State Farm reviews

Leaders are very poor overall at making objective and performance based decisions about promotions. They are not trained in behavioral interviewing and selection and don't feel that is necessary because HR provides a bank of interview questions for leaders to use. A lot of leeway is given to promote based on personal bias. While an undergrad degree is required to be considered for any professional/technical position, advanced academic education has very low value at State Farm. An employee with a masters degree and a strong record of achieving superior results has less opportunity for advancement than an employee with average performance and an industry designation. Some top managers have said they don't agree with company policy to offer tuition reimbursement for masters degrees because "people will just leave after they get the degree." Some have said they question the company's policy on tuition reimbursement for undergrad degrees because they "question whether it makes people smarter or better employees." A higher value is placed on industry designations. People are promoted very frequently based on how many insurance designations they have. Even top performers are excluded from interviews and promotional consideration if they don't have an industry designation. But this still isn't a guaranty that an employee will advance. Since no "written" policies are in place, managers often send mixed messages regarding what it takes to be promoted, leaving employees confused as to what development is appropriate. Be aware that you will not be entering a performance based work environment if you are hired at State Farm. If your personal performance standards are high, you may be disappointed. If you are someone who just works for a paycheck, State Farm does offer a higher degree of job security than most companies,..and really good benefits. In this economy, that carries a lot of weight.

-Big Company in small town allows managment to live in a fantasy world. -Politics can cost you your job, or permanently damage your reputation. -100% top down management, absolutely no meaningful means of feedback on bad managers available (risk free). -There are only two classes of employees, privledged (actually get to use benefits as described) and restricted (those that are overly scrutinized regardless of the quality of their work). -Their idea of flextime is from the twilight zone. You get to choose when you punch the clock, but punch the clock you do. -No balance in work life (not work/life, worklife). If work 70 hrs a week for a month, you are entitled to nothing to rest up and nothing is given. Accept a privledged few where it is practiced under the table. -Care more about how long you have worked there than the quality of work. Example: no short term disability, but if have 6 years seniority have 120 sick days so don't need it. If in between and get sick, you face bankruptcy. -Are in the midst of workforce changes pushing people into roles they don't have skills for and majority are overworked to the point of making fatigue errors regularly. See previous point.- Major illness treated like employee is at fault. Like someone would choose Chemo over having to go to work. -Allow remote workers but don't support it for those who have skills and physical need, only those with tenure and connections. -Majority of workers are lifers who, because of big company in small town don't know how much better it is elsewhere. -Can have decades of skills in an area that go unused (becoming un-markatable within or without) while they will force unwanted roles and reskilling upon those who don't need it, just moved to right position based on experience. -Held to requirements of role definitions to the letter even when circumstances require time to aclimate and develop new skills. -First line management has no expertise in technologies they manage. -Guilt is a ruitine management technique. -Still managing in the dark ages of focusing management energy on strengthening employee's weaknesses instead of leveraging their strengths. As minimal the research is required to quantify how tremendous the benefits are of leveraging strengths and augmenting weaknesses they still spend years working on each employees weakest traits instead of leveraging their strongest. -Communication is a lost skill. Large body of employees do not posses fundamental communication skills causing delays, errors, and a lot of re-work. -Process valued over end result.