Brown Brothers Harriman Reviews

Pros

Great place to learn about Finance.

Cons

Career options are limited to department

Pros

Good benefits, good working environment, great people.

Cons

difficult to change departments within the firm

Advice to Senior Management

enhance internal mobility across the firm

Pros

It is a good name on your cv, you can get an exposure to variety of clients, it may be a step stone for your career if you get job in key department, where a niche knowledge is needed. Salary and work life balance is fair in most of business units. Simplistic way of doing things is a good idea, but it is put into practice with a wrong meaning.

Cons

Company rests on its good reputation which is recently being lost thorugh total lack of oversight and leadership. Staff turnover is astronomical especially with temps, employee performance reviews are not efficient - annual ratings, promotions depend on "peer assesment" and "who you know" in the company than on the real job and skills employees are performing day to day. A lot of competent employees are not appreciated for their potential and commitment and are trapped with their career prospects so it is not a place for ambitious and skilled individual. In the same time company underline its interest in talent acquisition and talent management. Many line managers/supervisors lack of leadership and management skills and do not understand the true meaning of partnership if it comes to their relations with employees. You will be surprised with lack of professional knowledge of managers/frontline supervisors in their related field of profession, and you will be wondering how come this person got promoted to that level.You can end up working for Peter Principle who is also greedy to take a credit for his/her employees work done. Isn't it scary that incompetent person can decide about performance of highly skilled employee? Dirty office politics in business units is a part of day to day business practice and has nothing to do with the "unique culture" of partnership and "open door policy".
There is a lot of micromanagement of single business units, with lack of cooperation between them, a huge gap between senior and mid level management. Many business units have no business strategy and lack of direction.

Advice to Senior Management

Remember that employees and their talents make the company and business practiceand are company's best asset. Review how you evaluate employees and what do you mean by partnership and talent management. Improve morale in departments and communicate more efficient.

Pros

- Hiring
- Easy work
- Low expectations
- Job security
- resume builder
- work/home life balance
- work day freedom

Cons

After working at BBH for over a year it is evident that the company has lost sight of its positive qualities which allowed it to prosper in the past. Employee moral is on a steady decline due to managements clear lack of respect for their team. Poor performing employees are not reprimanded and passed from team to team. Client service is falling steadily as the bank will not admit to the grandiose failure the India outsource project is and continues to accept sub par accuracy on their behalf. Majority of managers are not suited to lead. I have found that most may be knowledgable in accurately completing team responsibilities, their ability to manage is non-existing. New employees are treated with a disposable attitude. To cope with high turnover, new and even temporary employees train their own replacements taking the burden off management. Everyone is miserable except for managers at associate level and up. It's too bad that the company is spiraling down as fast as it is as there is a large motivated talent pool waiting for the chance to lead the company prosperously into the future.

Advice to Senior Management

Practice what you preach. From day one employees are relentlessly reminded of the high level of client service expected from them. Brown Brothers claims to offer better service at a higher price but that is a quality of the past which is diminishing fast. You can only skate by on past reputation for so long. Show more appreciation for all levels of employees as they are and should be the future of the company. Admit defeat on the India outsource project as this is one of the main causes of onshore fatigue, turnover, and poor dedication to company mission. Be honest as to job reviews and company direction. Offer opportunities for advancement to those deserving and prove to the new staff that there is a place for them long term if proven success is displayed

Pros

Old company, job security to those who actually do what they are paid to do. You can be exposed to a lot of different clients that you don't get elsewhere. Ease of international movement and departmental movements.

Cons

Old school management that have lost sight of employee retention and satisfaction. Forgot who helps to deliver the excellent service. To avoid cost, does what everyone else is doing, outsource. However there is lack of oversight/management/accountability of outsourced vendor. Morale of employees are down, way down. Most groups have complete lack of recognition to their employees of a job well done. But a lot of screaming when things hit the fan. Almost the only people are happy are the uppper management. Not the average employee or the front line supervisors. They don't even get a thank you.

Advice to Senior Management

Review your employee morale. They help make BBH the way they are today. Without them, your reputation is at stake. There is a ticking time bomb of disaster waiting to happen. It just need to be that one event, and all the good reputation and goodwill accumlated over the years will be gone. Need to monitor whom you are promoting or whomever is currently in their role. There may be a lot of people in a management position that should not be there. Are they competent in what they do and do they really deserve to be in that role? A lot of people are unhappy because they do ask that question. How did that person end up in that role when there is no evidence that he/she deserve to be there aside from being friendly with another upper manager?

Pros

Salary is great. The oldest investment bank on Wall street. People are highly motivated and extremely smart.

Cons

Management can be stingy, everything needs their approval. Hours are way to long -- my group works round the clock and weekend. Wish the medical benefits were better.

Pros

Some of the entry level individuals are worth working with. Also, BBH is a nice employer to have on your resume. Those are the only positives I can possibly come up with.

Cons

I expected that a company with the history and tradition of BBH would be an excellent employer; sadly, the opposite holds true, as BBH uses that position to take advantage of recent college grads.

The employment practices at BBH can best be described as being deceptive and miserly. Interviewing for a supposedly permanent position can suddenly lead to one being offered a temp role, with the understanding being that one will be offered a permanent position after 3 months if they work hard enough. Unfortunately, this isn't the case, as temps are normally strung along for twice that period of time, with BBH never having any intention of offering a permanent position. The turnover rate is astronomical, as BBH rolls through wave after wave of temps as part of its carefully crafted strategy to avoid paying benefits, while at the same time deceitfully promising those temps that a full time offer is imminent.

A word to the wise - don't allow yourself to be taken in by BBH's false promises and slick rhetoric. A job a BBH should only be wearily approached as a quick stepping stone into the industry.

Advice to Senior Management

Recent college grads should be looked at as the future of the company, and shouldn't be misled and used in a myopic attempt to reduce short-term costs. That practice is incredibly short sighted, and will only harm BBH in the long run. A company whose success is predicated upon its sterling reputation would be foolish to squander that political capital in its pursuit of short term gains.

Pros

For a nearly 200 year old company to have had no lay-offs - that is simply incredible. YOu definitely have job security here - as long as you do your job well. Remember, no lay-offs does NOT mean you can be incompetent!

Cons

Unless you like it, the work here is boring. The partnership culture leads to a large amount of sycophancy. Merits are recognised - but so are many people that have minimal merits! Makes you wonder if a slightly weaker person has what it takes to succeed here.

Advice to Senior Management

Hire some technically proficient people if you wish to get your software running right. And keep encouraging people to be independent and bring out flaws. After all, it is better to have the flaws discovered internally rather than have it cause a client-impacting outage.

Pros

-Decent Pay
-Good work environment
-Managers are approachable
-Ability to learn from the various departments

Cons

-Some of the work was monotonous.
-During busy season there are a lot of late days

Advice to Senior Management

Keep up the good work.

Pros

allow high level of responsibilty to employees up to a point.
safe place to work (never had layoffs)
allow good work life balance
partners are very accesible
fairly open and transparent place

Cons

very conservative in terms of culture and business practices
tough for outsiders to get in and get promoted to highest levels
for many of the senior peoples it is their only job
not the highest paying place
company kind of rests on its laurels and good name

Advice to Senior Management

should focus on running good business rather than looking good to partners. should loosen up the genteel old boys network feel and join the 21st centure