AEP Energy reviews

Where to begin... - Leadership is, at best, inept, and lost, while at worst actively creating a hostile, counterproductive, negative work environment. Most folks want to do their job well and help the company grow but executive leadership is too often slowing down progress with their own lack of strategic vision and operating tactics to implement any plan (if they had one). There are endless “plans” and “projects” that never get done because they try to do too much too fast instead of getting a few things done completely and correctly. - The company personifies "old boys network." My impression has long been that women (and minorities) were often looked down upon and hired to do lower quality jobs while incompetent and/or lazy white men received promotions and adulation. - If you're connected to the top brass, you can pretty much do no wrong, and can't get fired (even if everyone who worked for you quit and gave you extremely negative reviews). Likewise, if you criticize or clash someone who is connected, start looking for a job immediately because you will be railroaded out of the company. - Zero career support. The performance review process is a joke and everyone knows it. Most review processes are, but this one is particularly useless because high performers only get promoted if someone quits, gets fired, etc. They have yet to discover that you can recognize someone for putting in time and quality work with a comp adjustment and level change, even if core responsibilities don’t hugely change. - This place defines hypocrisy. One of their values are something like "candor" but all the people who open their mouths get shunned, shushed, ignored, or told (contrary-to-fact, in many cases) they're wrong. Be prepared to play nice and quiet if you want to work here. - The place is in a constant state of re-org. You'd think that at some point they'd realize that they just don't have the right executives – and then can the bad ones. It's not just one person or two people. They're constantly reorg-ing partially because the good people leave and partially because they won't just chop off the toe to save the foot at the executive level (though they're perfectly happy to fire people at lower levels). They have incompetent VP's (and higher execs) running groups into the ground; these people don’t get fired but get promoted to run something else (into the ground). - HR needs to be at least honest, if not trustworthy. Do not trust this HR group at all - they are the company's secret police and anything said to them goes straight to executive leadership, likely blackballing you. Most things they say are known lies at worst significantly disingenuous at best.

The parent company is in the middle of an identity crisis. The utility parent decided to buy a retail electric company back in 2012 in defense to what was occurring with electric re-regulation in OH. While it was good to see a traditional monopoly structure step out and get involved in electric choice, the now vocal utility parent is showing desire to roll back the restructuring clock in order to achieve a regulated rate of return on their aging generation fleet. This threatens not only the continued progress of electric choice (and free market principles) but also cascades into their retail electric subsidiary via the items below. The attrition rate is excessive. This may have to do with a mostly unhappy office culture (low morale) and the salaries offered for certain positions. The attrition rate is recognized but is then trivialized by leadership to the point that no real action is taken. For prospective team or department managers: this is a real issue that may affect your ability to succeed. It is difficult to attain objectives when you constantly have to deal with turnover. The leadership approach is top-down command and control. While this is a prerogative reserved for those at the executive level, the approach isn’t so great when it comes to fostering a trusting environment, which then bleeds into the office culture. Though corrections are attempted to become more transparent and engaging, the damage is done and subsequent actions seem disingenuous. Examples like asking people for input after a decision has been made to make them feel like they are influencing business direction or dismissing advice because it doesn’t align with desires is counterproductive and cavalier. As a result of this identity crisis the company finds itself in a situation in which the leadership isn’t quite sure how to manage the expectations of its employees. It’s difficult to put the blame solely on the executive leadership when the parent isn’t clear on the long term strategy for the subsidiary. Since this is a business and people have marching orders it does make sense that labor costs are kept at a minimum and soft items like office culture aren’t a top priority. However, when leadership attempts to portray the company as something different than what can be gleaned from the press or investor calls the messaging is confusing and affects the way the employees perceive the company and the leadership.