Be Prepared to Work 50+ Hours Per Week
Pros
-401k Matching -PTO available from Day 1 -Honest, hard-working co-workers -Cognizant of workplace bullying behavior and they do seem to actively work to stop it when it occurs. -Good company to get your feet wet in American corporate culture. -Seemed to at least be open to some WFH days.
Cons
-The workload is EXTREME for a position that pays sub 50k. You will work non-stop and the claims never stop coming. There is no lull in business. There is no down time. It's like waking up to run 2 marathons every single day. -Cultish corporate culture. Some people that work there are very into Unum the company, and have somehow taken on their job as part of their personality. -The training is inadequate and you probably only learn about 25% of what you need to know in order to perform your job. -The amount of knowledge that you must retain and access every single day is intimidating. They advise you to use "workflows", but there isn't a workflow for MANY situations. Because of this, it's almost impossible to approve a claim without involving another person. -There are a lot of team meetings that take away time from everyday work. -I was easily working 12+ hours a day to keep up with my activities. Activities are little tasks that pop up in your view for you to complete on your claim load. These activities can take anywhere from a few seconds or 30 minutes to complete and I routinely had more than 100 activities to start my day every day, with more being added to the list as the day progressed. -You will have a hard time doing your job without waiting for input from other employees. There's no good way to manage your workload because it's all dependent on someone else agreeing with you and adding their piece. -It's insurance work and that comes with approvals and denials. You will probably be talking with a lot of medical professionals to explain claims decisions and sometimes those phone calls are incredibly tense. It's also very tough explaining the medical rationale Unum's nurses and doctors reached to deny a claim when the claimant's doctors are heavily disagreeing with the decision, and you are not the person that made the decision. -The claimants can be incredibly hostile. You will be yelled at eventually. Claimants have your extension and can call you at all hours. It doesn't matter if you have a billion hours worth of work to do, if a claimant calls you have to prioritize that call. The company tracks your call metrics and you can get in trouble for not answering your phone enough. You will also get transfers from the customer service reps. -On top of your regular work (activities) and incoming phone calls you're receiving, you're also getting a steady stream of emails from within Unum as well as from the claimants HR managers, doctors, etc. -There are a lot of employees at Unum that like to pass the buck, and because the DBS role is one that requires you to know a lot about a lot of things (the details of specific policies, medical knowledge around approving/denying claims, tax implications, state disability policies that often offset the benefits Unum provides, etc.) many people feel comfortable forwarding you emails and telling you to take care of something outside your scope of duties. -Open Concept office is abysmal. They tried to sell it as, "we're getting with the times! This environment will spur teamwork and collaboration!" What they actually did was doubled the amount the employees they could fit into a room and made a very noisy, germy and distracting environment for people who don't actually need to "collaborate". -Chronically under-staffed. This role is incredibly demanding and burn-out is high. I saw many fellow employees file disability claims for themselves because of the stress of the job. Productivity is through the roof but you will not be compensated fairly. This role is classified as exempt, so you will not receive overtime once you are no longer a trainee.