Pros
Some good people. Financially stable company.
Cons
Zurich is constantly putting out in the media that they care about their employees which is the opposite of their actions at least as far as the Claims Department goes. Prior to the pandemic we were driving into the office 2 days a week. We have now been told that starting in April we will have to drive in 3 days a week. When I accepted my employment with Zurich it was based upon a 2 day week in the office. We have been working strictly from home for the past two years and had record profits. We are constantly told the reason for going into the office is to collaborate. This is quite comical since we have been collaborating for the past two years. Upper Management gets on video calls and wants to point out a couple of people who told them they can’t wait to get back in the office. This is not the majority. They also constantly tell a story of when they started out this is how they learned while sitting on the floor talking and listening to other people. News Flash: We did not have the technology 30 years ago that we have now. Upper Management is out of touch. When you sit in a private office all day long and think this is how things work in 2022 you are clearly out of touch. When I did go into the office unless you are having a conversation (usually personal) with someone else you have ear buds in your ears listening to music or something else. It is also quite comical that they say they want claims to be in the office to collaborate with underwriting but yet underwriting doesn’t have to come in the office except for 2-3 days a month. How are you supposed to collaborate with people who aren’t there? Their excuse for underwriting not having to come in is because they are out visiting customers. I can tell you in all my years with Zurich it is very rare that I have seen underwriters go out and visit customers. Claims is the only department now in the entire company where they added an extra day to come into the office. On a recent call with upper management we were told we are not being asked to do anything different then before the pandemic? Really, we were going in 2 days a week before and you now added an extra day. This is deal breaker for me and a lot of others but sadly they do not care. They have been told by HR about all the openings we have and all the reasons why we can’t get people. We are already so desperate for employees that we retained some temps who are also not sticking around. Gas prices and inflation are at an all-time high but yet they are now going to require people to drive in 3 days a week. They had the nerve to tell people to go buy an electric car. Easy to say just go buy this or that when you are making an executive salary. They are constantly telling us and posting on social media how they care about the environment. These are lies. Actions speak louder than words. This was also brought up to upper management about the additional emissions that we will exert when driving to and from an office an extra day a week in a major metropolitan city. If they really cared about the environment they would tell people to continue to work from home and certainly would not add an extra day of driving. They want to cut down on travel via plane due to emissions. This is a joke when they are telling you to drive into an office 2-3 days a week. All anyone has to do is google and find out that cars are one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gasses with emissions continuing to rise. An hour of automobile idling (sitting in heavy traffic) burns approximately one-fifth of a gallon of gas and releases nearly 4 pounds of CO2 into the air. Excessive amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere can contribute to global warming. Once I leave this company I will sending a letter to the head of the company in Switzerland and to the all the board members regarding the hypocrisy of telling employees and the public that they care about the environment but adding an extra day of commute time to claims personal only. I will also then be free to comment about the hypocrisy on the social media posts that are posted weekly about how much Zurich cares about the environment when clearly they don’t.