Alliance Data Systems Reviews

Pros

It has a great corporate culture

Cons

Long hours for several days

Advice to Senior Management

Better work life balance

Pros

In the call center environment, many opportunities for bonuses if looking for supplemental income. Also, easier shifts to work around on a school schedule.

Cons

Difficult to move up in the company from the call center even with a college degree. The environment feels very political in terms of how much power and control your supervisor has over your ability to move up or laterally in terms of promotion. Work/life balance is becoming less important to managers as they focus more on the business growth and demand more from employees.

Advice to Senior Management

Pay attention to your associates needs and wants and at least hear them out. It's very difficult to keep talented associates on staff, especially graduating seniors who are more than proficient in bringing value to the company. Other employers will snatch them up. I do not believe all of the locations within Alliance Data's call centers are like the one I work at, however, I think it should still be communicated to the senior management of different sites what the goals of the organization are especially when survey results from employees continue to decline in how much they favor and enjoy working for the company.

Pros

1. Overall everything positive about this place

Cons

1. Pay can be better

Advice to Senior Management

Keep it up and share profit with employees

Pros

Company has great work life balance

Cons

Not sure about new managment structure

Pros

Work Life Balance
Benefits Package
Growth Company
Growth Industry

Cons

Senior Leadership lack of interpersonal skills
Few Senior Leaders have mentoring capabilities

Advice to Senior Management

Invest in leadership training at the executive level.

Pros

Solid commitment from management concerning work/life balance
Respectful work environment
Professional, knowledgeable, helpful and considerate co-workers
Corp tries to give the appearance that they care about associates
Can typically count on getting the tools you need to do your work

Cons

A fairly decent number of promotions and personnel moves leave you scratching your head
Some associates acting as managers still not fit to be managers
Company health insurance incentive program always a sore spot with associates
Not much room for career advancement despite what you might be told

Advice to Senior Management

More transparency around things like promotions, lateral moves, talent calibration. How does this stuff really work

Pros

Benefits, Work/life balance, Successful company in a hot industry creates opportunities

Cons

Sometimes it's tough to figure out how to get others to do something, in order to get your job done properly, when they're not interested and have their own motivations

Advice to Senior Management

Ramp up the pressure to improve systematically in order to keep growing as quickly as in the past

Pros

It is a stable work environment. Alliance Data Systems has done very well through the economic crisis and continue to do well.

Cons

Some departments are not open to ideas for improvement.

Advice to Senior Management

Think outside the box occasionally. There can be many paths that will lead to the same if not better end result. Just because the same methods have been used for years, doesn't mean they always should be used.

Pros

Democratic and attention to employee feedback. Leadership show respect to employees. Exposure to multiple different areas. Easy access to senior leadership team.

Cons

Less holidays days than avg (no holiday for Black Friday, New Year Eve).
Average vacation time compared to peers.
Not sufficient HR/org mechanism to encourage job rotation.

Advice to Senior Management

get true 360 feedback for performance and promotion of employees.
create clear lines/tracks career development/growth paths for managers and individual contributers to reflect tenures, experience, skills, performance, and responsibilities. Currently there are a few cases where "director" reporting to another "director".

Pros

work life balance is encouraged
Frugal nature helped weather recession

Cons

Low pay and poor benefits

Advice to Senior Management

Big gap between leaders and associates causes resentment