employer cover photo
employer logo
employer logo

Association Headquarters

Engaged employer

Association Headquarters Reviews

3.1

51% would recommend to a friend

(102 total reviews)

Bob Waller, CAE

70% approve of CEO

50% positive business outlook

Association Headquarters has an employee rating of 3.1 out of 5 stars, based on 102 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Association Headquarters employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Management and consulting industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

102 reviews
1.0
24 Aug 2017
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Good Colleagues - Nice Building - Early Out Fridays - Community Service Oriented

Cons

Listen to bad reviews, all true. Came from a great position at a previous company to work for AH, and they royally screw employees from stories I’ve heard, and what I had to deal with as well. Beware… Whatever they tell you in your interview, they WILL NOT train you, they WILL NOT provide you any feedback when you are a new employee, they just throw you in and expect you to teach yourself, even when you make it fully aware in your interview you have never worked on certain things or with their systems. If you submit all correct work, but may not know a couple answers, they will just fire you. Management has ZERO personality, which I noticed on the first week in the department I was in. Definitely a few good people that you enjoy working with, none of which that were management. No direction, no training, no guidance… nothing. People in other departments are extremely overworked, pay not competitive, and they play games with employee’s salaries, jobs, and well-being, as they did with me. Should have been a red flag when I found out a person in my department walked out of the job due to management and never came back. I should have researched further with many of these other reviews, they are correct when they state many employees there know of all this and are not that happy either. Management is just a bunch of know it all’s who don’t care if you succeed there or not. You don’t know everything, you’re gone. You won’t even get a tutorial on all the multiple systems they use, it’s just “Here’s your passwords, work on all this, if you have questions, ask.” Wow, awesome training procedure. You may not even make it to your 3-month review, you know, where you identify problems and an actual good company will work with you to correct them? Nope, it’s out the door for you. Was happy to leave AH and didn't take long at all, but I did make a few good friends there who shared plenty of negative stories with me as well. They talk a big game of valuing employees, but actions speak louder than words. I learned that they even document questions you may ask and put them on your "profile" to use against you in the long run during a review.

avatar
Association Headquarters Response
8y
Thank you for taking the time to write this review. I am truly sorry that your experience with AH did not match our intention to be a best place to work. We are committed to creating a comfortable, transparent and collaborative environment for all employees, so I am disappointed to hear some of your feedback. I wish the very best for all of our staff - past, present, and future. I wish the very best for you as well. Your post on Glassdoor is anonymous, yet I am confident you and I met through our recruiting process, orientation, and other business interaction. I apologize that something may have gotten lost in our communications since if you truly knew me, I do not believe you would feel as you do. I would like to address each of your comments, yet there is a limit to the length allowed for my reply on Glassdoor. Here is as much as will fit… Training – I am sorry you felt that adequate training was not provided. AH provides over 5,000 hours of training on an annual basis for our staff (both internally, as well as using external resources). When hiring we do confirm with the applicant that they have the necessary skills to perform the job, and we do have a built in system of ongoing training within each dept. Some of the training does need to be self-motivated – example: in our accounting dept. we have purchased an extensive set of reference books for everyone in the dept. to access. In addition, we have a built in feedback process whereby a supervisor meets with new staff at 45 and 90 days after hire in order to share two-way feedback, which is documented and placed in the employees file. We understand it is difficult to receive feedback that is less than stellar, yet that feedback enables a staff member to achieve greater success than they would have without feedback. The positive reviews on Glass Door seem accurate with what most of our staff believe about our company. Some of the negative reviews seem to contain anger toward the company in line with someone who did not perform to an acceptable level for their position and a difficult decision was made to terminate employment. I agree with you that our staff has the opportunity to learn a lot in a short period of time and that there are numerous other co-workers to lean on for assistance. Also, our company produces some of the most well respected professionals in the association management field. We are very proud that we have many long term employees who have contributed to the growth and success of the company Most continue their careers with AH (with increased pay and great opportunities) and are part of the future of our company. Others move on to new opportunities and are thankful for the great experience they gained during their time at AH. I wish great success for all. Our salaries and benefits are competitive - we bench mark these on a continual basis. Annual increases are for merit and not everyone experiences the same increases in salary. Furthermore, even though many of our employees are salaried and exempt from the requirement to be paid overtime, we do provide additional days off to allow staff to get some “down time.” I agree that the careers we offer are challenging, yet all of our employees only work between 40 and 50 hours per week on average. Appreciation – I have heard quite the opposite about our company with regard to appreciation for contributions. Management and peers alike provide feedback on a regular basis (in reviewing several of the other Glass Door posts this point is called out). We live by our core values of Respect, Expertise, Accountability, Innovation and Flexibility. As you know, these are used in our hiring process, our ongoing feedback process, and in some cases, the decision to terminate someone who isn’t living those values. Thank you again for your feedback. It helps us make AH a better place to work. I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors. Robert Waller, Jr., CAE President & CEO
3.0
14 Oct 2015

Sad State of Affairs

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

When I first started working at AH, I knew I had finally found the company that was meant for me. They valued their employees, were worried about the clients and keeping them, and were all about educating their employees to make them the best in the business. They were very well respected in the association management community, as well as the hospitality industry. Outsider people couldn't wait to hear there was an opening.

Cons

Once Upper management felt that change was needed in order to grow the company in order to meet a ridiculous revenue goal in a ridiculous amount of time; changes started occurring way to rapidly. Change is very good for a company, but not in the ways that were being done at AH, especially by some who didn't know anything about association management. It's all based on REAL relationships, not fake ones. And if you think that people are there because only the strong survive...you're wrong! A lot of good people have been let go for speaking their minds and trying to help with the success of the company. No one wants to work at AH any more because of their current reputation and what is going on.

1.0
13 Feb 2017

Do Not Work Here

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Summer Fridays. Pretzels. This is ultimately an extremely negative review of the company but to their credit I will say they give employees the opportunity to develop professionally in areas the employee expresses interest. The only problem with this is a lack of expertise/experience among middle- and upper-management, so you will only get so far in developing these skills before you realize that your only option for true growth is outside of this company.

Cons

Salary & Benefits are beyond awful and you will most likely have to work a second job to make ends meet or hoard the free pretzels so that you can eat. You also won't get benefits for your first 90 days of employment. If for some reason you have to accept a job here, you should prepare yourself by watching a lot of Game of Thrones because you will never encounter a more political environment in your life. You should also take an acting class because you will have to act excited to work here. All the time. If you do not, you will be branded Enemy #1 and your boss will build a case against you and ultimately fire you. Forget about your talent, capabilities, or intelligence. Excitement to work here is the only qualification you need to keep your job. This brings me back to salary, because your pay will certainly not be worth all of the stress and anxiety that this political environment will cause you.

Viewing 1 - 3 of 102 Reviews

Glassdoor has 104 Association Headquarters reviews submitted anonymously by Association Headquarters employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Association Headquarters is right for you.