UBS reviews

3.7

72% would recommend to a friend

(14,558 total reviews)
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Sergio P. Ermotti

84% approve of CEO

62% positive business outlook

UBS has an employee rating of 3.7 out of 5 stars, based on 14,558 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The UBS employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Finanzas industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

15K reviews
2.0
May 24, 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good Brand infrastructure and management foresight Most people know their job well Excellent presentation DNA from IPS Acceptable work life balance if you stand firm on your boundaries Good community outreach like volunteering with special needs children or underprivileged households

Cons

Staff treated as dispensable cogs in management master plan which can shift and morph every year Does not appear that Loyalty and hard work will be rewarded ; only the "chosen" ones are annointed and protected from cross border developments which will likely shrink offshore business Many CAs are productive and perform despite negative headwinds of weak ineffectual DHs and CTHs who go missing everytime an important decision needs to be made Defacto decision making is to sit on something and let the situation take care of itself so no head needs to put their head on the line. However, these CAs are not given opportunities to develop their book because their own bosses are not favoured by senior management Even new leads brought on have to be given up as the weak bosses do not want confrontation with the power bases like HNW South Asia, UHNW North Asia etc This weak middle management is evident across all divisions and if you discern hard enough there will be a few long serving D and ED who are the backbone of expertise and know how in their specific teams (IPS,WP, etc) headed by yet another clueless head parachuted in or up in the management role by virtue of their presentation skills, ability to lunch with the top or by being so good at showmanship they are promoted into incompetence. Not many are cut out to be managers. Being a manager requires sacrifice and a mindset to groom all your people equitably. Most managers leave the work to the backbone one downs and happily go on junket trips or creating their own pyramid schemes Competing with their own team members for limited leads, resources, support while cherry picking best of books for themselves when good bankers leave. Low productivity and shallow skillset from long standing Swiss staff who serve as puppet custodian Bankers with no hold over the relationships but no one has dared to make decisive redistribution of these sacred cows choosing instead to flog the peripheral books and Asian bankers. At some point, clients are bearing too much risk on behalf of clients who have learnt for many years that it is fine to keep millions of cash in custody with UBS and still get F1 paddock tickets and hotel bookings for the whole family. No amount of "red carpet"will change this as wrong clients were onboarded and spoilt rotten for decades to a point of no return. General consensus among staff is that Singapore base is treated like a stepping stone for successive leaders to gain more visibility and power thus, plans are devised for short term goals to maximise the leader's showcase before they get promoted into regional and meatier glory.

4.0
May 18, 2016

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Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The pay is generous and the benefits are good and there is a lot of vacation time. Good flexible schedules.

Cons

The Downtown traffic is horrible and management changes direction too frequently. They need to be more generous on health care insurance.

1.0
Mar 25, 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Lots of real and genuine teammates especially at the junior level Some good managers Decent health coverage for emergency purposes Apparently compared to other banks, we are consider "better" in terms of culture Use to be a good company and friendly culture... but the last 6 to 7 years have been brutal...

Cons

Terrible structural problems. Very Low Morale. High Turnovers. Long Hours. A "poppies that stick out get chopped" mentality. Senior managers are really cold and calculative. Company is highly political. All the good senior manager who actually care about people were all slowly forced to quit in my department in the last 3 years, as certain political camps won out (department and geographical merging to cut costs). A massive trickle effect downwards to manager and junior managers is easily apparent. Most are cynical managers really abusing (passively I mean) their staff, rather then fight senior managers for work-life balance or even fair compensation. Mentors often advise (be less "cheery" and avoid being "noticed" and to be "fortunate" to have a job) An unfortunate result are genuinely nice people are literally quietly begrudging walking dead. Angry, peeved off, but desperate to keep the jobs. Senior managers takes advantage of this.... Example: Recent promotions (with 1.5-2x the responsibility) are rewarded with pay raises less then 5%. This is not an exaggeration, with 5% at the upper range (with also a very low starting base to begin with). I and a few colleagues have declined the promotion. But, I suppose they served their purpose of "trying to promote". All other staff have pay raise freeze for all others (some colleagues saw no raise for the past 4 years). Therefore real earning wages has actually declined year on year. For my market that actually is a decline of 12-16% of real income after accounting for inflation. Previous years 2013-2015, a strategy of "natural attrition" was employed to reduce headcount by "freezing" almost all promotions (on top of pay). A good point to note, that strategy was effective in pushing some folks out. But us average individuals with limited prospects in a tightening market... it is very disheartening to see good friends leave and replaced by very young, very inept graduates (if they choose to replace staff at all)

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