The company is a woke mess - Analyst TIAA Employee Review

1.0
Jan 15, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The benefits, PTO, and pay are all competitive. This is what primarily keeps people working at the company.

Cons

TIAA obviously hires and promotes primarily on the basis of DEI. It's fairly common to see minorities with minimal education and work experience be promoted into manager and director roles that they are not prepared for. Over time this has created a company led by some of the most incompetent leaders I have ever encountered in the workplace. This company is not a meritocracy at all. There is almost nothing TIAA excels at anymore. As a result, the company has been struggling. Nuveen, an acquisition, with its hub in Chicago, seems to be propping TIAA up. The CEO of TIAA was a DEI hire, who has low approval ratings on Glassdoor (currently less than 60%), and there is internal division as to whether she is leading the company in the right direction. Being aware like everyone else that massive change is needed at the company, she has sold off business units, outsourced low performing processing units, and is now moving an entire hub from Colorado to Texas. It's too early to determine if these recent decisions are good ones, but it has clearly resulted in low popularity for the time being. Her recent marketing initiatives, however, were woke disasters for the company. In my personal experience, non-exempt roles usually have good work-life balance, while exempt roles often have absolutely crushing workloads. The company is building a massive hub in Texas, so it's clearly committed to the current hybrid model. Most employees want to be 100% remote, but the communication from leadership has been that they don't want to take the company in that direction. Overall, I wish I never came to work for this company.

Explore other reviews about TIAA

5.0
Jun 14, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great work life balance, good benefits, decent pay, ease of running your own practice as an “advisor”, and healthy work environment

Cons

Management styles can vary and affect your experience, upper management doesn’t seem to be well equipped to ensure the organization’s success but it is resilient nonetheless.

2.0
Jul 4, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good starting salary and benefits package.

Cons

The longer you’re there, the more of an expectation that you work more for the same or less income. Producers find it hard to justify staying when leadership keeps moving the goal posts on how to increase income. No rhyme or reason as to how they decide “promotions.” One advisor might have one good year and get promoted over an advisor that produces year in and year out. They fail to share revenue because they’d have a hard time justifying the income level compared to outside advisors with a fraction of the book size. They claim and depend on brand recognition to justify a capped income but fail, or just won’t admit that is why they keep losing their top talent. Operations is a nightmare that I can’t even begin to describe. When I share the processes that have been in place for over a decade, colleagues in the industry shake their head and laugh. They can’t believe we earn and keep business. The saying while I was there was “the biggest threat we face is that TIAA clients start to explore their options outside of TIAA.”

See reviews by: Helpful|Rating|Date|All