Low performers paradise - Consultant CNA Employee Review

1.0
8 Aug 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Close to Metra, public transportation, and lots of restaurants. Good benefits and 401k and fair compensation.

Cons

Have you ever worked at an airport? That is exactly what the open space work environment feels like here. Whatever direction you look in (including looking directly at your monitor)you can see people standing, sitting, walking, in your line of sight and noise levels are unbearable. Phone rooms designed to take private phone calls are not sound proof, and you can hear people in offices with the door closed because again there is no sound barrier.Information technology is abhorrent, when I started I didn't receive a computer for almost a month and the performance of the computer is unbelievably slow. I worked in consulting where I had large files with many formulas and tens of thousands of rows of data and my computer performed better than it does here where I typically work with much less and very few formulas. Very poor support from IT which is partly outsourced and old outdated systems as they are just now moving to current industry platforms such as Workday.Lots of work and effort is put into planned changes which are never executed due to poor leadership decisions and constant changing of plans and direction and leadership turnover. Routinely lay of employees in order to "reorg". Layoffs are used as a performance management tool. Sometimes the employee who is laid off is one of the few high performing employees that work here which insights fear and complete confusion and provides further indication that this is not a performance based environment.Promote and routinely hire (at the director level and above) unqualified people who do not have prerequisite knowledge or key behaviors required for their roles which creates a low performance environment. Leaders who lack knowledge of basic business principals you acquire in college or in the first few years post college, lack basic business acumen, lack basic reasoning skills, have no point of view on frequently asked questions which are common knowledge one would have a "canned" answer too, no desire or courage to make or take ownership of a decision.If you came from a high performing environment as I did you will routinely run into situations where you explain a simple concept to a person who is a director or above who should not have asked you the question in the first place, and find yourself in a pickle because the lights are on but no one is home. I frequently think " I can explain it to you, I can't understand it for you". Constant forwarding of emails which the recipient never read, didn't do any basic research or ask prerequisite questions about. When you provide advise the leader will forward directly to the requester and routinely say that "HR, Finance, fill in the blank department" said it without exhibiting any point of view, displaying that they lack any insight on the most basic of topics.Leaders will put staff employees on the spot (specialist, analyst, consultants) by inviting them to meetings with other leaders who are argumentative, known to be difficult, and disagree with whatever recommendation that was given to throw you under the bus, they may not show up to said meeting and leave you holding the bag, and may even three- way call you with the person on the phone with no heads up! Only in this environment not only would a leader not step up and take on the responsibility of their job to communicate difficult (but routine) messages, be persuasive and firm but they would send a lowly employee into the lions den, great relationship building and way to "lead"! If a director or above can't communicate a simple message to another director or above (which is their responsibility to do) that they have a relationship with what chance does a poor specialist or analyst have?!People in director level or above lack managerial courage (or as I like to refer to it if you're a director or above it's just doing your job) and routinely just forward request, act as order takers and don't behave consultatively or provide any guidance most notably as it related to ethics. Will not push back on bad decision making but insist on you helping obfuscate the truth in order for said manager to have their way.Antiquated business practices, never makes any sense who is doing what and it causes bottlenecks and a general lack of efficiency. Bureaucratic processes such as having to apply during "open enrollment" and be interviewed by a panel of people to be approved to work remote, LOL!

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5.0
6 Feb 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Worked at several companies over the last fifteen years and hands down CNA is the best. Great benefits, great people, great projects.

Cons

None I can think of. If you’ve never worked anywhere else then maybe you can feel like it’s “too slow” but not in my opinion.

3.0
1 May 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Pay is great, co worker support, transparency, PTO, Fully remote

Cons

Training is very rough. There is zero formal training & everyone operates their desk differently so you are confused on the correct way to complete your job. Underwriters are expecting too much of their UT & want to be spoiled. There needs to be a strict proocol. The only way to voice concerns is to be completely honest & while it helps, it still doesnt make up for no formal training. You just have to deal with it. Underwriting Technicians are overwhelmed & have too many Underwriters to cover. CNA needs to hire for help. Overwhelmed employees lead to burn out & mental health issues. Underwriters deserve to have their own UT/UA. The workload is ridiculous & causes more mistakes. Somedays you cant even breathe.

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