Pros
Over the past 5 to 7 years consistently improving the brand and marketing it both to the external community as well as internally to it's employees. Many times I've had the experience of employees working together to do the right thing for the client. Focus on professional development. In our dept. business is growing and it is a team effort.
Cons
Certain depts. are growing the revenue but overall Bank faces tough economic environment. Upper management extremely slow to respond to a changing economic environment. While the Bank is trying to grow they are trying to grow by being like everyone else, the big banks. This is coming across as being more bureaucratic rather than being nimble and quick to respond to customers. They blame it on Dodd-frank but really they could work with Dodd-Frank and still be flexible to meet customer's needs. It just takes people willing to commit to figuring out a quality customer experience within the new regulatory requirements. But instead people get wrapped up in complaining about all the new forms and boxes to check off. Bank way too slow to implement new services which would bring in new revenue streams. Lots of committees being formed to make changes, but lots of failure of follow through or implementing plans that come out of committee. I've sat on a few committees where some good ideas were fleshed out, upper management approved them and then nothing. No explanation of why after approval nothing was done. Or, there will be an adoption of a plan and the rollout doesn't get done properly. Strange employee culture at the Bank. The Bank wants new blood to help it grow but they have a hard time adapting to new people. I think this is because a lot of the old timers aren't well educated people nor are they people who have ever lived outside of California, they have that home town, almost like small town mentality. And, they've never worked anywhere else except MB. Whereas the newer people tend to have worked in multiple financial institutions, are more sophisticated and have lived outside of California. The newer people tend to be more open-minded and want to bring fresh ideas to the Bank. Very poor communication from management to employees -- although there are regular officer meetings Bank wide, internally some depts. don't want to fully communicate with employees --- they very quickly talk about a policy and try to move on when there are employee questions. Some managers can't handle employee suggestions, even when there is so much evidence to suggest the policy doesn't make sense. Some managers still push forward with their own agenda. It's frustrating to employees who are smart, who want to excel and see great results for their depts. Too few people to get the work done, and always reinventing the wheel. Their IT dept. is in transition and are spread too thin. There's always a bug, always some software program that doesn't work. If you have to call IT for a problem there are long hold times. If you get locked out of your system, you may be off your computer for an hour or so b/c of lack of IT personnel. No communication with employees bank wide to help address these problems. Their HR dept has changed personnel and they appear to be less responsive to employee questions. Several people have had the same experience as I have: employees at HR are cold, it takes them a while to respond to e-mails. You have to remind them multiple times to complete a task. Some employees in HR have an edge to them, making it unpleasant to talk with them.