Pluspunten
End of year bonus (but they could just pay us adequately and you only get this if you are still working there on Dec 1st of that year). Some flexibility in scheduling - used to be way better. You usually have to start with at least one weekend day and they tend to do nonconsecutive days off. But in my department, you can submit for a schedule change within 6 months. If call volume allows, you can change your schedule. They don't do you any favors. If you are extremely lucky, you will submit for a m-f schedule at the right time! If we are slow, you can submit for a "green alert" and they will maaaaaaybe let you leave early. You can choose to use your vacation hours for the time you leave early or you can just not pay yourself for those hours. Its hard to get a day off around holidays and weekends are hard to get off too. But otherwise, its not too bad. They want to promote people within the company, but only to other terrible on the phone positions. The training positions are the most coveted and next are the supervisor positions. They are rarely available and you will have lots of competition. They have started promoting work from home because they ran out of space. Everything they do, they pretend its of their employees but really its for their own benefit. The benefits aren't bad. You will pay about $180 a month for health insurance. They just increased the deductible to $600. Its with Aetna. If you go in network, health providers have a discounted rate for Aetna, but you will basically pay the entire cost of the service until you reach your ded. Afterwards, you will pay a 20% copay. They have a 6% match on a 401K. If you save up 5,000 in your 401K, when you eventually quit from extreme burnout, you can leave it in there! Obviously no more matching when you no longer work there. They have discounts for different companies like rental companies, etc. Have yet to use any of these. You also get $50 for every 6 months if you have Progressive Insurance. When you donate thru their giving website, Progressive will match your donation. So that's nice! They will hire without a college degree. They somehow get everyone to drink the koolaide and believe that Progressive is one of the best places to work in Austin.
Minpunten
Totally corporate atmosphere. Every minute is accounted for. There were years when they were severely under staffed and I would take calls for 7.5 hours a day (this is when i was full time). You only get a 15 minute break if you work 4 hours, which is basically the time it takes to use the bathroom in those 4 hours. Call volume has slowed down recently, but you are lucky if you get 2 minutes between calls. If you go over your break time or lunch time, your stats will show it. They also want your calls to be like 6-9 minutes while still giving excellent customer service. hahaha. No. That's how customer service works. The higher ups are putting lots of pressure on the supervisors so they are putting lots of pressure on their reps. They make you start all of your systems before you shift starts so that you can log in and start taking calls on the dot, or it will hurt your stats. As an hourly employee, I would think this is illegal. You will be the public's punching bag. They don't think you are smart enough to know when it is ok to hang up on someone (even if they are screaming expletives at you) so they tell you that if you hang up anyone they will immediately fire you. If you go off script, like you're a human and not a robot, you have to fight for your way of doing things. They have "pilot programs" where they don't pay you more because its just a "pilot" but you have more work. They try to twist things and make it seem like Austin never gets pilot programs (we do) and how honored we should be. There were some years that I only got like a .19 raise but on average for the time I've been here, its been a $1 raise. Even if you like people and customer service, you will burn out pretty soon. If you aren't sure what to do with your career, I would advise working as an administrative assistant for similar pay and health insurance. Less stress. Less yelling. Less corporate bs. Also, even if a customer is mentioning how worried they are that their car is non drivable and you see that they have rental on their policy, you aren't suppose to let them know because they should "already know what's on their policy". I find this to be shoddy business practices. The higher ups are the higher ups because they have been with Progressive for something like 20-30 years. Not because they are necessarily good at their jobs.