HCM company that doesn't know HR for squat - Product Manager ADP Employee Review

1.0
21 Jun 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Pretty decent work/life balance if that's something you care about. Especially great if you'd like more personal time with your family - Liberal personal time-off and leave policy. Can't say that I've heard of something like this at any other organization (including the top 1% firms) - The people are great - they're more than happy to help you with information to help you do your job

Cons

- The culture is pretty laid back if you're ambitious, and want to run fast. The extremely bureaucratic culture will force you to slow down by orders of magnitude. - Despite what they falsely claim, ADP India is most certainly not a product company - it is a services driven offshore op center that indulges in very low quality dev & maintenance work. - ADP India pays terribly low salaries. They're typically in the 60th percentile on the pay distribution. - The interviewing processes are awfully slow and arbitrary. I personally interviewed with them over a span of 40 days, and was interviewed by 8 people (Months after I joined, I learnt that many interviewers spoke with me just to keep the schedule while the HR was scrambling to find a qualified person to interview me) - I worked as a product manager at ADP and realized that their products are 60-year old mainframe systems that are shockingly outdated, and haven't since been modernized. With sparse documentation, there's very little one can do as a PM in such situations. What I learned instead is that a PM role in ADP is really a glorified business analysis job. I've spoken with PMs a across the org, and determined that they're all mostly BAs - please be warned about this fact before you interview with ADP. - ADP has no career progression plan for PMs. If hired, you're being hired for what you already know. There's nothing new you will learn at ADP. PMs don't have a growth matrix, progression plan, study plan, or continuing education plan. What exists is an org-wide plan that applies to all employees equally (with utter disregard to the challenges of a PM job) - at best you get allocated 2K/year for training (usually something as lame as a company organized program on communication) - good luck with that! - Oh, and your growth in seniority is a complex function of your age + and years of experience. You can be an outstanding performer, but you'll still work under a loser only because he's done more "time" than you have. Also, the annual review process is a typical curve-fitting exercise where you will get no more than an average rating just because your manager doesn't want to piss-off the majority (who are mediocre as far as the law of averages go) - ADP claims to be a HCM market leader, but their own HR is terribly disorganized, and inefficient. I found that rather ironic for a company that preaches "HR best practices" to earn its bread. For starters, the induction process for new employees is a 3-day long ritual that is nothing short of a kafkaesque nightmare that leaves you disoriented, without giving you *any* orientation whatsoever about your job. - In the same light, the separation process is shockingly archaic. Among other things, one has to jump through several burning hoops, permissions, and paper-based sign-offs, before a clerk makes a note of your final hand-off in a paper register. Shocking considering that ADP sells HR software that it doesn't use itself. - The icing on the cake is that for a global leader in payroll, ADP still hasn't come around to paying me for my last month of service (and it's been over 2 months since I quit!)

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ADP Response
9y
Hello - we appreciate this in depth and thorough review. Our careers team has escalated this specific review to our HR team as we take these insights seriously. Thank you for taking the time to give us a look into your ADP experience.

Explore other reviews about ADP

5.0
30 Mar 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Good opportunity and work environment

Cons

Sales process can be out of your hands at times

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ADP Response
1mo
Thank you for the great rating and for sharing your ADP experience with us on Glassdoor.
1.0
4 May 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Resume Gold! Having the name on your resume opens doors because people know you can survive a high-volume, high-complexity environment. That’s where the benefits end.

Cons

Pay: It’s a joke. They expect specialized, expert-level work and deep tax knowledge for a base salary that is way below the market. They use the big name as an excuse to underpay you. Work/Life Balance: You are never truly off. To hit the impossible quotas, people are forced to work off the clock just to keep up. Management knows this is the only way the work gets done, but they look the other way so they don't have to address the workload. Management: They are manipulative and not leaders. Instead of helping with the workload, they use moving goalposts and vague promises of growth to keep you running. There is no advocacy for employees. Make sure to get everything in writing. Some get amnesia. Quantity over Quality: It’s a sweatshop for data. You’re forced to rush through complex setups just to hit a Go-Live count to appease Sales. Accuracy is key, but it often takes a backseat to volume, which is a nightmare for anyone who cares about doing the job right. No Room to Grow: There is no real way to move up. ADP is a lateral move company, and that’s only if your management doesn’t stand in your way and prevent you from leaving for another internal team.

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ADP Response
2w
Hello and thank you for providing your insight into your experience working for ADP. ADP prides itself on creating and maintaining a workplace where employees work in a professional environment and are treated fairly. We appreciate your feedback and advice and we would like to hear more about your specific situation so that we can review your concern completely. Please contact our Associate Relations team at 1-877-878-4811 or hr.associate.relations@adp.com
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