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American Red Cross

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American Red Cross reviews

3.3

49% would recommend to a friend

(4,609 total reviews)
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Gail McGovern

69% approve of CEO

48% positive business outlook

American Red Cross has an employee rating of 3.3 out of 5 stars, based on 4,609 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The American Red Cross employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the ONG y Organizaciones sin fines de lucro industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

5K reviews
1.0
May 29, 2014

Horrible

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Knowing that you are helping save people's lives

Cons

The politics are horrible and you have to have a friend in high places to move up in the company. If you aren't in the right clique, you are treated horrible and different from others. They don't treat everyone the same, there is blatant favoritism

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American Red Cross Response
11y
Thank you for taking the time to leave a review. We are glad to hear that you took satisfaction in our life-saving mission. The Red Cross is committed to fair and equal employment practices; furthermore, we do not tolerate mistreatment in the workplace. We encourage employees with such concerns to reach out to their HR Advisors or our anonymous Concern Connection line, the numbers for which may be found on our intranet site. We are always striving to improve our organization and thank you for your feedback. It will be passed along to our leadership team.
1.0
Apr 12, 2014

Run the other way

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Seeing and hearing from the people who have benefited from receiving blood products.

Cons

Everything else. Insane working hours (I once went an entire month without a single day off; regularly worked nights, too). No work/life balance (it's required that you still check and respond to emails while on PTO). Absolutely no management support. The Red Cross wants you to think it's a noble organization, but the blood services side is completely based off sales (the Red Cross makes money off of blood donations!). No consistency when it comes to company practices; local offices operate under the "don't ask for permission now rather forgiveness later" mentality. Completely resistant to change; no one like new ideas so no room to grow. Sales reps (Donor Recruitment reps) are bullies and get away with everything because they pass it off that they need to make goal. Of course, they are commission-based so it's not about helping others, it's about helping themselves.

avatar
American Red Cross Response
12y
We appreciate your review, and are glad to hear you found it rewarding to interact directly with those who benefited from blood products. We are also sorry to hear your comments regarding work/life balance and management. We agree that both of these factors are crucial to employee satisfaction and fostering a positive workplace environment, and will pass your feedback on to our leadership team. A point of clarification: Blood that we collect from our donors is sold to hospitals and health care organizations; the profits from this exchange are used to support the mission of the Red Cross. More information about our financials and spending can be found at charitynavigator.org
1.0
Sep 21, 2011
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Perhaps there are better jobs outside of the collections department. Many people who start in collections stick with it long enough to work in a different department and seem happy, but very few people work long-term in collections.

Cons

I heard jokes and offensive comments about women, jews, rape, black people, hispanics, etc without fail every single week from staff there. Several from my trainers, one who expressed that "men are just better than women" to a group of trainees, including myself. I spoke up about it and nothing was done. I came from a hospital background and found that most instructors had no technical knowledge of how blood products are actually used medicinally. My instructor fell asleep on the first day of teaching us about our job at the company, and his boss came in the room and thought it was funny. No one in management could figure out where one employee (who had to commute for mandatory training) was supposed to clock in, and the issue was not resolved for months. When I got fed up and quit there wasn't anyone to actually quit to that day, so I sent an email to their concerns group about why I was quitting. HR routinely leaves every friday, and sure enough they were gone before 2 pm that day, so I couldn't even quit to them.They sent me a letter saying I had been terminated for not showing up, the next week, even though I had quit and told them so. The sheer incompetency of every single department was apparent to me while working there. The additional week meant they subtracted 400$ from my remaining checks (their insurance is EXPENSIVE and not good). My first check was full, for one week of work, but every check after that retroactively subtracted additional pay for benefits, even though I didn't have my cards yet. When I called to ask how to get my money back for the last month of checks no one knew who to talk to. The collections department is not allowed to have breaks longer than 30 minutes, even when working long shifts, which seems as though it is illegal.

Viewing 109 - 111 of 4,609 Reviews

Glassdoor has 5,264 American Red Cross reviews submitted anonymously by American Red Cross employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if American Red Cross is right for you.