Barclays Capital Reviews in London, UK Area

Pros

There are some good people in one team or another

Cons

horrific system
management playing very nasty tricks when you want to leave

Pros

- money is good (basic salary)
- people are very nice
- responsibility is given to you

Cons

- life-work balance
- work long hours
- no gym membership benefits
- AXA health care not BUPA
- stock purchase plan limited to only 1,500 pounds per year (too little)

Advice to Senior Management

Talk to employees more.

Pros

Smart people, fast to change

Cons

Agressive deadlines, agressive staff who want to climb ladder and step on you on way up.

Advice to Senior Management

Treat staff well

Pros

Decent team.
Reasonably flexible.
Lots of work.

Cons

Unrealistic expectations with respect to deliverables.
Business disengaged.
No respect for quality criteria other than time to market.
Non technical management seem to do well rather than technical people.

Advice to Senior Management

Really try to understand the difference between the competence of your technical people. Everyone isn't the same. Start measuring the quality of what's delivered, rather than merely time to market.

Pros

Middle management generally understanding of employee's personal needs.

Cons

Collaboration between groups in the bank is very difficult to accomplish, and never possible in a timely manner.
IT infrastructure fragmented across groups.
Front office does not recognise the difficulties caused by the above.

Advice to Senior Management

Establish frequent regular liaison meetings between each group that shares IT infrastructure.
Switch to more open IT infrastructure to keep issues at system boundaries simpler.

Pros

Good for learning, development, promotions and career change. Good pay/benefits. Very good brand to work for and having the name on the cv will add value.

Cons

Lack of mobility, orientation program can be better and less boring. A typical new joiner might take upto weeks to know some very basic things.

Advice to Senior Management

Nothing as such, the bank has done relatively well post crisis but it will be interesting to see how they shape up in the next year or so.

Pros

Capability of Senior Management. Knowledge sharing.

Cons

Work life balance. Stressful at times.

Advice to Senior Management

Emphasis on work life balance

Pros

Compensation is around market average. If you like Canary Wharf, you're good. For those capable at networking and 'fitting in', the opportunity to advance is there. Strong presence in industry.

Cons

BarCap boasts one of the most sterile and politicized environments you will ever see in the investment banking industry (admittedly this will suit some candidates). Barcap is also a notorious revolving door. This is true to varying extents of the entire IB industry, but Barcap take it to extremes - fixed redundancy cycles run every two years or so (this is unofficial, of course), and if you're made redundant from BarCap make no mistake - it was not redundancy, you were 'not wanted'. The endless redundancy cycle is the company's way of safely removing those that "did not fit in" without fear of litigation. This 'unofficial' policy has led to Barcap having the largest internal HR presence in the London IB industry.

Nepotism abounds, and you will find silos of surprisingly incompetent permanent staff that survive solely due to patronage from above. Line manager's are 'encouraged' not to give negative appraisals in these cases; in general the performance management system is based less on merit than on 'who you know'. if you're an efficient and able networker, you may be able to go far. The flip side of this is that you don't want to disagree with anyone - because if you do, you can guarantee you'll be on the next redundancy list. This is not a company for you if you believe in speaking your mind.

Advice to Senior Management

Not a lot of point, but in the spirit of the question - be a little more open to new ideas, work on mitigating the sterile 'church of Scientology' atmosphere, and give people a chance to speak their mind, rather than looking solely for 'yes men'. The endemic nepotism doesn't help.

Pros

Good technology, fast moving and challenging. Well paid.

Cons

Stressful, competitive. Lack of management support. No training, little interest in career development. Long hours. Every man for himself. Not collaborative.

Advice to Senior Management

Sort out middle management. What happened to the 'no jerks' rule?

Pros

-Salary is at par with the industry standard.
-Perception is ok
-Not a bad name to have on the CV

Cons

- Very weak processes
- Middle/senior managers are rubbish , dont know how to manage.
- Politics,Politics and more Politics
- Team work is non existant
- Way projects are handled is amateurish
- Hire and Fire...people were let go after being onsite for 7-8 weeks only.
- Barcap's work culture will be evident soon after you join

Advice to Senior Management

Just get some proper managers first and listen to them.