American Heart Association Reviews

Pros

Great mission to save lives. Educating in CPR and saving lives. Can't say enough. Passionate place to work. Celebrates everyone for all walks of life, open to diversity of cultures and backgrounds.

Cons

There is NO movement within the field sales ranks. Some peers have been in role for over 10 years. This causes turnover of talented people who feel under appreciated and un wanted. There is NO DIVERSITY AT ALL in senior managment positons or Corporate. NONE!

Pros

Week off at the holidays
Decent PTO

Cons

Limited work life balance
Very top heavy, decisions must go through 3-4 levels
Lack of creativity. Impossible to try something new
Only concerned for internal timeline and processes rather than volunteer and customer relationships

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to the realities of the current market

Pros

respected organization, flexible schedule at times, decent pay compared to other non profits, good benefits, feel as though you can make a difference in peoples lives

Cons

continuous change to the latest and greatest way to raise more money THIS YEAR... a lot of driving, management seems to manage from reading it out of a book first, bad use of donor dollars on travel to meetings that don't accomplish everything except to get people together because you need to have X number of meetings a year. work homelife balance can be off at times.

Advice to Senior Management

Quit looking for the best new thing and let people do their jobs. Praise people for their hard work and not just the superstar for this year that will be nobody next year.

Pros

Helping the public at large. Many chances for advancement. Autonomy is a big plus. The clients and volunteers are enjoyable to work with and planning/executing events is very rewarding.

Cons

"Single" directors are treated differently/poorly by the conservative staff. There is a lot of judgement and negative feelings among the primarily female staff.

Advice to Senior Management

Be more aware of the potential for immature female employees to create a "mean girl" society within the workplace which intimidates good employees and makes for a very hostile work environment.

Pros

AHA has a great mission and many thousands of dedicated volunteers who are ready to support staff. Non-managerial staff can enjoy a rewarding career with a good compensation and benefit package. Don't misunderstand though, it is AHA's compensation policy to pay in the 50-75% range of a comparable for profit position.

Cons

Program management is unstable. Management is incapable of determining a direction that will remain for more than 1-3 years. The frequent restructures, job duty changes, and de-emphasis of positions that were critical only weeks before, prove that any decision will be fully reversed within a few years.

Most VP and EVPs do not understand the staff-volunteer partnerships and the way those relationships are developed and maintained. The VP and EVP staff are singularly focused on their annual bonus.

If you are a donor or in a non-management position, you need to be aware that your managers Do Receive Annual Bonuses based on revenue.

Pros

great benefits
dedicated employees
home office opportunities

Cons

Senior Management is out of touch with reality
very unorganized management practices
lack of communication between Affiliates
Money driven, not Mission driven

Advice to Senior Management

Senior management needs to take a more detailed look at performance instead of just seeing numbers. I've seen lots of great, dedicated employees let go simply because they were placed in a struggling territory. Management replaced them with a new person and the territory still showed the same results. Management is not realistic about the areas and the economic impact from one area to another. Also, the emphasis is on just bringing in dollars without concern for the greater good, which is to educate the public! Programs are launched haphazardly without any knowledge or support for how they should be ran. The programs ultimately end up failing, leaving a bad impression of the organization, and the employees are blamed! It's like pulling teeth to get any support materials and we often end up creating our own and paying for printing out of our own pockets!

Pros

Rewarding, Looks good on paper, great training programs.

Cons

Micromanagement is encouraged from the top down. Travel is required for training. The training is mandatory and we had to share hotel rooms with another staff member of the same gender, sometimes from a different branch that you had never met before. If you wanted your own hotel room, you were required to pay the additional cost out of pocket.

Pros

Great Benefits
Family Friendly
Flex. Hours
Career Advancement opportunities depending on Dept.
The Overall Mission

Cons

High Turnover & Management tends to cater to their favorites. Not many minorities in high paying positions.

Advice to Senior Management

Learn who really wants to be at AHA. Treat all staff the same rather exempt or non-exempt.

Pros

laid back; good retirement benefits; very family-friendly; tons of vacation time

Cons

some mid-level managers don't deserve to be there

Advice to Senior Management

we are too top-heavy, get rid of some upper management peeps

Pros

Good mission
Great employees
Good benefits
Christmas week off

Cons

Management is both arrogant and incompetent
Everything changes without notice all of the time
National office has several poorly educated low skilled leaders
Communication and care of employees are virtually nonexistant

Advice to Senior Management

Many volunteers, employees, and corporate leaders have made significant investments in the AHA because of their passion for cardiovascular health. These outstanding efforts seem to go unnoticed. Someday the unethical and arrogant practices of the AHA will catch up with them. It will be a shame for the employees, volunteers, and corporations that have invested so much in them. .