Pros
Company offers additional learning, requires annual continued education with a variety of topics to choose from, and is a good entry level position in the industry.
Cons
Before I begin, I would like to stress that I use the term “company” in a very loose manner when referring to this employer, as you will soon discover why. The AML and Financial industries value the work that we do as analysts and offer appropriate compensation and benefits as a result. This company does not follow that trend. Employees are overwhelmingly underpaid in comparison to that of others in the industry and are offered no additional compensation for the immense amount of effort and dedication that is invested in their work as overtime and bonuses are considered taboo within the company. From Associate Analyst I up two additional pay grades to Senior Analyst (hope you don’t last that long) you are paid considerably less than $50,000 per year, which is less than that of entry level positions at a majority of other businesses in the industry. While production continues to rise and improve, compensation remains stagnant. In addition, the only way to receive a chance at a promotion is at an end of the year performance review that is not conducted until months into the following year and comes with a minimal pay increase at best. I say chance because promotions appear to be favoritism- and tenure-based and completely disregard dedication, ability, effort, quality, experience, education, and intelligence. Because of this I find that, more often than not, supervisors and superiors show little signs skill-wise, professionally, or intellectually, that they are deserving of the position and have the ability to perform it. The best example of this is an occasion when a former higher-level employee started a childish argument with a client over a simple matter of them recruiting an analyst that resulted in the client ending their relationship with the company. Was it the client’s fault that the analyst decided to accept the offer? No, they simply saw the employee’s true value, wanted to recognize them for it and pay them their worth. The offer was clearly better than what they receive from this company, and it is completely unprofessional and utterly inexcusable that this could even happen at any company in any industry. There used to be quarterly performance reviews with a chance at a promotion with a nominal bonus, but those were obliterated when some of the employees expressed that the chump change they called a bonus was not enough of an incentive. This aligns with the hypocritical and complacent environment they strive for, seeking to demolish any hopes and aspirations of an actual career. Incentives, initiatives, and rewards are all considered taboo and the workforce is punished anytime someone speaks out or raises a concern. The company actively asks for feedback, then weeds out all negative comments and positive suggestions to analyze what they should take from the employees next. It started with the quarterly bonuses, then when we expressed our concern over their Right Rewards program in that they gave us intangible money that we could only use to purchase insanely overpriced household items and were taxed heavily at the end of each year for all points accumulated, both spent and held, throughout the year they claimed to have closed the program, but kept our points and continued to issue more out to employees, that were then taxed, with a shallow promise of some kind of replacement sometime in the future, however, it was never mentioned again. When we claimed that the meager 15 days of general PTO, to be used for personal, sick and vacation time, was not enough for the entire year and the stress we have to deal with, they essentially guaranteed that there will never be an increase in PTO days or the pathetic 8 paid holidays, cut the amount of PTO were are able to borrow in half, and drastically increased the notice that must be given in order to take a day off. Now lets talk about the hiring process and colleagues that somehow made it through. First off, I think it’s important to note that their deplorable employee turnover is worse than McDonald’s. Their hiring process consists of an over-the-phone brief interview (not even in-person) which is followed by a couple of short and trivial assessments that most could complete before they finish high school. They claim to do a background check, but I seriously doubt it. They show no apparent knowledge or caring of what you have previously done, good or bad, including education and experience. In some cases I wonder if they just picked people up off the streets just to grow the company because many who are onboarded have either no education or experience, or their education is in an unrelated field and it is clear that they just needed a job. I am often baffled by the infinite ineptitude of many employees, mostly quality control analysts and other supervisory roles. Some employees are onboarded at a higher pay grade or position with no clear reasoning or simply because the company made a clerical error and are too egotistical to recognize they made a mistake and correct it. These employees often act self-entitled or pompous because of it. Once you make it through their oh so rigorous process, you’re in the clear. Then you can start their tedious and pointless training, in which you learn very little and are not prepared at all for what you will be doing. Apparently, if you play your cards right, you don’t even have to work or lift a finger. I wish I knew that when I started. There are employees that have been on downtime or no client work for over seven months and, at this point, possibly an entire year. There are some who have work, but just choose not to do it. They prefer to prance around the office all day, bothering everyone else. But guess who got hired the same time or after you, still collects the same paycheck as you, and gets promoted the same time as you. That’s right, all of them. But, hey, when all the offices are packed way past maximum occupancy because the company is too cheap to get another location and too power hungry to stop hiring, you can afford to have some slackers right? At least that’s how they clearly feel. Now normally, you should be able to go to your local HR rep and express the grievance you have, but you can’t do that when there is only one HR rep per office or less and that person’s time is whittled away hours at a time by those employees who aren’t working so they can talk about nothing. Which brings me to my next point, HR. Each office is packed past capacity, yet only has one HR rep or sometimes none at all. The Buffalo and Canada offices have often shared the same HR rep and have gone extended periods of time with no HR rep and no one to talk to. If you try to reach out to higher-ups in HR good luck getting a response. They are difficult to get ahold of and can take weeks to get back to you or just never respond. When there is only one HR rep for every 200-300 employees there is clearly a problem, but when the VP of HR and other HR business partners abruptly leave the company there is a foul smell in the air. Although, I suppose there will always be that smell when the company was created and is run by lawyers to take advantage of a grey area and structuring the company in a way that it is nothing but loopholes and fine print to make them untouchable and their decision indisputable. As a result the executive’s derogatory manner in which they view their analysts is tangible and their greed clearly visible. As evidenced by their most recent complacency policy of numbering desks and decorating all offices in a way to resemble a call center, continuing to strip away employees’ individuality and sense of worth. Executives consistently remind employees of their position in the company and that “security is #1 priority,” while they hypocritically send these emails from their iPhones at home or on vacation. During the difficult and quarantined times we live in now they have sent multiple emails from their phones with pictures of them on vacation, again reminding you of your position within the company and theirs. I hesitate to call this employer a “company” because it is not run like a business and does not conduct themselves in a business-like or professional manner. It operates like a pyramid scheme and is run solely by greed and egoism. They focus only on growing the physical size of the “company” in order to get industry recognition with no concern or regard to how that should actually be accomplished. It is obvious that the “company,” and its executives, care only about money and profits and will do or say anything as long as it means they get to put more in their bulging pockets, including consistently over-promising and under-delivering to both clients and employees. So far with my tenure at this “company” I have been given no reason to take stock in anything that is said as executives join together in quarterly town hall meetings to spread bold-faced lies and occasionally include half-baked plans that they have no intention of ever letting see the light of day. They are doing their best to build a complacency environment, not a professional one. What is a good, logical business decision? Now, what is the direct opposite of that? That’s what they are going to do. Working at this “company” feels like you are crawling through a sewage pipe on a backwards moving conveyor belt; it’s tiresome, unpleasant and agonizing, all to get nowhere very slowly.
