Aviva Employee Reviews about "manager"

Cons

Failing IT department, waterfall development is a fail-- Very unstructured intern program

Cons

pretty lax culture for a company

Cons

An awfully clicky atmosphere which made me as an introverted person not feel very welcome. Manager was useless and it's a very much 'if your face fits' kind of mentality. Real shame because the work itself I did enjoy, just not the toxic atmosphere.

Cons

The ability to thrive in the company comes downs to whether you get a good manager or not.

Cons

Discrimination on certain races/religion/sexual orientation Wide salary range No work life balance Unnecessary long meeting Sexual harressment from male HOD/SMT No promotion since joined the company as told by manager that HOD mention ops is an expenses team not sales generating team.

Cons

- Sunday is a shorter day, so for the pleasure of working on your Sunday you get to give up your lunch hour in other days you work that week. - Can be difficult to book holiday - There is an Aviva way of doing things, and that way is usually 'how can we make this as frustrating and wasteful as possible?' - then they try to work backwards from there, and make it more efficient. Examples include duplicating and even triplicating daily work; and replacing existing systems with systems that are inferior, leaving the existing (working) systems up but banning everyone from using what actually works. - Role is ever-changing, and training is insufficient. - If you aren't lucky enough to be in the same building, floor, and area as a subject matter expert, you have to guess at the answer, or hope that the expert will eventually respond to your email and you can get back to your customer with the correct information. Sometimes, the subject matter expert has even left the business. - Things that work well are removed/changed without good reason, and things which will cause a problem (with potential problems being pointed out before launch) are left 'until we get enough complaints' - New staff will probably be paid more than you after they finish training, especially if you've been there for a few years already; the onus is on you to try and decipher the corporate-speak on the pay chart and tell your manager why you deserve to be in a higher salary band - Endless data logging with nothing to show for it - just because one of the head honchos wants the information and the managers don't know enough about the work to provide it. - Inequality between call centre sites - one site gets finger-pointing emails sent around if they don't log 90% of their data, whereas other sites are praised for logging 60% of their call/email data - Some toxic culture - while most colleagues are fine people, a small minority get away with being generally rude, telling people to shut up if they don't like what they are (respectfully) suggesting, and making snide personal comments that don't belong in a professional environment. - Some favouritism among management however I did not personally encounter this more than would be standard in any office environment - In Bristol, no real recruitment is being done for the call centre despite high levels of attrition - If you aren't interested in staying in the call centre there are very few opportunities for you.

Cons

HR - They are completely inefficient. I don't know of a single colleague who had a good experience with HR. If you have a grievance with management or you are seeking advice, you will not receive it. I saw HR business partners going to senior management with confidential information and telling them of private conversations and giving names. If your manager takes a disliking to you and is at a senior level, you will be given no support. HR once emailed around a confidential spreadsheet with salary information to a whole team that wasn't password protected. Colleagues would make appointments with HR members who would accept the invite and just not turn up to the meeting. Communications - Although general business updates are plentiful in weekly news round ups or video clips, communications with employees is generally poor. I accepted a role at Aviva Investors and on my first day was met at reception by my 'new manager'. The hiring manager who empho empho employed me had moved departments and HR/manager didn't contact me during the onboarding process to tell me of the change. Instead I had a new manager I'd never met before and who had zero people management experience. Culture - Although they do try to break down silos, it's not working. You don't get to know of other departments or people unless directly working with them. There is also a hire and fire culture. People (at all levels) will suddenly disappear. You will later find out on the grape vine that there were redundancies. This can be a stressful situation and with the constant hiring and firing it can be difficult to keep up to date with who to contact and what the business structure is. Senior Management - I sat in on certain meetings with senior management and I can honestly say I've never encountered such an unprofessional atmosphere. Senior management will use a business meeting to openly gossip about staff and spread rumours. If someone makes the slightest mistake the manager will be told to 'get rid' of the employee, this is even true of interns and graduates who should be given the chance to learn. I even heard senior management encourage sexism, discrimination and bullying. They would decide someone was a 'wrong fit' for a role and that would be the end for them. No constructive feedback, just told to leave. There were also comments made about women's appearances with a head of a business function being described as fat (she was pregnant). Any direct report who wanted change or made suggestions to their manager was described as a 'problem child'. Business strategy - The asset management part of Aviva still seems to be struggling to figure out what it is trying to achieve. There is a constant restructuring of senior management and teams. The CEO seems to have taken a step back from being a CEO and is almost acting as a CIO. This decision was made in order for him to be more involved in front office and investments. However, I don't think anything significantly has improved or changed since and I don't know what products they are focusing on other than AIMS which now seems to be a dead horse.

Cons

Lack of training and progression, management are very poor at ensuring team work and communication. High turnover from particular teams suggesting particular managers just don't understand how to work a team. Hot desking and a clean desk policy is a nightmare, the desks are constantly being made smaller for 'increased capacity', more like cattle hearding.