FAIR WARNING!!! - Sales Representative State Farm Employee Review

First of all: State Farm will suck the life out of you. It will drain out all your hopes and compassion for any living thing. It will make you dread talking to people and customers are not even the worst part. Secondly, the word "remarkable" will become a trigger word that will send you into complete waves of despair. You will hear this word over and over and over until you cringe every time you hear or see it, even outside of work. Management is so unrealistic about the nature of the business, factors influencing the industry, competition, and metrics. For example, management expects sales reps to sell policies that are twice-5x as much as other companies (like $300-600/month, often higher). Underwriting increases rates often. Many "sales opportunities" are actually calls regarding rate increases. Once management noticed that premiums increased drastically, they obsess about selling the “value of State Farm” but didn’t change the sales goals. In fact, they raised certain sales goals. State Farm wants you to sell something that doesn’t exist. Agency and corporate departments do not work together. Each area operates in isolation. They say “we are one State Farm”, however, rarely do separate departments communicate, unless they are formal complaints. All systems are either extremely outdated, crash every day, freeze up, and erase customer information. There were several monitors that were broke down for literally months, and nobody cared to make the work stations usable. Outdated systems are barely an excuse for the bad communication between departments, so much information gets lost and customers can see it especially when no one knows anything about anything. State Farm’s refusal to ingrate and streamline through systems is one of the greatest downfalls. It is essential in 2017 to have modern communication and workable systems. They have some of the poorest implementation, least thought out changes. You are treated as a number. Your metrics are your identity. You are constantly “coached” over things outside of your control. Rarely is there any sense of appreciation. Sometimes management wants to make things “fun”, so they have supervisors wear colored sunglasses in the building, have management walk around in a bear costume, etc. One time our reward was getting to email a manager. These types of reward systems actually come across as pretty degrading because it reminds me of elementary school when I already felt too mature for those types of “fun”. This job is an entry level sales position. It requires no previous sales experience, no education, and not even an in person interview. It is better than other entry level positions, but it is still very much entry level. Management seems to have this goal of trying to persuade us that we are something that we aren’t. They have compared us to doctors, and tell us what a great career we have in this entry level miserable position. Having both extremes, treating us like absolute children and then trying to convince that we are overly valuable, but on a 1x1 basis only focusing on metrics, makes the management seem untrustworthy, incompetent, unaware, and disrespectful. There are no sick days. You have to use your PTO. Therefore, people come to work sick to avoid either getting in trouble with their supervisor or so they don’t have to use their personal time. You look around and people are hacking up their lungs, sneezing, all over the place, and spreading their germs. On top of people being sick, people are dirty. There’s food, trash, outdated holiday decorations, gum, etc everywhere. This might not be the case in all locations or departments, but I’ve experienced it daily for years. State Farm prides itself in always changing and being an adaptable, flexible company. However none of the changes benefit the employee. They changed the bonus structure, the PTO structure, promotion structure.