Aviva reviews

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 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.

People function supports ridiculous decisions made by heads of. Not being of the same color has deprived us of a fair opportunity. Hate to see how the culture has changed over the years. Wish that UK office can put a stop to these bullying.