AXA Equitable Reviews

Pros

AXA had great pay and a flexible work schedule to adjust to what you needed, and when you needed it.

Cons

The downside of working at AXA was that it, as an intern, was hard to work up through the ranks and grow within the company.

Advice to Senior Management

I really enjoyed working at AXA. I wish I was able to continue my internship going into the next year, and eventually being hired by the company itself.

Pros

people are motivated and smart

Cons

lack of mobility and advancement if you are not related to someone n a senior position, the departments are very segregated so information flow and connectivity is very fragmented, good workers are not recognized for the commitment to company

Advice to Senior Management

Communication is key.

Pros

Good and smart people to work with

Cons

Work/Life balance - nonexistant, long hours

Advice to Senior Management

Pay attention to your employess before you lose them all

Pros

Good brand recognition, global opportunities (for some), great benefits.

Cons

The pay is not always market for your job once you've been there for a while. They expect one person to do the job of many and are constantly downsizing. They love to try new "strategic initiatives" with very little follow-through. It was a great company to work for, but has changed for the worse the last few years.

Advice to Senior Management

Pay more attention to the general feeling of employees and not just your select few.

Pros

-Good rotation program for student actuaries
-Global company - possibility of working abroad
-Very laid back work environment
-Nice co-workers
-Competitive salary

Cons

Not too many downsides. Advancement is not as fast as some would like it to be and some management decisions are not made fairly.

Advice to Senior Management

Doing a great job, however the marketing in North America is lacking. AXA Equitable has absolutely no brand recognition, unlike in the rest of the world.

Pros

Good benefit, clear career path

Cons

Somewhat slow paced, but maybe some else's Pros.

Advice to Senior Management

Encourage innovation and inter-department communication

Pros

AXA is part of the global AXA group and a public company. This fosters a more professional working environment than in some of our peers in the life industry. The facilities are good and there is good information available regarding company performance.

Cons

There has been significant cost cutting and it's taking it's toll. Many employees have been asked (forced) to take on more responsibility and had not been rewarded. In the last 4 years, we have lost good people but the work has only increased. In return for consistent 50 to 60 hour weeks and never really ever taking a day off, my salary has grown about 1% a year, and I'm told that I need to take on ever more if I want to be considered for a promotion.
The benefits package is competitive but gets more expensive every year

Advice to Senior Management

Loosen up, especially in Strategic Shared Services. Those of us that have taken on more responsibility and are producing results, need to be rewarded for it at some point, even if the external environment is still not great. People are burnt and frustrated.

Pros

Benefits
Products
Coworker talent and environment
Leadership of mid management

Cons

Promotions and favoritism of incompetents
Layoffs of talented, experienced, loyal employees
Lack of ethics

Pros

The people actually doing the day-to-day work, willing to go well beyond their job descriptions to make it right, find a solution or get an answer.

Those same workers who appreciate efforts on their behalf.

Cons

Never enough time, people or money to do it right, so just do it over.

Job abolishments have eliminated too many key people in some areas without input from the impacted area's management (e.g., blindside job abolishment of a manager's employees by a manger several levels up). Upper management is unwilling to be accountable for, or admit to mistakes made in abolishment decisions.

No long-term commitment to most plans. No financial support to maintain/update implemented software systems.

Only talk the talk of "valuing" the individual. Ageism is rampant. If employees are "the company's greatest asset" why are so many of those with a wealth of knowledge on the company workings culture/history the ones who are outplaced? Doing your job well has no real impact on keeping it (my lowest evaluation was exceeds expectations)!.

Politics, nepotism and/or favoritism are your best hopes for recognition, to keep your job or be promoted.

Advice to Senior Management

Gather input from the first-line area managers before cutting their workers. Do better due-diligence in researching the impact of cutting specific positions. Don't be mislead by functions being done so well they seem easy or unnecessary! When you cut workers, don't also increase the group's scope of work while redistributing the "missing one's" responsibilities!

Spend the money to maintain/update systems you've already invested in rather than having over-stretched employees create manual work-arounds!

Use your workers intellectual capital, not just the mid- and upper-managers. The first-line managers and line workers, the ones actually getting the job done, could make major improvements to the processes and workloads if they were actually valued.

Pros

Good work life balance, nice people

Cons

Inconsistent promotions, not competitive salaries