actuary

associate

senior associate

analyst

senior analyst

Mercer

Let me begin by saying I got this job through a temp agency so my expectations were not that high. The pay is laughable based on the amount of work and hours your are expected to put in. The management team(s) are nothing short of a bureaucratic cycle of idiots that are promoted because they have either caught the attention of their superior idiot due to their looks or they know someone who already holds a higher position. I am a college graduate with plenty of customer service experience and was being managed by a twenty-three year old less than intelligent, albeit pretty, beauty school dropout. She had been in the company for less than two years. I have met reps there for 5 years whose only movement within the company is countless transfers to different cubicles. 

Your duties are as follows: Get to your desk ten minutes before signing on to your computer and phone so you can hit the log in button at the exact designated time, otherwise you are docked 15 minutes of pay for missing a single minute. You are not allowed the standard 15 minute breaks, if you go to the bathroom for any period of time longer than 4 minutes you will return to hovering team leaders and a littler of instant messages questioning your whereabouts (after she has just returned from her eighth smoking break before noon). You are to be prepared to service at least 8-15 clients per day (large clients with thousands of employees who are more than likely upset because their health benefits have been messed up in some way because what's known as "t2" has not sent a carrier file to the proper insurance company.) You are only permitted to speak to T2 on an absolute needs basis or via a service request that could take weeks to get back. Meanwhile, Joe Smith in Arkansas has three sick kids and no health insurance and you as the rep are required to talk him off the ledge. T2 consists of a number of twenty-something self-entitled spoiled children that create not only a hostile work environment but an impossible task of servicing our clients. If a member is upset you had better be prepared to handle it yourself because managers and "leaders" will not. They more than likely will be no where to be found. You get one hour for an unpaid lunch and offered countless hours of over time that will be cut at the end of the week when the company has met its service levels and have decided that they will not pay you. You will very very rarely see any overtime on  pay check. Your hard work will not be recognized nor will your dedication to keeping a job. They will hire you to a permanent position only if they need employees because dozens have quit in weeks prior. (they drop like flies for obvious reasons.) The company is unprepared, unorganized, bureaucratic, and only for those looking for a paycheck to get by and to fill a void on your resume. The hours are long and grueling, the information is scarce and usually incorrect or inconsistent, and there is quite literally no one around to sort out the mess so you had better be prepared to do it alone and get reprimanded for it later.

The only good thing about this comapny is the training. The wealth of knowledge I obtained about health benefits in the first 3 weeks is the only thing I take away from my time spent in this horrible company. Trust me when I say you have never and will never feel stress like you would if you worked at this company. It's not worth it. Stay away.

Mercer tends to hire primarily temporary workers, all of whom have no benefits and get walked all over constantly. There have been promises made to many temporary workers about becoming permanent employees, however most are not currently being taken on due to budgetary constraints and a "hiring freeze." As you can probably imagine, the turn over rate is enormous. Out of the 25 - 30 people I trained with, myself and one other person are all that are currently left. More than half were gone within the first month and a half.

As one would expect in a call center environment, everything is centered around metrics, to the point where customer service struggles at times. There is a large emphasis on adhering to your schedule, with unrealistic expectations. Calls are graded as either exceeding expectations, meeting expectations, or falling below expectations, however it is typically very rare to receive an "exceeds expectations." Many of the metrics in place to measure performance are not only unrealistic, but seem designed to ensure failure, so as to ensure they always have a ready-made reason to let a person go if need be.

As with any position that deals with the public, there is a great deal of negativity that can often be taken out on the representatives by the person on the other end of the phone. However, many participants are perfectly pleasant, and the bad calls are typically far fewer than the good or reasonable ones.

Communication within the company is poor at best, with many things being miscommunicated or not even communicated at all between departments. The technology and resources provided are outdated and unreliable. It is not uncommon to experience multiple systems and programs crashing several times throughout any given work day.

Many of the coworkers are wonderful, if not a little cliquey, despite all the negatives. There are, of course, exceptions to the rule, but for the most part everyone tends to get along on the call center floor.

My typical work day at Mercer begins by opening all systems in order to assist participants with their HR benefit needs.  Systems I am proficient in are Siebel Case Management, Business Document Management, Cisco Agent Desktop, Omni Pay, Nice IEX Agent Web Station, Plan Online, etc.  I am currently working in the Defined Compensation Department in a call center setting where I handle call volume for the Spanish queue. My department works with over 250 different clients from all ranges of employee populations.  I have been trained to take escalated calls where I attempt to de-escalate irate and upset participants for resolution. I am also a non-licensed trade specialist and am able to process investment trades on the participants’ plan portfolios.  I provide consultative services and explain tax ramifications under the IRS 402F Tax Code for 401(k) financial transactions.  I work aged team service requests with escalated resolutions and place outbound calls on behalf of the clients and administrative team staff on paperwork that is received not in good order.  I also assist in training my peers with the Summary Plan Description Rules and system navigation. I have been a contributing team member for Defined Contributions for over five years. Mercer is a wonderful company to work for but unfortunately does not provide many opportunities for advancement and career growth.  I am seeking an opportunity to apply the knowledge, skills, and abilities gained at Mercer to a position in a company that provides an opportunity for growth and career development.

A typical day in H&B will have you answering 60+ calls of varying length. You'll process life events such as a companies open enrollment or a birth/death in the family. Occasionally you will encounter very stressful individuals or difficult issues, but the resolutions are generally the same processes each time. You will frequently transfer to a carrier, most people don't understand what their admin is actually for.

You'll learn of all the different health plans one could have and how they operate, as well as some other benefits.

Management can be pleasant, mine was. Others can be very unpleasant.. it's up to luck. Your co-workers will be your lifeline when you have the chance to speak with them, they're your comrades in arms.

The most difficult aspect of the position, whether in H&B or DC(etc), is that your call ranking is always going to be below what the company wants. There is no way to get a perfect score with their newly implemented system. Your call time will be a constant struggle. It can be extremely difficult to keep a call under 7 minutes when the participant refuses to understand what you're saying no matter how you paraphrase, or when your software programs are constantly crashing.

The worst part of it all though, no matter what they say to you about permanent hire opportunities, is that you have NO JOB SECURITY. Even people who have been converted to permanent employees will be tossed out without any care. The company can simply bring in another batch of temps anytime they need to. You mean nothing to them.

The most enjoyable part of working here is the satisfaction felt when you've helped someone through a difficult issue, the relationships you can cultivate with other employees, and taking your headset off to go home. The Christmas party they have is a great time.

I worked for a single client when I started with this company. A huge demanding irrational client. At first it seemed like it would be good. But nothing has panned out like I was told when I was hired. Its been five years and I have been overlooked for position after position. I have a degree and loads of skills I have learned here but every year at review time I am told I am not a strong enough contributor for a raise. The only years I have received a raise is when I have had attendance issues for having to take care of my kids. You cant get a absence excused unless it qualifies for FMLA. I have seen a whole slew of upper management get wiped out from compliance issues and stupid mismanagement that i warned them about. Now there is new mgmt and they say they want to promote from within and then hire no one except external candidates that have no experience and are straight out of college. 

Now My client has left my facility and I work for a new team and my work load is huge. I take 80-100 calls a day and get yelled at a lot from participants. I get held to the same standards as other reps who take 20-30 calls a day. The worse part is that my own mgmt seems to not appreciate what I do and think that I could not handle a next level position that is simpler then anything I learned in business school. A lot of my coworker are not very intelligent and thus I am seen in the same light. 

Im frustrated and burnt out and would love nothing more then to be able to leave this company and never look back. 

They do have awesome food trucks that come out but Im so broke that I cant afford to eat. 

I understand that in the world of business, information is everything. 

As a PSR, we were required to take calls, handles them in a pleasant manner, adhere to a schedule set by another department, have a weekly/bi-weekly/whenever-you-receive-an-error review (dependent on the Team Leader that you have). The company is fixed on not making mistakes. Problem with that is that nothing in this world would be the way it is without mistakes. 

 As a temp (I highly do not recommend for anyone to be a temp) I was promised multiple times that a conversion would happen soon but since their was a "hiring freeze", no one was being converted perm. However, at the same time being told this same speech, employees were hired perm, some of which would take their vacation weeks then a few months later leave. Some of which sat next to me and hassled me with multiple questions a day. It seemed that the same old song and dance would repeat and even witnessing a buddy co-worker that was also temporary, being hired perm and promoted to supervisor. 

Had to pay a penalty for not having health insurance in Massachusetts. Was not able to contribute towards my own retirement plan while with the company.

I enjoyed my job very much. Passed all my reviews and took every opportunity of growth when presented to me. It is just a shame to see a company that promotes to it's clients that it's core values being "Talent, Health, Retirement, Investment" not permeate through the company like most top companies do. It's just a business so big that the owner does not know his own employees yet benefits from each of them.

When I was brought on initially as a temp, things seemed fine. A red flag should have gone up though when the whole full-time call center staff basically walked out a the same time leaving mostly inexperienced temps and a few hold-out supervisors. 

Then they basically hired on the entire call center floor of Sears Online. The company that went belly up. They also brought over all their failed business practices. I know this because my dad used to work for Sears Online and recognised a lot of what they were doing from when he worked there. 

Then once their supervisors and staff had infiltrated the place, all (and I mean all) the remaining veteran supervisors and staff left. In my time there, we went through 3 Department Supervisors because they just got fed up.

Every day was back to back calls up until about 7pm. That last hour until 8pm is a bit slower with about 20 minutes between calls. 

It's an insurance company for certain organizations like NYSUT, NEA, IEEE, ASME...etc...

Everyone calling in is angry, yelling and dissatisfied and they take it out on you. You'll be dealing with angry north east coast types. Engineers who are super analytical and drive you crazy with all their rapid-fire questioning which you can't possibly answer. Doctors who think they're gods among men. Though the military personnel who called in were always very cordial. Just remember to call them by their rank. 

At this time, I was very depressed and just wished the building would burn down. There's a reason it received a bomb threat and the building had to be evacuated.

Mercer HR Services is the benefits administration arm of Mercer/Marsh McLennan, based in Norwood, MA.

Most enjoyable parts of the job: 1. Sharing honest & intelligent insights with existing and potential corporate clients. 2. Sharing suggestions for how to improve process and content (though experience informed me that managers only opted for those which benefited their standings/reputations). 3. Open dialogues with external parties (current clients & potential clients).

Co-Workers: Many are hard-working, trusting, and loyal to others (though this loyalty sometimes is not a good attribute). Not a place for high achievers or those with outstanding credentials.

Hardest Part of the Job: Constant vigilance against political / self-serving attacks from fellow employees. Managers overall seemed significantly more interested in serving their own interests than in employee growth and advancement. HR as well seemed to be "in the pocket" of managers vs. serving any employee, regardless of stature.

Highly political environment where the sales & marketing managers were much more focused on managing-up (their own careers & goals) than on development of employees. More based on who you know and how you can make those above you appear to shine, vs. meritocracy. Managers take credit for work that you do and do not extend credit to your achievements.

Very stressful workday.  Workload was unmanageable at times.  Brought work home, like others in department to try to keep up.   Department head would come up with busy work for the department, like we had time for this unnecessary work.
Department head micromanages who at times used intimidation and revenge.  He stated he had open door policy but was remote most of the time.  When he was in office his door was closed with do not disturb notice.  If you were lucky to meet with him it turned into a one sided conversation.  If you tried to talk he would continue talking but in a louder voice.  
Department was divided into 3 teams with a supervisor for each team.  One supervisor was great and was well respected and liked by all in the department the other 2 supervisors not so much.  I was unlucky to be in a team supervised by one of the latter.  
Training originally was handled by the good supervisor and was excellent.  For some reason this was taken away from him and the training suffered immensely.  The other 2 supervisors had neither the skills nor willingness so training became minimal at best.  Many if not most of us would continue to go to the good supervisor if we had any problem, questions, training and such than to our direct supervisor.
Year end performance evaluations and compensation increases was a circus.  My supervisor gave me my performance rating only to have it reduced a month later.  Explanation was too many received exceeds expectations and top management wanted this number reduced.

started with a class of thirty to learn to take enrollment calls, by months end...15 remained, within four months 7 remained...high stress, promises made and not delivered with regard to shift changes and workloads....questions go unanswered if you dont know the answer for a customer good luck on getting a lead to help you and if you have an abusive caller who wants to spend an hour screaming at you, good luck on getting back up for that too

everyone is overstressed and have too many other things going on to bother to help you, you spend half your day making call-outs and call backs even though its an INBOUND call center, endless circle of calling back with no actual answer for a customers question, either because you cant get an answer from the higher ups (dont you DARE email them to ask a question you are no one and be quiet and suffer the phones in silence) or the answer that comes back is no real answer for the customers issue

the only real upside was decent pay but believe me with that amount of stress its not enough...they cant pay you enough and after a few irate customers who scream at you and you having to sit there and take it and APOLOGIZE over things that arent even your fault, you will be willing to go back to minimum wage

its too bad....but anyone not on the phones doesnt care about those who are...if that's you then eventually you are going to get frustrated and leave....you give a lot and get nothing back

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