-Salaries across the board are not competitive
-Benefits have been drastically reduced and no longer help make up for low salaries
-Vertical mobility is very poor, outstanding performance is not rewarded with promotions or salary increases
-Slow to adopt change, particularly with technology
-"Kool aid culture." Promotions more based on how well you "fit the mold" than actual on the job performance.
I started working for Vanguard in early 2010 when I accepted an entry level position for which I was slightly overqualified. I figured that Vanguard was a company that I always wanted to work for, and I'd be able to progress relatively quickly due to my qualifications and strong job performance. Big mistake. As a rule, they require 12-18 months time on job before considering any sort of advancement or even a horizontal move within the company. Furthermore, their "promotions" are so incrementally small in both salary and responsibility that really you need 3-4 of them to be doing anything more significant. For example, you'd need to advance four or five levels within my department to go from entry level to managing a processing team of 4-5 individuals.
Without getting into specifics, I did a lot outside the workplace to improve my career, and was able to demonstrate my outstanding performance to both managers within the company and outside of it. I left for another job which paid over double what I was making at Vanguard. Top management was "surprised" at my decision, telling me that they "wanted to promote me," but I had to wait another two months to satisfy the 12 month time on job requirement. Never mind this promotion would have been a 10-15% pay bump at best, amounting to far too little far too late
