business systems analyst

customer service representative

client services manager

business analyst

bsa analyst

Empyrean Benefit Solutions

The BSA position, in it of itself, is a culmination of several different job titles. You'll be providing application support for your client(s), participating in mundane processing tasks, project management, implementation work, and everything in between. Make no mistake, this is a white collar customer service job that happens to dabble with technology.

Much of the work you're responsible for will often times go unappreciated to the point that you must be the strongest (and sometimes only) advocate for yourself. This is especially apparent with managers who aren't engaged with your career growth and only care about the bottom-line to the point that if you're not performing, will make it a strong bullet point at your next review. Naturally there ARE managers who care and will certainly advocate for you but it varies so greatly that you can't necessarily guarantee it happening.

The gist of Empyrean is that it's a great place to get experience quickly but not a company where one builds a career unless you're well connected and or enjoy the Health and Welfare/Benefits Administration industry. Career growth does occur but more often than not requires political maneuvering and the ability to demonstrate your self-worth. Again, some teams/managers are better about this than others. Peers, colleagues will sometimes be hired into entry-level BSA roles or non-entry level BSA roles. There's virtually no rhyme or reason to this tactic as more often than not, non-entry level BSAs come in with the same amount of knowledge as an entry employee...which is virtually none.

The job is what you make of it but know that the expectation to perform is high as company attrition is through the roof. While there was concerted efforts to combat this, the workload (among other things) pushes people out.

The salary is not commensurate with experience as you'll frequently be responsible for work well above your pay grade quite quickly; often times because you're paired with either a non-technical manager or rather unhelpful senior resources. During open enrollment season (typically around the Fall), prepare to work well past the normal 8-5 depending on the client (or clients) that you're currently aligned to.

The company masquerades itself as a rather high-tech company but unfortunately still manages to undertake manual solutions that require additional hours of time from the BSA. Coupled with a constant revolving door of BSAs, it becomes difficult for seasoned resources to focus on process improvement as they're a) cross-training new BSAs b) fielding requests from managers for enhancement requests c) undertaking additional (internal) priorities. This leads to good people burning out fast.

While Empyrean does offer a casual atmosphere and often times preaches open collaboration, very seldom is this utilized outside of an 'Office Hours' concept where anyone can come in and ask for help with a problem. The sad reality is that you're often waiting for more senior resources to make time to help you one-on-one as most complicated problems can't be solved in a group setting.

All-in-all, this is a good company to gain some valuable analytical experience in SQL, Python (only during implementations if you're lucky to be on one or when you're on a client that requires scripting to be fixed), and general business analysis. Of course, your mileage will vary. People who are hired in the role have responsibilities that vary drastically across the company and are heavily dependent on client and the manager's needs/wants. Some will be more focused on implementation/configuration/application support work, others will be pigeonholed into processing and general client customer service in the form of troubleshooting issues with records through cases and client feedback/communication.

Take this job for the experience and once you have enough, look elsewhere. You'll realize quickly that you're given a fair bit of work but not properly compensated for the headache of having to complete it. Many BSAs fall into the trap of complacency and willingly accept mediocre pay for the tremendous responsibility of work because there are times throughout the year when workload is typically on the low side (often times the start of the year). In doing so, the cycle then repeats itself in which you're lulled into a false sense of security for the first half of the year but overworked and stressed for the remainder. Be smart and figure out if this is your intended career path or if you could be doing something greater.

I enjoyed the learning experience a lot. (The training was short, but luckily i am a fast learner. But if you are not, it may sound frustrating to you)
Soft Drinks available which is good. 
Very comfortable environment to work.. (Advanced technology)

The main reasons why i left were; 
- I felt OVER USED. Too many clients to work on....(The company will keep adding New clients to your POD, which means more income for the company, more workload for you, but your pay rate stays the same.. ) 
-Also, during OE, you work 9-10 hours with only 30 minutes lunch. without breaks. (I think Texas law says after 2 hours Employees should have  a 15 min break....Anyway..)
-Even after OE. the company will still schedule you for Overtime without even asking you. 
-Worst is the unpaid holidays for temporary employees.. 
In a week you will have 1 or 2 holidays. 1st you will not get paid for it. Secondly, you will not work 40 hours that week for sure.. So, what the company does is that they will for sure schedule you for 1-2 extra hours per day that week without even asking you. Just because they will have you work overtime that week and still pay you the regular rate since you will not reach 40 hours that week.
Once again, i felt OVER USED and ABUSED. 

Another reason why i left is the way Admin will work on your cases; 
The resolution of your cases depends on your Tier II and admin. 
Company policy says cases have to go through your Tier II first.... but your case will stay with Tier II for 2 or 3 days without even be sent to admin.. On the other side, company policy requires you to call client for follow up every 2 days...Which put you in a very uncomfortable situation where you have to call the participant every 2 days to tell him that you have nothing new as information for him... and they start being rude and nasty to you over the phone for something that does not even depend on you. 
I am someone very independent in general, and i like to get my tasks done.... Most of the time, i was trying to resolve my cases myself.. But there are some cases that admin HAS  to work on... and they will take forever to do it... leaving you in an uncomfortable situation. This is actually the MAJOR reason why i left. 
In the future i intend to apply to work as an admin and get things done in a timely manner.....I love the job i was doing over there and was great at it...But not going back there as a CSR ever..,

Too much exploitation of CSR which comes with a lot of stress.


Also, there is an unfair system of recognition of your work over there..  
Some people will receive KUDOS and you never know how they do...
You will have clients praising you during the call and wanting to take the survey but there is no option for survey after the call... you have to have a supervisor give a call back... My supervisor personally, would not give callback for Kudos.. Lol..
the rare moments they will, you will get a Kudos, and then management wont event be aware of it to send you your prize or recognition..... 
-Not the best place for career advancement....If you are looking to grow in the company you are working for...this might not be the best place to..

It wasn't a bad job because it's remote. I honestly wouldn't have worked here if it wasn't remote. 

There is no work-life balance. They have blackout season for a few months where PTO will not get approved at all. Outside of blackout season, your PTO also NEVER gets approved. Even if you plan on using your PTO in the future and preplan it 2 months ahead of time, if only 1 person has requested that day off, then your PTO will get denied. Definitely not a job for moms that has kids. With kids, things come up such as your kids being sick, etc. You will definitely get a point for that. 

Now raises, is a never if you are a level I rep. You do not get an annual raise each year and you also can't move positions or apply for open positions because you are a level 1 rep. The only way to be eligible for raises is if you advance to a level 2 rep, which is very hard to do since to advance to that level, you have to have good quality on your calls. Your calls usually don't pass very often because they will fail you for anything without an explanation sometimes. When you dispute your calls, sometimes they will still give reasons on why they deducted points (which some of the reasons don't make sense). You can try to tell them the guide says this or that, and you did as it stated, and you will still be deducted for quality.

Calls are also back to back. There is no time to breathe. The burnout is real here. It's a high turnover rate because of the burnout. PTO gets denied so you can NEVER take off. They also take away your two 15 min breaks during peak season because calls are busy. No breaks (except for lunch), no PTO, so it sums up why their turnover is high- because people are burned out.

You are working with so many different clients. It's hard to learn the specifics on just one client because you can get calls from any client. It made it very confusing. 

I think the company could actually keep people if people weren't so burned out. 

The people at this company are overall nice and easy to get along with.  Navigating the company is incredibly challenging.  The onboarding feels robust at first but the the videos evolve into hours of reading SOPs with no context.  When asking other groups for assistance you are lucky to get a response but if you do you’re told to read their operating instructions that are often out of date.  Internal departments don’t play nice.  There are no goals setup or performance reviews, team meetings or department meetings.  You’re often in the dark with company news or progress.  Everyone is so bogged down with multiple clients and meetings - actual work has to be done after hours.  The CSM role is unclear.  You have indirect management of Analysts if you aren’t a people manager.  You are told you don’t need technical knowledge to be successful in the role, but find yourself learning SQL, configuring in the system or creating data mapping.  Wrist-slapping for mistakes seems common place.  It almost feels like you’re setup for failure from your hire date.  And the management style is pushed as directing orders rather than building relationships.  Really disappointed in the lack of diversity in the Executive Team.  This is a younger company and I am sure there are a lot of growing pains, but rather than constantly push for recruitment of new CSMs - I would recommend to management actually pulsing CSMs to find out what the pain points are and how to correct them before people walk out of the door.

This company does not value its temp/temp-to-hire employees. You are disposable from day one. Even their HR employees are extremely unprofessional and one even "playfully" threatened to smack an employee. 

You're on the phone with rude and very entitled people all day unless there are no calls then you're forced to sit at your desk for hours doing nothing. You have to deal with disorganization and messy, drama-filled co-workers. The higher level employees are just as unprofessional as some of the temps and all of these things together make it impossible to enjoy working there. 

Don't be surprised if you're on the phone and neither you nor anyone around you has answers to even the simplest questions because even though you spent weeks in training, you don't have any of the information you need and you probably won't be trained completely. You spend a lot of time unnecessarily scheduling callbacks and making more work for yourself as a result.

You're not paid nearly enough for all the work you're required to do and all of the stress you're put under on top of not having enough resources to do the job to the best of your abilities.

Management only cares about winning business and will run developers into the ground. More senior employees are way too busy to help train new employees. High stress environment because you are managing people’s access to their benefits. Training is superficial and insufficient. The volume of what they expect an Analyst to handle is outrageous. You are expected to be client facing and carrier facing - you develop and completely QA your own work - you are expected to meet extremely tight deadlines because sales promises the client everything no matter if based in reality - you work carrier errors, respond to tickets from CSRs - during the busiest times of the year, they limit access of when you can run your jobs, so you end up working like a dog all day and then monitor your jobs in the evening so WHEN (not if) there is failure you are expected  to work late. 

If you are someone who loves extremely long hours with zero positive feedback, and being left on your own to figure things out - and are happy with low pay - Empyrean is the place for you!

Average health and welfare benefits company that handles benefits for so many companies it can barely handle them all.  Company is moreso focused on winning the clients over and making money rather than the actual employees doing all of the work.  CSRs are the back bones of the company and take the hardest hit when it comes to retaining employees.  No job security because management has their favorites.  They even issue write ups for sub-par performance.  CSRs and BSAs are overworked and highly underpaid.  Very stressful at times and the managers only act like they care about your problems and make excuses for those they wish to promote.  The company actually used to promote from within but again, unless you're their favorite, don't count on it.

On the benefits side, LOTS of calls from participants who's coverages are not updated! Horrible that this company is a place that should be administering benefits but is being threatened by so many people because their coverage keeps lapsing.  Someone should definitely look into that.

When it comes to work environments, this company is the most racially divided place that I have ever worked. Many managers as well as employees don't bother trying to hide their ignorance towards various racial groups. Favoritism. nepotism, and other -ism are blatant. Many employees talk about the lack of diversity training but are too afraid to speak up. I am used to working in a team-oriented environment in which people of all races and creeds worked together to accomplish goals. 

Looking for professionalism? It's not here... only a show during the interview process.

If you enjoy working mandatory long hours for inexperienced managers who throw their power around, then this might be the company for you. Training is horrible. Try cramming at least a months worth of training in 5 days. However, you will be expected to know everything from day one as well as potentially working for a team manager with zero experience and no interpersonal skills.

Sign,
Blatantly Honest

I've had a relatively good experience at this company, but I know quite a few people who work on the service center and operations sides that have not.  Many are usually shocked that I'm still with the company.  I think the sales, finance, and legal units probably enjoy their jobs and the company more than anyone else.  I wouldn't say not to apply, but I would definitely encourage one to do their due diligence, and if an offer comes, remember that everything is negotiable.  

One of the best things about this company is the flexible work schedules and the ability to work remotely.  The entire city of Houston was underwater, and we didn't miss a beat.  The company has definitely made sure that its employees can log on and work from anywhere.  Definitely a plus!

If you're looking for a place to get started or you're in need of some income then come here. But whatever you do, get out as quickly as possible. This company has absolutely no regard for their employees and plays favoritism quite often. There are definitely several double standards throughout, their BSAs, CSMs, PAs are not educated and they don't offer much training. It's quite disturbing when you literally have Client Service Representatives that are more intelligent than your Business Service Analysts or Processing Analysts. You can always tell when a company values their employees by the way they treat them, that employees longevity with the company and how often they hire. Empyrean is hiring CONSTANTLY, there's never a time where they aren't hiring and that's not good at all.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Business systems analyst 5 salaries reported	$53,101 per year
Customer service representative 6 salaries reported	$18.67 per hour
Client services manager 4 salaries reported	$85,750 per year
Business analyst 4 salaries reported	$53,500 per year
Bsa analyst 4 salaries reported	$53,500 per year

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