American Express Reviews in United Kingdom

Former Employee – worked at American Express full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Great colleagues
International opportunities
Good benefits
Great work life balance with flexible working
Interesting projects and products

Cons – Not everybody is entitled to a bonus
Company culture is rapidly changing to more cut throat

Advice to Senior Management – Reward hard work across all job levels and you will have very loyal staff

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at American Express full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – - Dynamic, market driven and competitive organisation determined to remain a big player in financial services.
- Committed to invest in developing digital products and tools for consumers and businesses.
- Popular Board Leadership - Ken Chenault and his team are visionary, driven and passionate and that comes across in all of their communications.

Cons – - Focus has shifted more heavily toward the shareholder in recent years, with the employee feeling less part of a business 'family' and more a nameless commodity, albeit a reasonably paid commodity. This affects employee loyalty, commitment and enthusiasm.
- IS/IT infrastructure (especially employee intranet) is challenging to work with.
- Recent introduction of Blue Working in Servicing Centres adds to sterile/impersonal working environment.
- Flawed meritocracy due to poorly coordinated and top down commitment to goals and deliverables, reliable metrics.
- Gaps in leadership ability, quality, and credibility between the Board in New York and Regional/Local centres sometimes expose middle management.

Advice to Senior Management – Fix top down gaps! Ensure commitment and alignment at all leadership levels to ensure regional and local centres fully understand and buy in to the plan.

– I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at American Express full-time for more than a year

Pros – Fun and friendly environment. Interesting colleagues and strong career progression opportunities. Multiple networks exist and mentoring is strongly encouraged. Moving between roles and areas of the business is also strongly encouraged in addition to geography relocation to encourage diversity and a more complete understanding of the business and challenges. A strong sense of meritocracy makes things engaging.

Cons – Lower pay. Slow moving and conservative organisation at times. Overall, a challenge to do anything new or introduce change, despite the idea that innovation is encouraged. The cogs sometimes feel like they move extremely slow given heavy layers of bureaucracy in some business areas.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at American Express full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – -A lot of opportunities to move around
-Work from home possible

Cons – -Antiquated backward IT stops you from doing anything efficiently
-To save resources, one is usually in charge for several markets
-Ambiguous performance review and goal setting
-Pay so so

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at American Express as an intern for less than a year

Pros – American Express has a global brand presence and operates in an array of financial industries allowing you to explore different opportunities across different markets

Cons – Apparantly the salary isn't as high as their competitors, but for a Penultimate Year Summer Intern, I am getting paid higher than some of my Investment Banking counterparts and also have a much more appealing work:life balance

Current Employee – been working at American Express full-time for less than a year

Pros – they make you feel like an individual rather than just a cog in a corporate machine (which realistically you are)

Cons – there is one working day of the year off and that is christmas day,

Advice to Senior Management – nothing.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at American Express full-time for more than a year

Pros – Culture. It's a company that cares about it's employees

Cons – It can be very hierarchical and bureaucratic.

Advice to Senior Management – Let's try to do things more efficiently

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at American Express full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – -Flexible working arrangements
-Mobility (opporunity to be based anywhere in the world)
-Diverse opportunities across business units
-Talented/competitive Middle mangement

Cons – -Antiquated information systems, slow to update
- Fragmented matrix management environment
- Weak training/development opportunities
- Heavy workloads
- Uncompetitive salaries/bonus/benefits scheme

Advice to Senior Management – Actively drive talented staff to flourish. Listen more to middle management.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at American Express full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Bright and driven colleagues. Try's to be people focused.

Cons – You need to be young, keen and geographically mobile

Advice to Senior Management – Recruit some outsiders into leadership

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at American Express full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – High focus on employee development with good review and goal structure that ensures everyone in the company wants to grow and develop themselves as well as grow their colleagues. Ability to move jobs every 18 months, this is highly encouraged and happens easily through networking, recommendations and formal job applications. Large enough company to enable various experiences in different business units, different functions as well as different level (i.e. central vs. local).

Cons – Somewhat slow processes, due to the fact that it is an old and large company in a field highly regulated and requiring high data protection. New products, projects, ideas can take a very long time to be approved. Mentalities are also sometimes difficult to change because people tend to stay in the company for a very long time and are therefore less keen on changing the way they work.

Advice to Senior Management – Keep the focus on employee development high while pushing people to be more empowered to do what they think is right, removing some barriers for implementing new ideas and trusting people with different thinking.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company