• Irrational Corporate Objectives: State Farm desperately wants to remain the #1 auto insurer. To do that, they have reduced costs and capabilities to improve the bottom line. And yet, the expectations on employees are only increasing. In my opinion, this has changed the company very much for the worse.
• Transparency: My job at State Farm often included confidential projects. When a decision is made by executive leadership, often there is no explanation. There is lots of communication, but that communication often tells you nothing real. Executive often makes a decision months or years before they tell anyone, and there is very little opportunity for the people who are actually doing the work to influence the decision.
• Widget Maker: I had some influence in my decades at State Farm, but without a direct connection to executive, in my opinion, it is likely that a new employee will be nothing but a widget maker. Skill and capability are respected, but networking is all that really matters. In my experience, the person doing a job will often rise not based on what they do or what they know, but on what relationships they build with people higher up. This leads to gaps in competence that are often hard to overcome.
• Average Benefits: State Farm has average benefits. When I changed companies, I got a (pretty good) raise, a better 401K, and an opportunity to choose my path forward. State Farm has a pension for employees that started before a certain date (which is awesome), but as far as I know, no new employee will get a pension. State Farm has reduced benefits several times over the last several years. As a former employee, a reduction in benefits while the company is making record profits seems pretty tone deaf.
• Opportunity: State Farm is a vast company and there are many, many areas that need skilled and capable people. However, the availability of opportunities (i.e. to move within the organization; to take training; to have influence; to progress your career) are not equal. If you are not a likable person, or if you do not want to be on the leadership track, or if you want to do technical work (i.e. what you trained to do), don’t expect to have many career opportunities. To be clear, State Farm has the same diversity initiatives that every big company has, and there are women and minorities in positions of influence. State Farm’s problem is with opportunity, not diversity.
• Salary: Newer employees will make a decent, middle of the road salary. However, employees typically do not get a viable raise in my experience. In the last 5 years of my employment, I beat inflation once, and that was because I took a promotion that increased my workload dramatically. Generally speaking, the State Farm salary is OK, but don’t expect much change in your salary over time.
The reasons why I left State Farm are complicated, but there is one big reason that I need to talk about. When the pandemic started, I worked from home as did the majority of employees in my department. Some employees started working from remote locations with the understanding that we could be called back. My job was in Bloomington Illinois, but I was working remotely from out of state.
We were called back in July / August of 2021. We were still working from home (the pandemic was still raging), but for some reason we had to live locally even though we were not working in the office. From my perspective, this was a tone-deaf decision made by leadership that 1) was out of touch with the needs of employees and 2) did not understand the pandemic very well. I knew I could be called back, but I did not think that I would be called back for no discernable reason. I’m sure State Farm leadership had some reason, but they did not communicate that reason to me.
I tell this story to illustrate what is (in my opinion) State Farm’s worst quality. While employees drive everything at State Farm and produce every discernable result, there is no consequence for leaders who make poor decisions, who lack transparency, or who negatively impact employees. I have been told many times by State Farm leadership that “if I don’t like it, I could quit,” and I finally did.
Note 1 – Many people doing reviews on State Farm actually work for agents. Agents are independent contractors and they are the boss of their own agency.
Note 2 – Some people doing reviews on State Farm who work for Claims are independent contractors.
