American Express Employee Review

Current Employee – been working at American Express

Pros – Once you're in the company, there are many opportunities to move around and try different roles. The culture of American Express not only encourages this, it expects it. Lower and mid level employees must stay in role 18 months, but are then encouraged to find a new role.

The culture, as a result, is very open and career-oriented. The objective is for each employee to find his/her "dream role." Leaders and Employees have very honest and open conversations about this. Hiring leaders will call current leaders for information about an employee before making an offer. Networking within the company is a must.

Cons – PROCESS, PROCESS, PROCESS! You can't get anything accomplished without the help, approval and support of at least 3 other people/groups in the company. Lead times are long, especially for anything involving technology. Senior leaders often don't understand the process and have unreasonable expectations about how long it can take to complete a project.

The downside of the career mobility within the company is that employees that don't switch roles can be looked down on. It is the same story with employees who don't wish to take on leadership roles.

Since the downturn in 2008/2009 and the reorgs that resulted, the culture seems to be changing. There is less job mobility, but still the same stigmas for employees that don't move. Hiring freezes and reorgs are frequent and company morale seems low. Many groups want to hire from the outside to bring in new skills, so the open, career-oriented culture feels like it is changing. The company seems much less supportive and much more results-focused.

Advice to Senior Management – Empower your employees to make decisions, rather than requiring many stakeholders to "sign off" on everything.

Don't take so long to realize when something is not working. Pouring more investment in a failing project won't resurrect it; it will only take away valuable money from projects that can actually succeed.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend