Barclays Global Investors Reviews

Pros

Great people to work with. Collaborative environment. Work with the brightest in the industry. Cutting edge innovation.

Cons

Work / life balance is difficult to manage. Lack of clear career progression. You make your own path at BGI, primarily via networking.

Advice to Senior Management

n/a

Pros

Comp is good. It's a consensus organization with a huge weight put on who you know, but the people are all very helpful and open to questions or those seeking advice. There is good work-life balance.

Cons

There is little in the way of career support but the environment does encourage "self-starters" to move up within the organization. The lack of employee ownership options for many below the Managing Director level is a severe limitation.

Advice to Senior Management

The HR function needs a complete overhaul, and emphasis put on communication across the firm (that is not patronizing) needs to increase markedly.
Make employee ownership part of everyone's incentive. All should share in the growth and success of the firm.

Pros

Great pay and benefits. Reasonable work/reward balance. Good live-work balance if you want that.

Cons

Lots of silos, cowboys rewarded as opposed to structured leadership.

Advice to Senior Management

Set a strategy, stick to it and execute on it.

Pros

Opportunities to gain a lot of knowledge related to the business of asset management.
Good pay and good benefits. Lot of talented people.

Cons

As with all companies there are a lot of incompetent people in senior management. How they got there is a mystery, and is perhaps attributable to the tremendous growth the firm had between 2005 and 2008.

Advice to Senior Management

Conduct a thorough review of all the senior management - especially on the IT side. Some are totally unfit for the jobs they are in.

Pros

You will never get board

Cons

Poor leadership
US centric
Consensus decision making
Lack of trust
The DHL club
Over worked in London to cater for US normal working hours
Wrong people in the wrong jobs

Advice to Senior Management

Choose the right managers for the right roles
Lose the DHL club
Lose Singapore
Look after people
Make sure bonuses are paid this year to compensate for the our efforts

Pros

Smart and professional people around for the most part. Above average comp.

Cons

Top and middle heavy. Growth opportunities have become scarce.

Advice to Senior Management

Have a thorough assessment from top to bottom, to identify the individuals with the approporate capabilities in the constantly evolving business.

Pros

Too much expectations, no processes, pays good, lot of variations. All on your toes...
Work life balance is on in papers and policies

Cons

Management does not compare about the employees. Blind hiring, no future of employees in IT.
No scopre for career advancement

Advice to Senior Management

Improve the policies. Don't hire people blindly. Improve recoginistion process. Only vertical hierarchy, Sr. Mgt is not concerned about anything.

Pros

Good colleagues to work with.

Cons

If you consider yourself to be a good software developer, heed this warning: avoid BGI like the plague. BGI has major problems recruiting good software engineers, but it's track record of keeping them is far worse. In many parts of BGI - although not all - there is no difference between what a support engineer does and what a software engineer does. Work does not follow any sort of process and is not project based, and you would be lucky if you had a project manager, and even luckier if you have any BA or QA resources. Considering the amount of money this company manages on behalf of clients, this lack of quality assurance is disrespectful to clients at best or criminal at worst.

I used to call that random, unmanaged way of developing software "the bad old days", but trust me, it's carrying on live and well at BGI!

There is also an ethic of cutting corners in IT wherever possible, even if it means that quality will be lower or costs higher in the long run.

Advice to Senior Management

Sort out your IT, it's a disgrace

Pros

The people who actually get the work done - The Associates

Cons

Absolutely indifferent management - non communictive, unreasonable, and appallingly insensitive immediate and top management

Advice to Senior Management

When an employee goes to HR for clarifications or guidance on how to deal with a manager who is difficult, juvenile, and refuses to provide guidance do not blow that person off. Treat employees as if they are an invaluable asset - chances are, and corroborated both academically and practically, they are and will be.

Pros

Good place to get started in finance for 2-3 years, by putting a decent firm on your resume. After that move to better things.

Cons

Practically non-existing growth opportunities; non-inspiring, weak managers; dishonest leadership team.

Employees get stuck performing similar tasks for years with opportunity to be challenged other than being forced to take numerous financial certifications.

Associate to Principal, and Principal to MD promotion often takes several years of kissing a**.

Pay is not competitive, and the management tends to use the "carrot on the stick" as in "if you suck up early years, you will get paid a lot later".

Advice to Senior Management

Find another job.