Treated like a widget and not a human being - Residential Mortgage Underwriter CIBC Employee Review

The problems begin at the Executive level. They've established unrealistic targets with absolutely useless technology. The workload is unbearable and most of the underwriters are on burn out. Morale amongst employees is at the absolute lowest I've ever seen it. The Mortgage underwriter position is one of the worst jobs at CIBC. Underwriters were laid off in Calgary yet the sales force has increased and they constantly complain about service levels being to slow to remain competitive. Basically underwriters have a bigger pool of deals to underwrite but less employees to do so. New technology was introduced with little or no benefit, saturday shifts were introduced with no real increase in revenue, only to copy TD bank. The bank is totally reactive and doesn't know how to retain talent. Recently many employees have left for greener pastures. The pay is poor in comparison to the job demands and most underwriters work an excessive amount of hours in order to meet their unmanageable daily targets. The sales force has absolutely no training program to train new sales staff and most of the underwriters have to essentially train new sales staff on top of all their other job demands. The technology the underwriters are given is slow and inefficient yet the tasks they are required to do only increase each year. A work life balance is totally frowned upon. It would be nice to have the option to work from home every once and awhile but due to the poor technology that is impossible. Underwriters are totally kept in the dark and are only made aware of significant changes at the last possible second. Management isn't helpful because they also seemed overworked and constantly stressed. Feedback is non existent, unless a mistake is made at which point coaching is offered.