TIAA CREF Reviews

Pros

Benefits are good, but continue be reduced.

Cons

indecision, cover you own butt, forget your team!

Advice to Senior Management

Go back to caring for employees, promotion from within, recognition of the little people who are actually doing the work and stop lining your own pockets and letting go the worker bees. The Company has lost it's way.

Pros

Benefits
Retirement Plan
Stable financially
If you have a supportive boss this is a great place to work

Cons

Credit not given for hard work and results that you produce (in some departments but not all)
There are many clicques there which go way back
Company resists changes when customers say they should change. (beware if you bring this up)
They have a lot of contracts that are confusing to customers and that don't let customers take their money out when they need it. Read the fine print always with them

Advice to Senior Management

get to know different levels of employees - especially the ones who work with your customers, not their bosses who sit behind desks and write memos about these employees

Pros

- decent medical, dental, and vision
- fairly good retirement plan
- generous paid time off
- large company with many locations

Cons

- horrible IT, computer systems, still using IE6
- a few fantastic, competent coworkers; many employees are nitwits who can barely spell or speak proper English
- very dry social atmosphere
- management creates a Kindergarten atmosphere; lots of silly posters and banners about doing your job to "keep the boss away" promotes a culture that values negative reinforcement
- company imposes fairly high burden on its clients in terms of forms, paperwork compared to competitors
- drab offices, full of fluorescent lights and ugly grey cubicles designed to drain any creativity or positive energy from your soul

Advice to Senior Management

- Bite the bullet and invest the money to conduct a massive IT overhaul
- In this horrible job market with 10-20% real unemployment, continue to hire intelligent, eloquent people who can communicate effectively
- Use positive reinforcement and employee engagement to get people excited about the company instead of forcing staff to be wholly focused on keeping management out of their cubicles
- Offer more processes and tools online for clients so they don't have to fill out so many forms on paper

Pros

The benefits are great; tuition reimbursement is more generous than other companies. Pension contribution is generous. Excellent corporate mission. Interesting investment strategies.

Cons

It does not feel like the company promotes internal employees. It appears company prefers external candidates for positions. The salary bands for many positions appear to be lower than industry standard.

Pros

good benefits package, Capitive investment inflow from embedded school plans

Cons

Incompetent managers, managing wage slaves

Advice to Senior Management

mostly Posers, several need to be sued.

Pros

There is lots of room to advance for women and people of color. You can create your own career path within the company but you must network to make more advances faster.

Cons

Their systems are still behind the time but imporving.

Advice to Senior Management

Continue to educate yourselves in order to lead your staff more effectively.

Pros

Wonderful coworkers. Work life balance is very high compared to other companies. There is a fair amount of time off.

Cons

Upward mobility is a challenge. More often than not, upper level positions were unfortunately higher from outside instead of promoted within.

Advice to Senior Management

Give hope and discuss promotions and growth opportunities. Not too much else. Management always had an open ear and are open to listening.

Pros

Great work enviornment and compensation.

Cons

Uppermngement frequently changes disrupting workflow.

Pros

The people.
Company is privately held and functions like a not for profit.
Doing the right thing for our clients.

Cons

No pay increases last several years.
Bonuses have been lack luster even with tremendous effort/results.
Difficult to promote within the company- bringing in high price management that does not understand the company.

Advice to Senior Management

Value your long term and loyal employees - they are starting to look outside as we are becoming more like every other financial service company.

Pros

Good work life balance and good benefits. Work load distribution is balanced though certain policies are so hierarchy driven then there is no flexibility for innovation.

Cons

Horrible management, new CEO is just clueless about the company -- things move at a pace that makes the DMV look better. Extremely political env - if you have aspirations in life, the only way to fulfill them is to really suck up - competence has no value.

Advice to Senior Management

If you really care about the company, you should look at the political and work culture where the focus is to remain in power and have a good life rather than support new ideas that bring about positive changes