M&A fueled growth, but not the place to grow professionally
Pros
Rapid growth via M&A, work from home option for all, a number of job openings-especially for agents/brokers, partnerships with respected insurance organizations, solid Cigna medical and dental. Risk Strategies is very decentralized so one’s experience can greatly vary across groups. Definitely opportunities for those with M&A, strategic implementation, and private equity experience. The 401k employer match resumed in early 2021. Recently the company made modest additional deposits into the 401k and paid bonuses. The company has really filled out its executive level and will compete to hire big name executives. If you have a slice of equity you basically have a small gold mine. Lucrative figurehead roles. 32 acquisitions in 2021! Employee headcount in 2022 is now over 3,000 and revenue is growing through the roof. However, are employees also growing with the company?
Cons
To better understand Risk Strategies, we have to start with the fact that private equity firm Kelso owns 2/3 of the company. This is not confidential information as Kelso has said so publicly. What is odd is Risk Strategies never really mentions this to employees and every now and then just refers to Kelso as a “partner.” Kelso is essentially using an M&A roll-up strategy. Kelso is coming up on seven years of majority ownership so a sale is coming soon given typical PE holding periods. Obviously short term company valuation, expense cuts, and prepping for the sale is the main priority. This company used covid to justify cuts to employee comp and benefits. For most of 2020 Risk Strategies stopped its 401k contribution, falsely claimed the insurance industry was shedding jobs like crazy, and spoke about how smart they were for saving all jobs. Despite not being able to afford 401k matches, RSC went out and acquired 18 companies that year. The CEO beamed and said one of the benefits of covid is they might be able to acquire companies at lower prices. Employees are not stupid of course and when people asked about the 401k, flat salaries, no bonuses, etc, RSC communicated nothing for months. When they do respond to these questions, RSC always answers well that is really up to employees and how much they grow the company organically. The 401k match is $3,000 max annually as of 2022. There are no/very limited investments in getting teams additional resources to help them grow and support increased business. Hardly anything with regards to professional development. Expenses are watched like crazy. Obviously almost all resources are going to support M&A activity. Sometimes these acquisitions increase the workload of employees. Employees have a ton of work on their desks everyday and the company prides itself on running lean. Short staffing levels and their impacts such as errors and oversights have definitely been noticed by a number organizations that RSC works with. The company did not always hold true to its covid policies/protocols. Performance reviews have been pushed to the middle of the summer and have been decoupled from salary. The review is more like a company survey. Some groups don’t even complete their performance reviews and the company doesn’t say a word. There is never any discussion of one’s career path forward. As can be seen from some other reviews, HR is swamped with onboarding so other tasks fall by the wayside. There have been a number of “promotions” lately. People have been given new titles, more responsibility and oversight, but their salaries stay the same. Some of the reviews on here are clearly planted by the company. So the bottom line is Kelso and the select few at RSC who have slices of equity are riding high. Meanwhile the belt has been tightened for the vast majority of employees and unfortunately they are not growing with the organization.
