BB&T Reviews in Raleigh-Durham, NC Area

Pros

People friendly, clean place to work. Work is very easy.

Cons

Many Project Managers, Program Managers, IT Managers and Sr. Managers that do not know how to properly manage expectations or deliverables, so lots of wasted time, little prioritization and old technology (they are cutting edge if the year was 2000). Not a bad place to work if you can admit to yourself that you are not very bright and just want to sit back and collect a paycheck.

Pros

Benefits. 401k, pension & sick leaves.

Cons

Programmers are not treated well.
No cooperation between departments. Each unit operates as if they were a different company.
Too many stupid and redundant policies resulting in slow progress.

Advice to Senior Management

Get down to the floor and talk to people. Get rid of redundant policies that slows development process.

Pros

Very good 401k plan. They match 100% up to 6% of your salary. 40 days of "sick" time broken down into specific categories - sickness in family, personal sickness, and about 30 more categories.

Cons

- the work environment depends on who you work for
- they have this thing called "management discretion" which means whatever is in the policy manual is simply a suggestion and the managers can basically do what they want
- NO training, but if you want to take courses at the local tech college go for it. Plus they won't reimburse you and you probably won't get to work in your area of study
- LIMITED ability to transfer to other departments. If you're lucky enough to pass the HR established requirements, then you get to apply for 1 position every 3 months.
- NO significant raises. IT's been on the 0% to1% path for several years now and you practically have to walk on water to get 1%
- unlimited overtime. you are welcome to work as many hours as you can for salary with minimal comp time.

Again, it all depends on which area of the company you work for, but there are more IT areas that are similar to what is described here - but there are rumors of happy employees and good managers.

Advice to Senior Management

There are too many levels of management and too many divisions of IT. Upper level management needs to be stream lined. This probably would get IT on the same page.

Pros

Decent pay, decent benefits. Occasionally work from home at individual manage's discretion. Professional membership
dues paid. Did not need TARP money.

Cons

Very siloed company. Little cooperation or compromise across departments.
Many promotions are completely mystifying (who you know). Upper
management very plugged in to good ol' boy network (it's a southern
company).

Advice to Senior Management

Be bolder, especially in the areas of technology and acquisitions.

Pros

A few good things about BB&T are:
- decent benefits
- some flexibility depending on who you report to
- one of the few companies that offer 401k and Pension benefits

Cons

- extremely political
- no room to climb up the corporate ladder
- false implications around employee morale
- expects you to give 200% but will not reward you appropriately
- retention is low
- consistently using the economy as a hurdle, however, the overall company is doing extremely well in the financial industry
- no reward and recognition for most

Advice to Senior Management

- 360 feedback/coaching would be helpful
- do more for the sake of employees
- stop sending false messages to employees (i.e. - saying you're going to increase employee moral and then do nothing for it)

Pros

Great Pension, Healthcare plan, 401k matching, good orientation, great training for the first two years to get you up and running.

Cons

terrible human resources, no safe place to ask questions about HR policies and procedures, inexperienced management run regional sales and service operations. After five years, the bank does not know how to reward and motivate employees.

Advice to Senior Management

Focus on profitable, loyal employees who can offer more than just training the high turn-over staff.

Pros

GREAT leadership - competent, fair, structured. Johnson is one of the better CIO's in banking. Strong Senior Team. Lots of respect and mutual trust. Plenty of money and re-investment in the IT shop.

Cons

Sporadic travel between Wilson, Raleigh, Winston, Charlotte... not bad at at all,

Advice to Senior Management

Keep it up.

Pros

Great place to work, people are great, problems are good problems to have, lots of growth, stable, pay is good.

Cons

limited advancement opportunities, no work from home culture

Advice to Senior Management

Need to get current on certain cutural things, ie working from home

Pros

Retirement benifits. BB&T University training.

Cons

A lot of thought goes into what to do very little in how to do it. As a result those that do are left holding the bag as it where. Gaining additional FTEs for additional projects is mission impossible. Nepotism, Cliquish. Constantly have to justify your existence. Constantly being called back into work. If you are not on the retail side youâ??re a second class employee,

Advice to Senior Management

Value all your employees. Provide the resources to get the project done and keep things running.

Pros

There is a decent work-life balance at BB&T. Most employees work 40 hours, with a few working more. Only the managers or super suck-ups are working more than 40 hours a week.

Before there were budget cuts you could get fairly decent computer-related equipment without much of a hassle.

There are supposedly 40 paid "sick and leave" days per year (in addition to vacation), but you are penalized if you take more than 6 per year. The scrutiny of this benefit depends on your manager.

They have a generous 6% 401k match, but it must be invested in a BB&T fund. It is unclear what the expenses are on those funds since BB&T is not known as a low-cost fund provider.

Cons

The culture has been described by others as "traditional" or "conservative". Those are window dressing terms. Modern psychologists would call the culture "a fear-based culture". You must always fear and respect management, and always deliver good news or you fear being reprimanded for being a problem.

BB&T does not pay market, and has great difficulty responding to market data or salary negotiations. When I was hired, there was little salary or vacation negotiation. I have heard that new candidates have tried to negotiate offers, and the offers were revoked. It would depend on which division you work in and how enlightened your manager is.

Many people are under-worked, so to the fill the time they spend a lot of time gossiping or surfing the internet. Employees band together in very tight cliques. This has lessened in recent years, but this is an environment where people will exhibit coldness and other bullying behavior until you are "accepted" into their group.

The standard vacation package is 10 days a year, and they require that you take 5 of those days consecutively. You are terminated if you fail to do so.

The health insurance benefit has decreased remarkably in past years. I have not participated in the program since it was so poor, but as of 2009, I believe the best health plan requires a $1000 deductible.

They have no concept of "ergonomics". If you need a new chair, you need to bring your own.

Some managers are actually very abusive to their employees. My manager regularly screamed at me. Another high profile manager in one of the IT divisions yells at employees and calls them "f*cking idiots!" to their face.

Management claims you have "flex time", but they make note of when you come and go.

Working from home is frowned upon, and discouraged.

Your coworkers are generally very fake and shallow. They act friendly to your face to extract information that they report back to management. They probably view it as a survival mechanism.

Training is virtually non-existent, unless you are one of management's pets.

Employees are not informed of promotional opportunities or positions. Management "pets" are "groomed" and "selected" for the position way in advance.

Dress in the IT divisions is business casual, although you never see any other bank customers.

You must update your voicemail daily to say you are in the office.

You must always wear a badge and a silly nametag, and attend training on the "Perfect Client Experience".

After working at BB&T for several years, your skill set will become so out-of-date that will have trouble finding a job anywhere other than Blue Cross and Blue Shield.

Advice to Senior Management

It is time to hire some workplace psychologists to assess the work culture here. A "culture of fear" does not lend itself to high productivity or innovation, but to low morale. If you want the bank to move forward and be a decent place to work, you must bring in some high level people from outside the company (and preferably outside the banking industry) to run departments. Stop recycling the "good ole boys" into different high-ranking positions.