Strong leadership, but operationally stuck in the past - Marketing Unum Employee Review

The organisational structure, governance, and internal processes do not currently support the level of agility or efficiency required to achieve the company’s growth and transformation strategy. Decision-making can be slow, with multiple committees, working groups, and approval layers often delaying progress and delivery. Much of middle management is made up of long-standing employees who appear resistant to change, innovation, and advocating for their teams. Recent redundancies across sales and marketing felt like a short-term cost-saving exercise, despite the potential longer-term impact on new business, customer retention, and commercial performance. There is a noticeable lack of alignment between departments, despite the presence of a broader five-year strategy. Conflicting priorities, unclear ownership, and limited cross-functional coordination often result in projects losing momentum or failing to reach completion. Investment in CRM, data quality, reporting capability, and marketing automation appears behind where it needs to be, limiting the ability of commercial teams to operate effectively and demonstrate impact. There also seems to be an overly complex layer of middle and departmental management focused on high-level strategy discussions that rarely translate into meaningful execution. Employees closest to the day-to-day work and customer challenges are often excluded from decision-making, which creates frustration and slows progress. Team culture and morale were inconsistent across departments. Within marketing, the environment had become reactive and negative, impacting motivation and engagement. Teams often felt internally misaligned and competing against one another rather than operating collaboratively. Compared to other marketing environments, there was a noticeable lack of energy, creativity, and innovation. Structured mentoring, development, and leadership support for junior employees also appeared limited. There also appeared to be elements of favouritism and a tendency to recruit heavily from existing networks and competitor organisations, which at times created insular teams and limited diversity of thought and fresh perspective. Objectives and performance expectations were often unrealistic or poorly aligned between teams. Goals were not consistently reviewed or supported with the resources and operational enablement required to achieve them successfully. Overall, employees were not consistently made to feel valued or trusted, and some policies and management approaches appeared to prioritise control and oversight over flexibility, empowerment, and accountability.