Bank of America Reviews in Providence, RI Area

Pros

Work flexibility and the ability to work non conventional hours

Cons

you can never do enough

Advice to Senior Management

think

Pros

Positive, upbeat and caring associates.

Cons

Instead of team leaders confronting the associate with issues or concerns about employees, they run to senior manangement. It is a "He said She said enviornment" So good luck defending yourself.

Advice to Senior Management

Meet with individuals (associates) more often as their feedback is as important as the team leaders or managers. Take feedback constructively.

Pros

Company provides paid training for new hires and ongoing training to keep up with system, policy, and procedure changes. Great to find suitable shift, company allows for split-shifts, offers 4 day work weeks. Easy to get flex time approved. Overall friendly work environment on the surface.

Cons

Salary is mediocre and single income household cannot make ends meet unless working loads overtime and with lucky circumstances earns some performance-based monthly incentive. Company constantly modifies incentive system to avoid payouts. Company adds constantly more tasks to job responsibilities without employees receiving added compensation. While employees are treated okay for first few years -- more seasoned employees will be disrespectfully "discarded" just before they reach eligibility of added week of vacation and other senior benefits. Raises and monthly incentives are strictly performance-based and company sets unattainable performance goals to avoid payouts. The monthly incentive system supposedly makes up for low hourly pay rates, however company policies are designed to make it fairly impossible for employees to get incentives. The health insurance plan without any optional provider choices is absolutely insufficient, dissatisfying, and useless This job will not make ends meet for a single income household. Company creates their own employee turnover by firing seasoned full-time employees and at the same time continuously posts numerous job offers for entry level positions.

Advice to Senior Management

Middle management seemed to carry out what upper management demands. Upper Management is far detached from front-line employees while there is a lot of pretending that front-line employees are most recognized assets and without them company could not exist.
Middle management nor upper management has any concern though if an employee can exist without working non-stop overtime to make ends meet. Management at both levels should adjust employee treatment, provide a working health insurance instead of a farce, and most of all be realistic about needed income levels in those states where the company resides with large sites with hundreds of employees. It requires a lot of positive action to turn the overall very negative publicity in the media around. Treating employees better would be a start.

Pros

~ Compensation was relatively competitive for its line of work (customer service in a call center environment).
~ Assuming management was fair or receptive, there were a number of creative and interesting ways that employees could be recognized such as cash incentives or gifts (ie, gift card for retailers, Bank of America merchandise, etc). I received a $50 Macy's gift card simply for keeping my stats in the top 3 during a chaotic period for the company.
~ Emphasis was generally on quality and customer values as opposed to unrealistic sales pitches or cross products.
~ Plenty of opportunities for VTO (voluntary time off/unpaid) based on call volume and each rep's individual schedule.
~ Building/site was relatively new & therefore clean, organized with an outside area for smoking and relaxation plus tons of parking and on a frequent bus route.
~ Relaxed dress code: jeans permitted.
~ Raises were relatively frequent & based on performance: for the short time I worked for the company, I received several raises.

Cons

~ One of the biggest issues I found within the East Providence site itself, was a serious lack of consistency among floor managers, site managers and the general/lead manager. This led to dozens of issues including various interpretations of banking laws and regulations: one manager would basically enforce it as "A" while your own would enforce it as "B" causing major impacts on quality as well as producing very confused customers.

~Aside from specific incidences regarding banking laws, this also caused major issues among teams on the floor. My manager, specifically, interpreted each site rule per verbatim: ie, no pens or paper, no food, no decorations, no personal items, etc while the manager sitting five feet across, couldn't care less. While this may seem trivial, our small team would sit in blank cubicles, no holiday decor, etc while the folks immediately in back of us, were decked out with holiday lights, magazines, treats and so forth. Yes, we are certainly there to work but considering the nature of the job (non-stop calls), any small activity or perk makes a huge difference in our day. This was depressing to say the least.

~ No assigned seating or desks. Placement was a free for all and those of us working later in the day usually found ourselves sitting alone and away from our teams.

~ Ridiculous rules. Overall, each day seemed more like an adult day care than a financial institution. The East Providence call center specifically, had a "paperless" policy meaning no pens, no paper, magazines, etc were allowed on the floor. Again, considering the lack of consistency among management and the monotonous tendencies of the job, this made working ever so much more difficult to focus on. Employee satisfaction can make a huge difference in the quality of one's work & I suspect the ridiculous turn over of employees is possibly related to this.

~ Very strict attendance, PTO and sick day policies. Regardless of the reason why, all PTO (vacation) & sick time needed to be approved well in advance. As opposed to scheduling things based on your site or team, this was based on the company as a whole making time off for doctor's appointments, family emergencies or general illnesses, close to impossible. Typically the only options would be to call out, receive an occurrence or use VTO if available (unpaid). Unlike many of the other companies I've worked for, they also had an extreme no tolerance policy on weather related absences. During the Warwick floods or the serious blizzards we experienced back in 2009/2010, we were expected to be there and if not, were automatically given an occurrence. Sadly, again, due to inconsistencies among managers, some were given less of a reprimand than others for the same instances. Additionally, this created an endless cycle of very ill employees reporting to work: on more than one occasion people on my team would come in with stomach viruses, vomit in their waste baskets and stay for the remainder of their shift infecting everyone around them (again, no assigned seating). Once on a warning, the employee would forfeit their incentive bonuses and any hope to apply to other departments regardless of their stats.

~ The customer survey system was greatly flawed. Although in my particular case, I was consistently among the top of my peers, every so often I'd receive a customer e-mail survey that clearly was not for me (ie, a call I transferred to another department, customer was not satisfied with the second individual they spoke to and would fill out the survey for that person instead of the CSR). Even in situations where the survey was very obviously not for the employee (ie, customer referring to the opposite gender, specifically stating the call was regarding a mortgage or something we do not handle as well as other very obvious identifiers), managers would refuse to remove any survey score unless the customer identified the rep by his or her name. Which never happened. Sadly this very small incident could be the difference between the much needed bonus or nothing at all.

~ Scheduling was completely outsourced quite frankly, to India. If your shift started at 7:50am and you needed to call out, this would create an issue: they weren't open until 8am and you're required to call out at least an hour in advance. Due to the serious language boundary, there were also major issues where employees would call to find out if a shift change was approved or to call out only to be given incorrect information. (I winded up receiving a warning at one point due to what appeared to be a "no call, no show." I had called out, followed procedure only to later, be told I had not called. The calls are not recorded.)

Advice to Senior Management

Management very seriously needs to work on the same level amongst each other and keep things consistent for both employees and customers alike. Frivolous rules need to be done away with for greater employee satisfaction. Scheduling needs to be US or computer based: there was way too much room for human error causing a lot of stress and headaches for fellow teammates. At the very least, there should be a system to simply check your schedule changes online from home.

Pros

I worked for BOA for over 4 years. I loved their technology and any positive changes that helped their customers better managed their accounts. I loved the idea that I can submit a feedback on the "watercooler", and changes are made as a result. The best part of working for Bank of America was my teammates. I miss them all. While I was there, I was going to school full-time, and they were very flexible with my school schedule.

Cons

The 2 reasons why I left Bank of America is because, first, after I completed my degree in Economics, I wanted to advanced within the Bank, but I was not successful. I was told I did not meet the experience requirements (I got the same job with a competitor that was willing to train me). Second, Bank of America pays very low. I was hired at $11.75. I left making $12.85. Today, I make twice that much with their competitor. I never complained because I thought it was a company I could retire with. I came to realize, Bank of America does not really practice its values. They are only on paper.

Advice to Senior Management

Once the company is stable again, please try and retain your best associates. Also, provide compensation that is competitive to your competitors.

Pros

Good comparable insurance. Good perks.

Cons

As with most companies, very low pay
very little opportunity
the bank doesn't hold true to its values

Advice to Senior Management

When you create a job listing and you pass it on to recruiters, make sure the listing is very specific to what you want. I've been with the bank almost 4 years and so many times i've applied for other positions where i meet all qualifications and then i receive an email saying i don't meet the qualifications. One listing was a simple as bachelors degree required( which i have, in the related field) and then i received an email saying my qualifications don't match. For those of you that may be reading this, please believe that I am not exaggerating.

Pros

Close to home, free coffee, free water in bubbler, extensive internal website with lots of well crafted propaganda.

Cons

Large numbers of upper management still in high paying positions even though they were integral part of Countrywide Financial acquisition.

Advice to Senior Management

Its time to "man" up, admit the Countrywide Acquisition was a mistake, fire all those who contributed to, profited from, and approved of it.

Pros

Your peers were good people

Cons

Management played favoritism towards who was the 'In Crowd"

Advice to Senior Management

Hire at least enough people to do the job and give a decent raise

Pros

Vast number of opportunities for professional growth; management is very supportive in helping you achieve your career goals; corporate culture is concentrated on teamwork rather than a top-down management approach; work-life balance is encouraged;

Cons

Such a large organization that communication between departments gets lost; hard to distinguish yourself among such strong peers; salary is competitive but still on the lower side;

Pros

good benefits, good pay, friendly enviroment. my team is more like a family and I find that to be very comforting.

Cons

I wish I knew where my manager was more often... oh that's right he's in a meeting. metrics are set too high for realistic payouts.

Advice to Senior Management

very difficult to meet in all areas of metrics when they basically contradict themselves. We need to do right by the customer but we get told we need to transfer customers but get points taken off. We get penalized when we are on the phone too long even though we are helping the customer.