BMO Financial Group Reviews

Pros

Good financial systems, up to date technology, good affordable products and bank plans! wonderful customers.

Cons

Management at branch/ area level needs more training working with people. They rather take people from outside. They do not care to promote inside staff, to higher positions. Don't expect overtime. Expect to be flexible, working Mon-Sat 9-5/ 8pm. No increase- work on a "referral" basis" sell, sell sell for a year end Bonus, if you do not reach 100% of your target NO bonus. For the amount of responsibilities and work load each day, the wages of a CSR is disgusting.
They just want to let you sell, sell and sell, but they call you Customer "Service" Representatives. You are nothing in front line. They treat you like a slave. Expect them, to tell you how to talk to customers, what words and sentences to use. Expect the staff to always complain about working for BMO.

Advice to Senior Management

Look after the employees that dedicate their lives to BMO. Review the salaries. (If only the stockholders could see the underpaid CS R's !) So happy I left !

Pros

Great benefits, great mentoring by colleagues and supervisors.

Cons

Unsatisfactory wage. Not flexible with positions available/ hours given.

Pros

People are old, which means younger employees are much smarter and can easily get away with alot. Overall the people are very nice and share alot of information. Training is also very good as the bank dosen't really expect you to know much, if you do alot that that's great, if you don't no worries they will train you.

Cons

I worked there for 3 years. I can honestly say that it all depends on the type of job grade you start at. If you start at a grade 30 there are not many jobs out there for you when you want to move up from within. My suggestion is to ANYONE who is interviewing at BMO is ask them what the job grade is. All the good jobs start at grade 32 and up. If anything starts under that don't take it as it will kill your career. After working there for 3 years I have to pretty much start at the bottom of the IT ladder because thier systems and processes are outdated. Don't fall into the same trap. Go to a smaller company for less money but knowing you will learn more and grow faster. Then come to BMO with good experience, this will ensure you don't get a low job grade to start.

Advice to Senior Management

Fire all the old people who know nothing about the new technology and promote the smarter, healthier younger employees. Otherwise they will leave and find better jobs.

Pros

I get time off when I need it. It's a job in this economy.

Cons

management seems confused at times on what to do. Way to many managers that nothing seems to get done in a timely fashion.

Advice to Senior Management

Value the employees that work hard and stay late and bring opportunities to you...........

Pros

competitive pay as a contractor. no worry of lack of work. loose environment so easy relax job. work from home possible.

Cons

Tight deadline should never be the excuse for quality, but here in BMO it does use this excuse, and use it very often. As IT professional it is rather painful to go through those undocumented heterogeneous codes to figure out what the problem is. Less time spend up front means significant more time spend later on but apparently management/architecturer ignore this.

Advice to Senior Management

pay attention to quality, software engineer wise. To make it work is not enough, to make it work RIGHT is fundamental, not some bonus.

Pros

Work life balance
Enterprise wide projects

Cons

IT career opportunities very limited; most work is sent off shore to India

Advice to Senior Management

Good job with advertising and being customer focused

Pros

- excellent training and learning opportunities

Cons

- extensive workload and stress

Advice to Senior Management

- get training in HR

Pros

Exposure to different technologies, opportunities to work on different teams across different business units, business knowledge transferable to other institutions in the industry.

Cons

Salaries are below industry average, decision making process is slow, management doesn't care about employees, they know that they can easily replace anyone and hence the attitude.

Advice to Senior Management

Treat people with more respect, listen to what subordinates have to say and act upon it. BMO is a good place to work, but has the potential to be a great place to work!

Pros

Very easy job. Good work life balance. Great training programs for someone looking to learn about the banking industry. Management always treated staff with a high level of respect. They are extremely committed to changing the culture to one focused on sales and customer service. If you like dealing with people the bank will love you. Brand seems to be revitalized.

Cons

Boring, repetitive work with limited upside as far as compensation goes. The benefits package I received was not as good as the previous financial institution that I worked at which was really frusturating. I mentioned that the bank provides good training programs asa positive but it is not willling to cover the cost of outside educational opportunities Ie cfa mba etc.

Advice to Senior Management

Great training programs and company cultutre. Continue to build on that. Covering the cost of employees outside training and professional accreditations would help to build moral and improve the credibility of the bank as a whole. The more educated employees are, the more value clients will place on advice given by the employee which will improve the overall customer experience.

Pros

The people are great to work with for the most part
BMO is still hiring new grads from college (although the training is sub-par)

Cons

Outdated internal systems hinder productivity
Upper Management follows a "drink the kool-aid" mentality where they constantly promote all the great things the bank is doing while hard questions are never asked or answered and there is no feedback on the integration of systems.
The seamless integration of M&I is doubted by many BMO employees as the existing issues of the bank go unanswered.

Advice to Senior Management

Give employees the technological resources and systems to perform their jobs more efficiently