Honest Review - Data Scientist Outsurance Employee Review

Good work culture with games

Management are aggressive and take shortcuts. Have heard they reduced bonuses

If you have a good team it can be nice. The team spirit is nice but depends on the team. But this is true for all companies so... They give you a cell phone so thats cool I guess.

Management likes to make promises that they dont keep. They do not reward you for performing well so being a best performer means nothing. Therefore, dont perform. Just do the minimum. Management are all full of people that know how to talk but that it. Most Management have only worked at OUTsurance for for their whole career... so they actually know nothing in terms of solving problems other than the 'OUTsurance way'. Basically, they are incapable of thinking about other ways to solve a solution so they just want to use PBS (Performance based salary) for everything even if its not the best solution because thats all they know. This is an experience problem. Ideally, you want management that has worked for other companies so that they can approach problems differently. They dont pay well and it is not market related. They literally told me that they are severely underpaying me who is a top performer amd they are ok with that. The CEO is pretty useless and does not know strategy... but thats what you get when the CEO has no education and only has OUTsurance experience. Everything managerial is determined by a book that they make everyone read... so again, they cant think for themselves. In terms of company performance, they will continue to perform well and make profit but in terms of a working environment, its a sinking ship. They do not care about their employees. They did at first but then they listed and everything went down hill. Management likes to lie and beat around the bush instead of telling you the truth. They can not communicate properly. They take the side of the stakeholders when something goes wrong and will not listen to your side of the story even when the fault is with the stakeholders its still your fault somehow. They can not measure performance in the Actuarial and Analytics department which is odd because its the analytics department... they should be able to but then again, all they know is PBS and try to apply it in places it does not work. Its simple to see how other companies measure performance for that type of work which is much better. I suppose the reason they cant think of another way is because management only has experience in OUTsurance and nowhere else to think of a solution and thus do not know how other companies measure performance in an actuarial and Analytics setting. The technologies that they use are old and not with the current times. If you work there you will only do SQL. You will not learn python, cloud technologies, machine learning or anything that other companies use so in terms of professional skills development, you will not get that at OUTsurance which means you will be behind in the market place looking for new jobs. I dont think they actually know what data science and Analytics is because the only work you will be doing there is reporting... no analysis what so ever. Their benefits offering leaves much to be desired and they have no employee retention ability because they have nothing to offer to convince anyone to stay. I have had one on one chats with HR and they agree that their employee offering is not good compared to the competitors but they won't change it. The promotions are very politically aligned. Bonuses are determined by who they like more and is very subjective which is going back to the point in which they cant measure performance. You bonus for being a top employer will be about 15k, but if you are on that they like it can go up to 100k and more. They have no share incentive because they took that away. Yearly increases are ony CPI so it means nothing. And if you are a top performer you will get 0.5% more than the bottom performer so why bother being a top performer. The work is extremely boring and repetitive. If you are there for 1 year, you have learnt everything there is in terms of technical skill and you will only work for one function and so the work gets boring. You do not have more exposure until you get moved literally. If you get more educated and even get a masters degree, they do not increase your salary. Most managers dont have the right management skills to be managers in the Actuarial Department. A lot of people have left recently and they just end up giving you their work so you will do the jobs of 3 people and get nothing in return. Most of their systems are held together by duct tape and do not follow industry best standards but thats because the managers have no experience in other companies of the industry. They will tell you that you are doing amazing work all year long and then when its remuneration chat time they will find something to give you a lower bonus and increase. The food at the canteen is also terrible. No career opportunities unless you are afrikaans. You can't use new technologies because they cost too much apparently so you have to make do with in-house developed applications that are not good. They do not know how to prioritise work... at all. So this leads to stress because everything is a top priority that must all be done at the same time somehow. This includes projects that have no use and does not serve the company startegically...yet will still tell you to only work on projects that will benefit the scorecard except this is not enforced because the manager is a yes man that agrees to anything stakeholders say. Stakeholders are not patient even though the Actuarial and Analytics team is now half the size it was. They expect the same output as if no one has left. The culture can be good. However their values are not enforced especially the honesty and human values.