, or afraid of the change jumping ship will bring even though they know the tool they have dedicated a good chunk of their career to, is likely sinking. Historically "a lowball salary" company, but I believe they are pretty desperate to rebuild with new strategic hires to keep their sinking business afloat, so go ahead add at least $10,000 to the high end of whatever you think you are worth if considering a job with them, to make sure they see the same value in you. Annual raises are a joke if you even get one and there are no official company bonus'. At a Design and Engineering Conference one year, all of engineering was promised an annual RSU Grant based off tenure that never came to be and much to my surprise on my way out, I learned Benefitfocus does have a secret Bonus Plan that no one is supposed to know about and only given to those deemed special by management! Which leads me to my next topic: Favorites - Certain areas more than others have and "old boys club" vibe when it comes to race, gender, and social status. The favorites game is often played, they do whatever they can to cover up the "politics", but its hard not to observe the obvious when business decisions are made based off personal preference in lieu strategy.
