Great benefits, but not much opportunity for advancement - Anonymous employee TIAA Employee Review

3.0
Jul 15, 2014
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

-Generous benefits -Diverse, friendly, supportive staff

Cons

-No clear career paths or role definitions. -Not a lot of opportunity for promotion. The company needs to realize that people do not want to make lateral moves for the entirety of their career. At some point, people need to know that as their skills and knowledge increase and they grow and master new work/tasks/projects, they will be rewarded with a promotion. -If you do get an elusive promotion, often times it comes with little to no salary increase, which is in stark contrast to prior years when a promotion typically came with a 10% increase. Results in much more responsibility with no financial reward and sometimes no title change. -Technology is a constant struggle - our site for clients doesn't support versions higher than IE9. Internally we are constantly jumping between Firefox, IE6 and a shell version of IE8. -Not agile. Very slow to innovate. Always playing catch up to the competition in terms of technology and services. -Too many ineffective and dare I say unethical managers/directors, but because they manage up well, they suffer no consequences for the way they treat their employees. -In my area, all new upper management are cronies brought in from Fidelity. While it's great to have new blood and new points of view, it's disheartening that there aren't really opportunities for advancement to that level from within. -No accountability.

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5.0
Jun 25, 2026
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CEO approval
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Pros

Great opportunities for growth and supporting management

Cons

There is nothing to love about TIAA!

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.”

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