AAA NCNU Insurance Exchange Reviews in Phoenix, AZ Area

Pros

Centrally located. Most employees want to do a good job and do. People who are self-starters can carve out a niche.

Cons

Some employees take advantage of the system and have a sense of entitlement. Consecutive years of transition without any sincere recognition takes its toll. Ability to mentor and coach to professional growth needs to get better.

Advice to Senior Management

Accountability with recognition is key. Keeping and rewarding the right talent should be a a priority. Letting go the anchors that weight you down would make a valuable statement to everyone.

Pros

Good pay and friendly customers

Cons

They treat the Employees like a piece of machine. They want you to keep number up and forget to be NICE to the customers.

Advice to Senior Management

get PEOPLE who CARE and quit treating like kids and show them the respect they deserve

Pros

work life balance was great with the right supervisor fighting for you. pay was good enough with the mandatory overtime it worked out okay.

Cons

outdated systems--new system coming in was lousy----no proper training---rush rush to get your job knowledge just to change it up again and again---no knowledgable supervisors on floor---supervisors do not know the product---supervisors are all about how can I look good---supervisors dont care about the advancement of their subordinates, because they dont want the competition!!!!

Advice to Senior Management

get supervisors who have knowledge in the product. its not always about the numbers front line people have the word PEOPLE in it. we deserve the respect that is not given by the supervisors

Pros

Great products & excellent service for insureds. Decent benefits, good work/life balance, dedicated employees despite major deficiencies in senior management skills, attitude, and behavior. Senior management is very arrogant and guided by egoism.

Cons

Multiple reorganizations (which indicate senior and middle management's inability to stick with a decision or plan) leaves employees very distrustful and in a constant state of flux over job instability. Layoffs of knowledgable employees followed by hiring contractors to replace them has led to many employees leaving the organization due to extreme dissatisfaction with the current regime. Egos and decisions based on emotion rather than facts is evidence of a poor management team.

Advice to Senior Management

Stick to your commitments! Stop the numerous re-organizations...updating the functional org chart has become a full-time job for some. Aligning the Project Management Office with Finance (rather than IT when the bulk of projects are IT projects) was and still is a disaster, resulting in several of the top Project Managers resigning out of disgust for the lack of awareness and appreciation of the very skilled IT Project Managers. Case in point: Upon hearing that a project sponsor was unhappy with the project manager, the PMO manager stated in a meeting attended by several people, "No, don't tell them, just let them fall flat on their face." What kind of support is that?? Mr. Gafney: You brought excellent experience to AAA NCNU but why can you not see, and dispense of, the petty-minded and unsupportive managers that poison the organization? A chain is only as strong as the weakest link, and there are several weak links in your midst. Please strengthen the chain in what used to be a great place to work.

Pros

Hard working staff and middle management. Great opportunity to promote if you know your politics.

Cons

Providing feedback was inconsistent. I worked for an entire year without receiving any feedback from my superior and I doubt his Manager was providing any to him.

Advice to Senior Management

If you know someone like I did than you are definitely on your way up like I was. But don't bite the hand that feeds or rather provides no supportive nourishment what so ever.

Change is not good when you cannot manage it effectively and I believe Executive leadership is still trying to get a grasp of that. The ideas site is a great start but seriously take the time to get to know the front line; they are your Achilles heel and your greatest strength!!!

There seems to be an heir of "going through the motions" for many of the IT Leaders in Station Landing, this poor attitude filters down to through the ranks and infects all the sites negatively.

Pros

Member focused organization, highly recognized brand, salary and benefits.

Cons

Current reorganization and split between Club and Insurance Co is a little ugly to say the least.

Advice to Senior Management

Always keep our values in mind. Walk the talk!

Pros

Benefits: Excellent Salary, 401k (with 100% match up to 6%) AND pension, decent medical, etc., bonus opportunity, telecommute, good PTO (some of the best benefits in the Phoenix area from what I can tell)
Work/Life Balance
Brand
Members are #1
Diversity and environmental concern
Free coffee
Nice cafeteria
Very nice facilities, good location
Many volunteer opportunities (and 24 hours of time off to do them)
Casual work environment (jeans every day)

Cons

While it's all about member experience, somewhere along the line, we have forgotten about the employee experience. Highly paid contractors are doing the work of FTEs and are trusted more than those with the experience who should be doing the work. Layoffs have been rampant the last 4 years, with another probably coming by end of June with another re-org occurring. Our 4th CIO (includes one interim) in the past 5 years has just been announced.

While we win awards for Diversity, if you are over 50, beware - it's obvious to see that's who gets laid off, but the company seems to dot it's i's and cross it's t's - there's been a couple of age discrimmination lawsuits in the news, but so far there hasn't been success by the plaintiffs in their actions.

While we talk ethics and about our vision and values, we don't seem to walk the walk very well. Bad behaviour seems to be constantly rewarded, while people who do the right thing are left in the cold. For instance, I've been verbally abused by people who still work here and have been promoted while I follow our vision and values all the time. People who micromanage seem to move up in this organization as well. "Yes" people are also promoted over those with fresh ideas and the ability to say no.

While we tout individual development plans and mentoring, promotional opportunities seem to be non-existant, unless you are someone's favorite. Most job postings have pre-determined candidates for them. I've never worked so long at one place and not had an opportunity for promotion even though I am more than fully qualified as per our job family descriptions. Review feedback is many times subjective rather than objective and all reviews are "callibrated" against each other based on performance, current salary and other factors - in other words, someone is ranking all the employees, and usually that's done by upper management who hasn't worked with those individuals. Perception is the norm rather than gathering the facts about the individual or the situations in which the individual was involved.

While we do have work/life balance (telecommute, ability to take laptop home, email on phones), on the other hand, there are quite a few FTE's who work 60-70 hours a week- thru lunch and into the night. Either these folks need to be mentored to work smarter, or we need to realize that having them do 4-5 projects at once isn't a successful way to work.

While our brand is our greatest asset, it's hard to believe how much AAA is disjointed. Different clubs offer different products and different prices. It's hard to believe the terrible shape our systems are in even with huge projects to make improvements. We continue to create duplicate systems based on product. We are supposedly a non for profit organization, but our goals are profitability and we act as though we are a giant publicly owned for-profit company.

Advice to Senior Management

Southwest and Zappos.com among others have figured out if you treat your employees as #1, your customers (members) will be at their happiest also. Start treating us better! Figure out how to get to a flat headcount and stop the layoffs. Stop putting highly paid contractors in our places. Start promoting from within and stop the favortism. Stop rewarding bad behaviour and reward those with good and new ideas, experience in their jobs and with ideas they bring to the table. Continue to work on cascading goals down to employees in a better fashion and in a timely manner. Stop acting like we are some huge fortune 100 company - we are a small company. Try to figure out how to be one AAA...that's who our customers think we are. Consolidate systems, stop duplicating systems. Go back to our Vision and Values culture...don't just talk the talk but walk the walk! Can we please have a CIO that can create a plan for us that lasts longer than a year?

You have the good stuff in place - benefits, vision/values, etc - people do not want to leave....but right now that's all I hear them talking about...about how when the economy picks up they will be looking and they will also be telling people NOT to work at AAA NCNU mainly because of how the FTE's are treated and how it feels like the Vision and Values have been placed to the side.

Pros

- Great Work life Balance

Cons

- Limited opportunities for growth

Pros

AAA is a great brand and use to be a great company to work for. The benefits seem good; the faciltiy is nice and the people are enjoyable to work with. Generally, the culture is great and it's a good company.

Cons

The company has lost its' way. Senior Management has put all of our eggs in the 'service' basket - risky proposition in this economy where price is 'THE' driving factor for a majority of America. It seems as if Senior Management believes the strategy can't be wrong, it has to be the structure of the organization - so let's restructure! The IT division has be restructured twice in ONE year!

The company also doesn't seem to have any issue with paying for exorbitant expenses and 'pet' projects that result in nothing to the bottom line.

Senior Managment continues to protect and support ineffective and useless managers who think they know technology.

Advice to Senior Management

Take a look at yourselves and your own direct reports. One or more of your own has squandered hundreds of thousands of dollars on ridiculous initiatives that have not resulted in adding anything to the bottom line or reducing expenses.

The IT division doesn't tell Insurance or ERS how to operate, how about you leave the IT work to those who know technology.
Get rid of the Operations DLT who have initiated ridiculous projects thinking it was the answer to reduce their dependence on the IT division.
Pay attention to the economy - other insurers are.

Specifically to Paula - go with your gut. You know this strategy isn't working - do something about it now before it's too late.

Pros

Strong culture, many smart people doing the best they can despite constant micro-management.

Cons

It matters not if you successfully deliver to the company's bottom line or go above and beyond your role to ensure our members are taken care of, if you are not a "favorite" of leadership you will be browbeaten until you leave.

Advice to Senior Management

Give me a break, do they really need this explained!