Pros
Not going to rehash all that much from prior reviews - Lower hired a LOT of people from 2020 through to the beginning of 2022 because of the need for warm bodies to take apps and close loans that only an idiot would say no to. I lucked out and had a pretty stable chain of management the entire time I was there (NOT common) - my team lead and branch manager were both rock solid and they were in my corner every time I needed anything. Frankly, they were the reason I stayed as long as I did. I was learning a lot! Cool food service in the new building, and it's pretty quiet now that they've laid off most of the staff that were there.
Cons
Before I start: I know there have been layoffs in the customer care department, so if they're the ones reading this - you guys are great and it's not your fault :( Company decline was gradual until everything hit at once in the last few weeks. The last round of layoffs was BAD (enough to make the news) and completely destroyed several chains of communication between sales and operations, corporate, etc. Any sense of "culture" that the President & CEO tried to place through "leadership training" (just them bringing in their local sales and exec-level friends) or company events is long gone. No company events for the rest of the year, not like there were going to be people to attend... The current comp plan sucks. Management can blame "current market conditions" all they want but it doesn't change the fact that the per-head numbers (read: volume funded, # of loans funded) kept going down, even as they kept firing people. The whole business model for the inside sales channel is just too close to what competitors (Better, LoanDepot) set themselves up on - and they're all faceplanting right now. Those who are left in inside sales are definitely asking some tough questions about how they're gonna keep their heads above water. They're not telling us *explicitly* what direction they want to take the company here for the next few months but it's pretty obvious to anyone observing them. Any sort of operations role or even corporate role gets stepped on by leadership who are all former salespeople that placed a former salesman in upper management so they could boss them all around. Again, not unusual for the industry but it's sucked to see all of it shake out. They were treated as disposable, even with how much work they were asked to do all the time. Also, HUGE pizza party culture in some parts of the sales department. Fun fact, a large pizza from Flyer's does NOT change the fact that pay for everyone's bad! I was freaking sick of everyone trying to hype up the garbage products we were having to sell, lol. Vibes in the office have gone down the drain and there's no real path to get them back up from what I can see. It just feels so bleak. Going to reiterate some other miscellaneous points here: CEO balked pretty hard as things were starting to get bad and let IT go on about Sales Ops updates when he COULD have actually manned up and given us some stronger words of support other than "cash in the bank." There have also definitely been some policy violations, which is the reason you now actually *see* a search result if you google "Lower LLC lawsuit." (Tip: Watch where you're putting your info!) President's good friends with the CEO of North Star - if you've ever worked a service job in Columbus, you know that's probably one of the nastiest managers you can get out of any establishment in the area. And that's who Lower is bouncing ideas off of? Yikes. ALSO: benefits are smelly. Sales doesn't get a PTO payout and Ops got like half of what they were owed in total dollar amount. One other thing I want to SPECIFICALLY point out for *WOMEN* is that it's a man's club because of the focus on sales. Can get really fratty and some of the managers have let some very objectionable things slide. Lower kept an employee that was walked out IN CUFFS because his violation didn't prohibit him from selling loans and he was a top producer. They only let him go once he stopped producing, lol. Once layoffs started happening you started to see people who were planning on maternity leave suddenly find themselves out of work, and some of the best salespeople in the company shouldn't have a hot mic on when they're talking about women. I'll leave it at that.
