No leadership, just follower-ship - Director AARP Employee Review

1.0
29 June 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Good pay and benefits, as long as you don’t rock the boat

Cons

Serious gender discrimination problems. If you’re male, prepare to be discriminated against. Liberal bias. If you’re at all conservative, or god forbid a veteran, you will be looked down on. Sycophants rewarded, questioners punished. Many examples of people asking too many questions being shown the door. A lot of platitudes (“be fearless with us”) but they’re just words, actions are often completely opposite, e.g. they say they want innovation but have zero tolerance for risk. Double standards: Washington DC staff get massages, gym, ice cream socials. Field staff get second-rate everything and are completely marginalized in decision making. A history of extremely poor CEO choices. Currently Joann Jenkins, who invested tens of millions in a failed experiment to produce a tablet device (the RealPad) for older consumers, then defined it as a success and received her usual annual bonus.

Explore other reviews about AARP

5.0
28 May 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

great benefits even for interns like free lunch, reimbursed parking, hybrid work. good opportunities to network, hone your skills, and potentially get a permanent role within the organization.

Cons

long onboarding. lots of hr training.

2.0
2 Apr 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

benefits are strong - pension, vacation, sick, caregiving work life balance is generally good

Cons

AARP suffers from a serious toxic work culture, particularly in the IT and Digital Transformation departments. Leadership is atrocious. People leading the 2 key technology functions for the business are incompetent and ego maniacs. Both departments are extremely toxic with burned out employees and contractors. Money gets wasted in the extreme due to these factors. Constant signal switching on projects and priorities. Everyone you work with is unhappy. Bullying and retaliation are common. Avoid these departments in particular, but the whole organization is top heavy, with terrible leadership all around. Still there are some great and talented people, but it's not the norm, and senior leadership is wrought with incompetence and arrogance. The organization flails around endlessly, and blows money with no discipline or rigor to their work and methods. Think someone is juicing the Glassdoor numbers with people saying the place is great. No opportunity for growth. The organization tries to do good work, and does in many ways, but it's so poorly run that it severely hampers its potential.

4
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