Thread regarding State Farm Insurance layoffs

@3xnl+1jJLJ9fj and @2xbl+1jJLJ9fj really know what they are talking about, all you newbies had better take notes. LOCs were never meant to be permanent. WFH is not permanent either. Tune in for a similar scene to play out in the future.

What, not planning on moving to the main HUBS anytime soon? It's all good, just take heed and prepare to work somewhere else - which isn't really such a bad idea now, is it?

Remember opportunity cost? They don't want you to know it in claims. What you give up to have something else. Give up SF!

I was remote for most of my career. Pretty much same thing happened to me about 5 years ago. In hindsight, i should have left the farm many years earlier. My new job pays me a lot more and invests in my training and growth and has promoted me fairly quickly. I do not miss state farm despite 20 years there

Like a good neighbor....stay over there!

@7fkp sounds like USAA consultant. 😂☺️

But Private Doofus your imaginary army has deserted you….

Management has issues too! Just ask Walmart. SF is no different. Self awareness folks! Just see what some who pretend to be leaders write. Very non assertive and aggressive.

Thx Private Doofus for your usual nonsensical rant. Keep your dreams alive about being a fantasy general instructing your make believe troops.

Nothing is free in life. You pay for the roads you drive on. We worked for the company to be profitable enough to have a pension. Those peon soldiers gave their life to protect us and the generals for freedom. Some gave their life. Respect them. Don't be a JCM sit in a chair and eat popcorn during the anthem. Freedom isn't free at any level. Capitalism is alive and well. Thanks be to God and our beloved US CONSTITUTION.

Private doofus doesn’t even realize the benefits he is enjoying from his arm chair he didn’t earn! He paid NOTHING into his pension and little into his social security based on today’s benefit. He is a socialist.

I ain't never took a paycheck nor benefit off anyone's back. I earned it and worked for it. Another mgmt disinformation scheme. My do they want to look like they gave you something when they gave you nothing. You earned it and don't deserve to be name called and given delusional disinformation.

LOL-@7bca is one of those privates that always thought he was a general. He loves a life of fantasy and dreams that never came close to fruition. This site gives him a chance to pretend his life mattered.

Don’t you love the rants of @7bca- a retiree living off social security and a pension due to your current hard work being all brave😂😂😂. What a key board warrior. All ya all keep working hard to keep his paychecks coming off your backs-he has got nothing else to live for except this site.

There ya go folks! @6oqa calls you peons. There's your leadership talking uneducated. Without the peons, they aren't JACK SH*T! In today's education, they have to advertise it. Never used to. The heart of a man makes a leader not papers on an office wall, the uniform he wears, his standard of living, or the toys he has. It's his heart and the decision he makes for others NOT a selfish all about me.

You will always be sheep. That is what happens to the under educated and under skilled. Listening to fellow peons won’t change your standard of living or your life.

Bottom line: Leadership at any level only cares for themselves. It won't be until you get in their face and challenge their income will there ever be any accountability. Their wolves and so should you. Stop being sheep and act accordingly.

@31pu obviously was paying attention over the last ten years. @2qfb, please take the time to read 1984 by George Orwell. This book used to be required reading for high school aged children and the State Farm story draws many parallels with its content. Just because there is nothing that shows up today on-line regarding the communications that took place over the last ten years, does not mean that it never happened. For those of you that were not with State Farm in 2012, or for those that were and have now forgotten, Tacoma was the forth hub. There was one hub for each time zone. In order to entice managers to move there, The Company offered to grandfather you into your prior salary if you accepted a demotion to take a job there. There were Team Managers and Section Managers that signed up and took the demotion. The Company poured millions of dollars into remodeling two very fancy buildings in downtown Tacoma to house over a thousand employees. A few years later, the decision makers came to the conclusion that Washington State really wasn’t a very friendly place for big business. A 15% wage premium and all those pesky employee centric laws laws to comply with in a blue state, didn’t make sense to our Accountant CEO. An e-mail notification was sent that we would be closing down the operation in 90 days. Hundreds scrambled to attempt to find a position before the clock ran out. Some employees found positions in DuPont. Some of the managers were offered lateral moves to the 3 remaining hubs or Bloomington. The rest were laid off. In hindsight, I don’t think State Farm is any different than most big businesses. It is just business. For a while it has seemed that big tech might be an exception to this paradigm. However, as of late we see that they are not immune to the relentless drumbeat of progress and profitability. Most are reigning in their WFH employees and laying off many that are not willing to go along. State Farm is allowing WFH now because we have been unable to hire and retain enough talent in the hub locations to meet The Company’s needs. As the economy slows and the desperation of laid off workers increases, this too will change. In the end, if you hitch your wagon to this company, understand that your are one small cog in a giant machine. No one is irreplaceable. Good luck to you all.

@31pu. Summary of your novel. Employee gets screwed. Typical from SF. The ol' pat you on the back and P I S S down your leg while telling you it's raining routine they do so well.

@2qfb They have their way of saying it, you just always have to (try) to read between the lines. When they told employees in small field offices they weren’t part of the future “new model” plan and new hubs were, everyone basically knew you had to move for your job laterally, or apply for a promotion with the new opportunities in the hubs to stay with SF. People who didn’t want to move or were about to retire just rode it out to the end for severance or early retirement, or for whatever reasons. But the company did things like say Tacoma was part of the new model future just like the new hubs, as they opened it up as a new operation, but then closed it down after only a few years. People moved to the LOCs too. Hundreds of people relocated to work in these places. They “migrated” people into the new model in locations outside the hubs and said they were part of long term plans, but then decided the plans were much shorter than any employee would have reasonably expected. They told people that were applying for and taking jobs moving from state to state for that they were in “new model” roles, and then later said they actually weren’t a part of the “new model”, having to relocate again or reapply to take a different job to get into the “new model”, or were just reassigned in a “take the new position on Monday or resign” kind of thing. There were people who wanted to move and keep their jobs that didn’t make the first cut from the beginning (as planned) by the way. Some who moved far away after the first cut weren’t able to make the second cut. Sometimes that was just because they just didn’t want to move some more for SF, but also just because the company f’d them out of a job leaving the employee somewhere they didn’t really otherwise want to be if they weren’t working for SF. If you’re someone who’s seen this since it was forming, you have a hard time understanding WTF the goals are.

At this point it’s obvious that you have to relocate to a hub or Bloomington to be a TM. No new LOC WFH TMs are happening. It’s too bad they prioritize people in hubs over more competitive folks that are outside of them though when they’ll move. They also say there’s other than claims professional roles outside of claims open up to LOC employees and it’s a TM huddle talking point sometimes, but that’s definitely not even true.

There’s a lot of great people in LOC locations. A lot of them at this point don’t want to be anything more than what they are, and that shouldn’t matter. If they’re an awesome CA or CS, SF should want to keep all of them right where they are doing the best in claims. The thing that started happening here seemed to be that if someone wasn’t trying to be a manager, or getting out of claims, that there was something wrong with them and they were obviously just some leech festerer. Not everyone aspires to be a manager though. You can have a good career as a claim rep as long as the company doesn’t treat you like you’re a loser that needs to be shaken off if you didn’t become a TM within 5 years, or moving all over just to keep the job to show loyalty. Claims work sucks, and you need people who are good at it who stick with it. The endless hiring, training, and resigning all within less than 1 year in the hubs isn’t going to work for a healthy claims operation.

Newbies! Read and reread what @2kub said. That is experience talking and no off the cuff remark. Today's operations worker has zero future and is a huge gamble with your time and effort. After trying to repair a car with a bazillion supplements, it's eventually going to be a total loss. Labor totaled the car alone. They don't understand.

At one point I had accumulated about 250 pages of documents related to all the communications regarding the Company’s move to the hubs. I was one of those that was not old enough to retire before my QTD. I wasn’t willing to leave my home and family either. I spent over two years posting for non-hub openings in vane. The QTD clearly stated that if you had not found a position by a certain date, you would be laid off. Openings in the hubs went unfilled and many talking heads attempted to convince me to post for a hub. In the end , my gamble paid off and I was offered a lateral move to an LOC not long before the clock ran out. It was within driving distance of my home so I took it. Luckily, the pandemic came along and we all got sent to WFH. I will retire soon on my own terms. If you are looking to control your own destiny, I recommend starting your own business.

Did SF say you need to move to a hub by x date or you won’t have a job or won’t be able to get promoted? Never got that memo and as it turns out but appears the hubs were a horrible idea. So someone please copy and paste the email telling employees when they had to move to hubs for promotions…

@2xbl
Just maybe they were in a situation that didn’t afford immediate movement to a hub. Raising kids with step families, aging parents, etc. You know stuff the State Farm family supports?

If the OP has been with Company for 20 years, then he/she should have known since 2012 that we were moving to the hubs. The Company was doing everything possible to get people to go including clearly telling us that the LOCs were a short term solution, a necessary bridge because very few wanted to leave their home towns and families and move to the southern hellholes. They should have seen the merciless march of progress across the country as we closed hundreds of offices. Literally thousands of employees and managers found out that the Company really didn’t value their skills enough to provide many exceptions. Mostly weak performers got the message and willingly volunteered to go. They were given full moving packages. Most of the strong performers were confident they could find another job when the clock ran out. Those who would be 55 by the QTDate, gladly took their severance and retired a little earlier. The Company continued to give moving packages to anyone who raised their hand for several years. Why didn’t the OP go when the opportunity was there for the taking? Supposedly, we have hired 800 managers in the claims this year alone. Most that I have seen promoted were decent but I also know of deserving people that live in the hub cities that have not been picked up yet. Maybe OP should have gone when the Company was begging you to go and was willing to pay the freight?

Sure. Cite some examples or stfu.

management at this company is a popularity game and has nothing to do with managerial skills or competence.

As this person was in management already, likely, he posed a threat to someone who is protecting their career, and promoted beyond their skill level.

At least you can get into management. I’ve tried so many times. When people say you have to “fit in” they aren’t lying. They don’t give a damn about expertise. They’ll hire a complete id--t so they’ll feel more comfortable talking about the weather.

Let's be real honest about this. The company hasn't changed. You can have your CPCU etc but doesn't mean jack in day to day operations. Promotability at SF is merely if you are vouched for, fit in, a player, get the wink and nod, are family, and so on. The "good ol boy" system is all so well alive and thriving. They only want people in leadership who eat, drink, and sleep their false narrative without any question. It's all about who you know and has zero to do with your work ethic. I've worked for many many at SF. The only thing I can say for sure is every last one of them were followers and not leaders. I learned that in my first five years. Sit back be quiet and watch them schmooze together. Real leaders IMO don't act that way. Learn to have a well developed situational awareness. You'll be amazed at the games they play and hint.....it's all the way to the bedroom.

Terrible look for the company, it used to be about how competitive you were. You worked for years to get CPCU, CHFC, etc…to stand out. Now you could interview and spin their heads around with an amazing or-l dissertation and they will give the promotion to someone in a hub that can spell and say their first and last names without drooling on themselves. Actually they may even forgive the drooling.

Love it.

Problem identified; problem solved. No drama here. This should happen more often. Many Jack Aces like @war+1 are a frustrated do nothing bunch.

They just announced many CSs from my dept that can't handle basic claim matters being promoted to TMs. Amazing that SF thinks they can manage a team when they can't handle simple claims/coverage matters. Fu----g mo--ns.

Remote/former LOC employees are getting ignored for promotion at all levels right now. They posted "targeted" positions for LOC people and then when the promotion announcement emails come out no LOC person is listed as getting one making it clear these targeted positions are fake openings at this point. Unless you're in a hub you aren't getting promoted. They are wasting our time applying and interviewing.

OP story is beyond legit. I know dozens and dozens of people in the same spot. They don’t suck at all and are actually incredible talents simply being ignored due to their remote status. It’s why we don’t just promote off resume. By interviewing and making it subjective they can just simply say oh Bob, poor Bob who is clearly super qualified just didn’t interview as well as Theresa who is in a hub location and just finished her first year at the Farm.

Leadership. LOL. Leadership here at these levels are mostly comprised of people who were below average at the actual work and were promoted to move them out of the way to find people who could actually do the work. The Dilbert principal has been alive and well here for quite some time. Best of luck on your journey and don't take it personally.

To the original poster, I hope you know that as long as you are employed through the end of the year, you would get your full 2022 bonus and not have to actually work at all in 2023. If anything you would be eligible for a pro-rated bonus for the days worked in 2023 in the 2024 MIP plan. Of course if you have PTO days, might as well burn them all.

@war+1
Aww does baby need his binky? All you have to do is look at the executive office and all the VPs, AVP's and you will see (if you are being honest), the white (made up construct) male demographic is "overrepresented" if anything. Of course to some mediocre people, equality/equity is problematic and seems like you are under attack and dare I say being "replaced" Tucker?

I’m remote and have been very disappointed in what I’ve seen in terms of hiring. Definitely something is afoot. That said, I remain positive I can be promoted eventually. I know we have D&I programs and we are definitely pushing that now but I remain hopeful that by being a good employee I can be promoted despite being male and white.

Same. The wave of exits in April will be crazy….upper leadership should prepare now.

Yeah I’m hearing of a mass wave of leadership exits after MIP. However, I think that’s what SF wants..our experienced aka well paid remote folks to leave. Someone convince me to ether wise…

This one hits home! Following you as well. Hoping for a similar opportunity.