If you're looking for a sign to not join this company, this is it. - Anonymous employee Human Interest Employee Review

2.0
Jul 14, 2021
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great non-executive team, lots of remote opportunities, awesome benefits.

Cons

Casual racism, sexism, and other discrimination is permitted and was actually encouraged during my time at HI. One of the top execs made an incredibly tone deaf "All Lives Matter"/Blue Lives Matter speech at an all hands and received a lot of support from other executives and middle management alike. The company says that they are trying to "disrupt" the 401k industry but take every step to corporatize and mimic other traditional, outdated financial institutions. Middle management and other employees get fired without warning or reason, even when their teams are overwhelmed and overworked. Friends of execs are hired to replace them. Multiple teams have been moved from salary to hourly in 2021, and their work is starting to be either micromanaged or off-shored altogether. Job security is at an all time low. When I left, they hired a friend of one of the directors to replace me. They're paying that person $30,000+ more than they paid me. On the other hand, I've had friends who've worked in their position for almost 2 years and have only had one raise of $5,000 or less. You will not get promoted at this job unless you're buddy buddy with one of the VPs or chiefs. Also, the product is a mess. However, instead of fixing the automation, the company is trying to use manpower to make up for broken software and blaming employees for not being able to keep up. I also hear that the customer experience is extremely poor as well (due to the poor product, not the CS team).

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Human Interest Response
4y
Thank you for taking the time to share your perspective relating to your time at Human Interest. While it is always difficult to hear that someone did not have a positive experience as an employee, we appreciate the opportunity to respond to your concerns. Fair and equitable pay is a top priority for our company. Over the past year, we have built a dedicated Total Rewards and Compensation Team to ensure that we have the right compensation for each role and level of experience. We are running pay equity audits, have thoughtful career ladders so that employees know how to progress and have a promotion process with HR oversight. It is true that over a year ago, one of our executives made comments at All Hands to the effect that All Lives Matter. It is also true that he deeply regretted his choice of words. His intent was to express our commitment to financial independence for all, however, he, like so many in the country at that time, missed the mark in an attempt to communicate that. As a company, we know that our work expanding financial inclusion will address some aspects of racial and social inequality. However, there is much more work to be done on these issues. The conversations that came out of that All Hands discussion helped us better understand the needs of our employees and helped us create more spaces for reflection and action. Building a system to provide retirement benefits for millions of Americans that don’t have access to a 401(k) through their work isn’t easy. It’s particularly challenging when you’re growing as fast as we are. While the rapid growth we’ve experienced over the past two years has prompted us to increase the size of our service team to serve a vastly expanded customer base, product automation continues to be our core focus, alongside excellence in customer service.

Explore other reviews about Human Interest

5.0
May 5, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Fun job, lots of networking and meeting new people. Amazing resources for marketing to channel partners. Budget to help support partner events and sponsorships. Great benefits Great pay for those exceeding quota.

Cons

Can be a stressful environment. Any sales job can be.

2.0
Jun 4, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great pay if you’re either gifted with a great territory and/or partners, or willing to work at 300% effort. Your job is secure as long as you don’t challenge or question management, even if you’re nowhere near quota consistently. HI has recruited some of the best people, which makes the trauma bonds that HI creates that much more meaningful and enduring.

Cons

Management. From the top - the CRO is effectively running the entire organization. Their approach was excellent for strongarming our way into a marketplace and building brand recognition, but an organization whose entire priority 10+ years in is entirely new business focused is going to have issues with customer service and client retention. Their retention numbers are misleading, as deconverting a plan is a wildly complicated and lengthy process. For a business which relies on referral partners for 80+% of its new business, there is alarmingly little focus on partner service. If you enjoyed popularity contests and personality cults in high school, you may be happy navigating management at HI, but for a professional organization, it creates a wildly challenging culture to navigate. Less than 25% of PAMs consistently hit revenue quota, but there are 5 or 6 PAMs who consistently hit 500+%, either because they have been gifted with large national partnerships that aren’t accessible to anyone else, are managing territories that are the equivalent of 6-8 ordinary territories, or have been allowed to take and keep partnerships from outside of their territories (though I hear this is finally changing). They’re also nearly doubling the field PAM team, which means many territories which are already taxed will be stretched even thinner. Couple that with a growing trend of large national partners disappearing (Paycor acquired by Paychex, Paylocity partnering with Vestwell to offer “their own” 401(k) product, etc.) and growing alienation of local payroll partners, and opportunity will be stretched even more thinly between even more field PAMs. Automation is a great goal, and works in a limited scope of applications within the admin and compliance functions of a retirement plan. However, an under-focus on having resources to address functions that cannot be automated - or address automation failures - creates a massive amount of tension between partners and HI, and alienates clients. To be clear, the people hired to do the customer service, back office functions, and partner care work are excellent, but they’re poorly tooled, unempowered, and understaffed (an understatement). Did I mention that management is entirely uninterested in feedback or challenges that question their viewpoints on GTM strategy, team culture, territory design, etc.? The fastest way to punch your ticket out at HI is to make the wildly egomaniacal senior management question whether you’ll jump off of a cliff at their command by asking questions or trying to make HI a better place.

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