American Water reviews

3.7

64% would recommend to a friend

(617 total reviews)

John Griffith

65% approve of CEO

58% positive business outlook

American Water has an employee rating of 3.7 out of 5 stars, based on 617 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The American Water employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Energy, Mining & Utilities industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

617 reviews
2.0
Mar 15, 2017
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Proud knowledgeable workforce. Family atmosphere in areas where senior directors haven't caused gastrointestinal discomfort.

Cons

Director level and above management teams are focused on dismantling longstanding middle managers and replacing them with new hires with no experience to the water industry. It’s one thing to promote from within…it’s another to put your thumb in the eyes of longstanding employees. Are your thumbs tired yet? Or you taking a page out of GEICO’s playbook and holding that what we do is so easy that even a caveman/person can do it? Upper management appears to be intent on creating a culture of mistrust, we’ve returned to the days of it’s not what you know, but who know. Directors are focused on window dressing initiatives and making their marks, which right now appear to be bad tattoos that will remain with the company long after they've been finally discovered to be frauds and have moved to other areas of this company, where they can continue to perpetuate their poor impressions of water industry professionals. The emperors have no clothes and continue to use employees as cover. Here’s a question for the next cultural survey…when will all of these poor upper management approaches catch up with them? 1. When there’s no experience in middle management left. 2. Never…they will have parachuted to the mother ship and into some new made up position by then 3. After someone’s been hurt because the new person had a great idea that only made sense to the person responsible for hiring them 4. All of the above.

2.0
May 12, 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

American Water as whole is a great company, and the corporate headquarters is. beautiful. the benefits are great.

Cons

if you are working as a data scientist / technologist, expect for the work environment to be extremely toxic and stressful. They claim to have a flat hierarchy, but it is the exact opposite of that.

1.0
May 9, 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

If you work for the states it’s better, but other than that, no pros.

Cons

There are areas in the company, outside of T&I that are better to work for; however, do not accept a position in T&I without talking to some employees first. The overall sentiment in the group is that people are miserable and they want to leave. They are losing employees in T&I left and right, and the crazy thing is that this hasn’t raised any flags to the executives. It’s sad because there are some really good people there who want to do good and care about what they do, but they’re at their breaking point too. There used to be more honest reviews on Glassdoor, but somehow the company got them removed. I could go on and on about the one person who is to blame for what is happening, but I would only sound like a bitter employee which I am not. I am a disappointed employee and I too am jumping ship because I cannot in good conscious work for such a leader. For someone who claims to know so much about technology, he doesn’t know anything, he’s just a really good story teller, and someone who claims he cares about his employees but he treats them horribly. Do yourself a favor, talk to a couple of AW employees first before accepting that offer. And BTW I am predicting that 3 or 4 “great reviews” will pop up right after this one (he has a handful of people who spout his propaganda. They’ll say things like “people aren’t comfortable with change” or “we’re inventing the future”).

Viewing 13 - 15 of 617 Reviews

Glassdoor has 675 American Water reviews submitted anonymously by American Water employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if American Water is right for you.