Recent merger of wholesale and consumer banking, and shifting of tech & ops roles to South Asia is ruining the bank.
Pros
I work in the technology division and here are my thoughts in bullet point: - Pay scale is pretty good. However, the range is also wide, so it boils down to how generous your boss is. - Work-life balance does exist, but there are some individuals who slog like slaves. - Most people enjoy the flexibility of working from home once in a while, as long as you deliver what is required. - Lots of leave for permanent employees. - No shortage of employee volunteering opportunities. - If you work in the city office, it's very accessible, but you will spend a lot of time and money on food and parking. - If you work in the changi office, there are more (affordable) lunch options compared to a couple of years ago, but it can be difficult getting to work if you miss the free company shuttle buses to Changi - unless you stay a couple of train stations away from Expo. - Medical benefits is ok, but not great when compared to other banks. - Group CEO is widely respected and revered.
Cons
- Most of the middle managers, and some senior managers, seldom come across as impressive when it comes to their management style or expertise. - Too many people were hired just because they are friends with the hiring manager, and not because they are genuinely capable of what they do. If you want to shift to another role within the bank, you have to spend a lot of time and effort networking. - This bank is horribly, terribly disorganised, and many things are done last minute. This compromises the quality of work. - When it comes to new business opportunities or innovation in banking, they are always one step behind other banks. - Managers of south asian descent tend to hire people of the same race. Other people have also said that they generally have difficulty adapting to the working styles of other races. - There is a lot of shifting of tech & ops roles to South Asia for the sake of lowering costs. I personally think it's a recipe for disaster. Most of the time, the southern Asian counterparts are seriously lacking basic communication and listening skills. They are not efficient in delivering outcomes and many projects get delayed very badly. Project cost over-runs can get rather alarming. When they say "yes, it's done" or "yes, it will be done", it usually turns out to be the opposite. I don't believe it to be true for all south Asians, and there are exceptional cases within the bank (though very few), but such sentiments are echoed by many other non-south-Asians in the organisation. - Quite a lot of redundancies were made with the recent merger of its wholesale and consumer banking business. Sometimes these retrenchments happen so fast, it's just bollocks! - Since the merger, everything is in a state of confusion and semi-chaos because people are not sure where the company is heading, how they should navigate the organisation to get things done and how it impacts their promotion and pay. There has been little communicated to staff worldwide. - From time to time, you hear about women sleeping up the corporate ladder. And they still get away with it. - Didn't bother about the employee share options - doesn't seem attractive. Advice to someone who is thinking of joining this organisation soon: - Wait for the dust of the recent reorganisation to settle first. I suspect this may take about a year from now.
