Empower reviews

3.8

71% would recommend to a friend

(2,419 total reviews)
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Edmund F. Murphy III

79% approve of CEO

70% positive business outlook

Empower has an employee rating of 3.8 out of 5 stars, based on 2,419 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Empower employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Financial Services industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

2K reviews
1.0
May 30, 2016

Miserable Place

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

I guess you could say a paycheck and benefits if you were really desperate to work here. The security lady is nice to talk to.

Cons

Walk around Great-West and you will find miserable people that don't smile which I'm guessing is a result of a very bland company culture that expects you to work with inept, angry management whom makes your workload the equivalent of two people. Then they pile on projects so kiss your work life balance away. The penny pinching executives don't value employees and you can tell because there has been a large number of people quitting and going elsewhere. Summer BBQ was taken away, no Holiday party, no more casual Friday dress like wearing jeans and tennis shoes, etc. This is like the worst discount airline that offers hardly anything to keep people happy here.

1.0
Sep 22, 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The pay and the benefits are decent, but they're not enough to make up for the job itself.

Cons

You're constantly put in no-win situations and there's an extreme feeling of authoritarianism. You're not allowed to pee on company time lest it hurt your "adherence." You're not allowed to say you "can't" do something that you literally can't do either because the system is down or because you're not allowed to do it. You'll be told conflicting things all the time and your performance will be hurt by acting on whatever you were most recently told, even if you were told that thing on the call itself. Your performance will be hurt if you're on hold for too long or if your call takes too long, even though all through training, you're told that it doesn't matter how long the call is because they want you to be thorough to prevent the person from calling back (it's a lie, they want you to practically hang up on people during the "goodbye" to shorten your time) The people in training will act like you can come to them with any question in the world, then will turn around and treat you like a complete idiot "well what do you think the answer to your question is?" if you ask them. But then they'll tell you that you never want to guess because it hurts performance if you give wrong information-- which is fine and I agree you don't want to give people bad info-- but don't tell new employees "never guess, just check with us," then turn around and treat them like a dummy for doing just that. There is ZERO downtime on the job and the constant barrage of people is mentally exhausting-- and if you make a mistake or try to make time to actually look at your reviews to see how to improve, you're also out of adherence. They won't actually say you're expected to read your emails or look at your reviews or do your online training on your own time, but they clearly want you to because they're not going to allow you to do it on theirs. The culture is super fake. When I left, my manager texted me saying that he'd be oh so willing to help me professionally and write me a letter of recommendation, I accepted the offer, then he said "well I can't do a professional one due to company policy, do you want a private one?" And I said sure... Then he ghosted me. I wouldn't have even thought of this as a negative if the offer wasn't made in the first place, but it just goes to show that they only care about the appearance of being nice without the follow through of actually doing anything nice. Speaking of fake, the interview process was also super fake. They ask you what you're looking for in a company culture or work environment and they'll just say "oh we're like that!" Like I said I valued flexibility, and they were like "we're so flexible!" (They're not). And I said I wanted a dynamic role where I wasn't boxed into doing one singular task and I could wear many hats. They said "that's great we love that" (the job was be a phone slave, and I wasn't allowed to do any other tasks). If you value work-life balanced, be prepared for every second of your day to be mentally at work. Even your breaks will be dominated by the fear of coming back from it late. They also will tell you the 11am-8pm schedule is only 12-18 months if you want to move to first shift, but I talked to a lot of reps there who had been on the 2nd shift schedule for several years and were trying to move. Your mental health will totally spiral in this job. You will dread clocking in and you'll probably dread leaving too (because you'll be worried about money, insurance, etc) but the day you finally do, you'll just be filled with relief. People think dealing with Karens is the worst part of a customer service job, but honestly dealing with irate people is one of the LEAST stressful parts of this job because the "everything else" about it is terrible. I left several months ago, so this isn't even my "just quit and I'm angry" review, it's just me looking back and thinking "wow that WAS terrible!"

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Empower Response
5y
Thank you for your feedback. We regret that you had a negative employment experience. Our company culture is something we take pride in; we are constantly striving to improve our associate experience so we can best serve our customers. We invest in training to set associates and leaders up for success and encourage all associates to speak up and provide feedback if they are not receiving the support and training they need to be successful. Our call center is critically important, not only in how we represent ourselves to our customers, but also as a place for associates to gain knowledge and skills related to our business that they can continue to use as they build their career with Empower.
1.0
Apr 21, 2023

Don't do it

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The pay is literally the only thing that makes it worth it

Cons

The managers are extreme micromanagers, they treat you like you are on an assembly line and they only care about results. They complain if you take bathroom breaks that aren't scheduled break time and only allow 30-minute lunches. The managers treat everyone like children and they want you to ask for permission to step away at any time. I believe these issues are department specific but they make it impossible to leave the team. The participants are extremely rude and disrespectful and there’s no recourse for their behavior which makes you feel unsupported. Even after horrible calls if you go into ACW management will place you back in queue without any sort of communication. Even when mandatory overtime is added management expects you to work 10-11 hours a day with only a one hour break total. We’re not allowed to attend town hall meetings so you’re almost not even a part of the company. Management aren’t leaders they are ultimately babysitters. Oh, let’s not forget the 2 week training that isn’t really training it’s more of a side by side with a rep and it’s interrupted by management taking the “trainers” from training to take calls. Only 1-2 people can be off per day so there’s never time off available so you ultimately just have to call off as needed. There’s absolutely no work/life balance due to inadequate staffing, poor forecasting of the workloads, and incompetent management.

Viewing 4 - 6 of 2,419 Reviews

Glassdoor has 2,524 Empower reviews submitted anonymously by Empower employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Empower is right for you.