* Compensation - Painfully low. Huge contributor to low morale in the company (or at least in the LPO sector) Several people I know, including myself, worked two jobs to make ends meet. Employees are constantly reminded to follow the data sheets for the lenders and procedures, usually approximately two errors were allowed in a month across multiple reports. Employees are also pressured to meet the UPH (units per hour). If either the quality or production was not met two months in a row, the threats of written warnings would come. Absolutely stressful environment for such low compensation.
* Low morale - See above. Most people keep to themselves or keep to their teams. I saw very little interaction across teams, even a simple hello was non-existent, at times. Go into the break room at lunch and you could hear other employees complain about favoritism, stress of the job, double standards in rules with different team members (again favoritism), and just general dissatisfaction with the company and job.
* Sick Time - THIS DOESN'T EXIST!! EMPLOYEES ARE PENALIZED FOR USING SICK TIME. yes, you read that correctly. Employees earn sick time; however, they are also penalized for using it. If an employee calls in sick, that is one occurrence. If an employee leaves early due to an illness, s/he will receive an occurrence(s), depending on the hours remaining in that employee's shift.
* Taxed on Raffle Prizes - Every quarter raffles are held and if the employee wins, s/he will be required to pay the taxes on that item, if you want it. Basically, employees get a chance to buy a trendy product at a lower cost. This is a SOX compliance federal issue per the executive talking head. Still it is a bit of a slap in the face considering the other issues.
*Voluntary Over Time - I worked in two departments and in both I had to use voluntary time, in my opinion, this is the result of a bigger issue, mismanagement of staff. (i'll get to that later) At times, employees may be required to take voluntary over time. This happens when the department has low work volumes and supervisors asks their staff to take time off, rather than pay them to do nothing. Employees are required to use their earned time off to get paid, or go without getting paid. Employees are not allowed to use sick time. Absolute robbery of the employee's time off.
*Mismanagement of staff: The LPO sector monitors everything, absolutely everything of the employees production. Yet somehow still has a tendency to over staff leading to voluntary over time or staff changes. I worked in one of the departments where a team member left, at this time, the team was already doing QC work of each other due to low new work volumes. So, the department hires a new employee (which happened to be a friend of one of the team leads, again favoritism), shortly thereafter, there were plans to move an existing team member to another department due to high staff and low work volumes. This is another thing, constant reshuffling of staff members to different teams.
*Quarterly Meetings - These meetings highlight the disengagement of the employees. The service center's executive talking heads discusses the news of the company. In my experience, it was completely irrelevant to me. There was no connection to how my work or other service centers work all connect with each other to keep swbc in business. When it came time for Q/A , it was mostly, will swbc allow jeans five days a week, completely disengaged! Dear executives, the number and types questions from staff is a good indicator of how engaged your staff is!!
* Don't be fooled by the constant job fairs!! The company may try to sugarcoat this as growth, it absolutely is not. Its high turnover.
Internal Advancement/Opportunities: Toward the end of my tenure, I applied to other positions. For one position, I received a rejection email. That position was posted in January and was still open in May when I left. Either the supervisors of this department have no idea of what they are looking for, or they are low balling candidates on compensation. I interviewed for another position and was told the team would take their time as there was external clients involved, which I understood. That position was opened in March and still open in May. I can understand the diligence in hiring for this type of position, but even so, that's a long time. If it takes that long, does that position really need to be filled, again back to mismanagement of staff.
