who is the redheaded stepchild of allstate's Distribution system?

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A Field Adjuster’s Perspective
Allow me to be the first claims
employee to congratulate your
recent affiliation with the Office
and Professional International
Union (OPEIU). I have discreetly spoken
with others within Allstate and we
applaud your efforts and hope the affiliation
with OPEIU will help resolve the
many issues agents face at Allstate. Linking
forces with OPEIU will give agency
owners a larger voice. I hope other agents
who have not yet joined with you will
reconsider to make NAPAA a stronger
group. The company won’t make it easy
for you though, as they are trying hard
to discredit you. In claims, for example,
we have been told that all those joining
NAPAA/OPEIU are just disgruntled
former employees.
As I wrote in your last magazine,
claims employees have issues, too. No
one hears us when we speak. Our concerns
fall on deaf ears. Some employees
have even gone so far as to file notices
with Human Resources, but we have
yet to see any results. Instead, they were
told that the company is moving forward
with its initiative to change hours and
days of work. This includes making field
adjusters work holidays, which includes
Christmas Day, Thanksgiving Day, Labor
Day, Easter, New Year’s Day, and
Memorial Day.
I don’t know what the people at the
top think they are doing. It seems that
they do not care for their employees and
the employees’ families. It’s hard to understand
the rationale that led to this
new practice, unless management was
focused purely on profit and blind to the
feelings and concerns of their employees.
Let’s look at that. First, you downsize
the claims department and many lose
their jobs. This might have been for a
number of reasons; the recession, Next
Gen computer changes and people doing
the same job in different areas. Well, if
you let a lot of good people go and then
decide to assign more work to those left
behind, here is what happens: the employees
are resentful because they already
have a full plate of assignments. They are
overburdened and their work suffers as a
result. Their family life is disrupted and
possibly damaged due to higher stress
levels. They begin to cut corners just to
get their work completed. They don’t
smile as often and they become short
with customers. There is simply not
enough time to complete things as needed
and customer service suffers, customer
satisfaction goes down and customer
retention is adversely affected – all of the
things good companies strive to avoid.
Then in our spare time, we are asked
to help by volunteering to do things to
address customer satisfaction. Allstate,
now hear this: if your frontline claims
employees are unhappy, overworked and
mistreated, they aren’t interested in putting
forth additional efforts! Employees
do not feel appreciated for all their ef-
46 — Exclusivefocus Winter 2011/2012