Incredibly Toxic Working Environment. The Very Worst of American Corporate Culture
Pros
None at all if I’m brutally honest. Name on the CV I guess.
Cons
Where to begin…The most toxic working environment I have ever worked in. 1: Very Hierarchical. People, especially newly promoted VPs like to broadcast their status in the pecking order. If you spend too long at Analyst or Associate (over 3 years) nobody will respect you. 2: Promotion process past Associate very opaque. If you’re stuck in certain roles, good luck getting promoted further as it won’t happen. Management want certain people to stay where they are as they can't be bothered to train people up to do their roles. Also, Management are unwilling to change the scope of roles to allow you to progress. 3: Talk a good game about mobility, but in reality, very difficult to move to a better role. Management often refuse to engage in conversations about career development, if the desire for development takes you out of the area you are working in. 4: Very easy to get stuck in a dead end role and get pigeonholed. 5: Senior Management in Operations treat us like children. 6: Keep banging on about Diversity, Culture of Respect training etc, however this doesn’t filter down to individual teams. Personally seen so many examples of bullying, racist and xenophobic comments, ableism etc which in any normal company would lead the perpetrators to be sacked. Been on the receiving end of a number comments and actions that would be considered bullying. Was personally told by a previous manager not to escalate a number of incidents I was on the receiving end of to HR as "there's a very high threshold for what the firm considers as workplace bullying" 7: Management favourites are protected. Double Standards seemed to be applied daily. 8: Incredibly Bureaucratic. Very onerous controls environment for no reason. Obsession with reducing costs 9: Pay progression is below market value. Can often experience a real terms pay cut if your salary increase is below rate of inflation. Pitiful bonuses in Operations which seem to get smaller and smaller every year. 10: Work-Life balance is for Management and Management favourites only. 11: Feels like the firm is rushing back to normal because the CEO doesn’t like work from home, and there are plenty of Middle Managers who love to micromanage and control their minions. Work from Home has arguably kept me at the firm for at least a year longer than I wanted. 12: You are ostracised if you refuse to acquiesce to the culture and drink the “kool aid”. Colleagues love to be nosey in your personal life and criticise you if you don’t follow their way to live your life. If you stand up to people like this here, they quickly become vindictive and encourage other people put in spurious complaints against you.