CIBC Reviews in Toronto, ON Area

Pros

Excellent programs for personal and career development
A lot of time is put into new employees (very welcoming, adequate training etc.)
Really value and actively practice teamwork

Cons

Highly Political
Makes numerous mistakes on employee's payroll (Be careful!)
No one takes accountability of their actions. It is always someone else fault.
Very little transparency into management decisions
No correlation between your performance evaluation on paper and how you are treated or who gets promoted etc.

Advice to Senior Management

Upper management need to work on living up to the rest of the company values of trust and accountability. They need to put more weight into facts when making decisions.

Pros

Great employee benefits - free banking and reduced employee mortgage rates
They offer training courses, pay for PMP and courses

Cons

Like most financial institutions, lots of bureaucracy
Takes long to get things done
They give you a blackberry but with no voice?! They request that you pay for it.
Quite a handful of long time employees - 20-30 years of employment who have worked through the ranks.

Advice to Senior Management

Your salaries are not up to par with the outside market. You are losing valuable resources who perform terrific jobs and are heading elsewhere. Look into this!

Pros

A lot of chances for growth
Chances for promotions
safe environment to work.

Cons

salary based is not enough

Advice to Senior Management

leadership gives values employees, making employees feel valued

Pros

Great benefits and room to expand your career. CIBC is located all across Canada and is very accomodating if you wish to move.

Cons

It is high pressure and sales oriented. You are in an office setting all day and do not have the opportunity to get out of the office often.

Advice to Senior Management

Empower the employees and allow them to make more decisions at a branch level. We are asked to track almost everything we do, which takes time.

Pros

Lots of opportunities for movement inside the company and management is very supportive of career and educational development, including tuition assistance, etc.

Cons

A little bureauratic at times.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep up the good work.

Pros

The place is a chaos which on the bright side allows you to learn a lot on the job regarding both risk management and navigating a huge bureaucracy.

Cons

As soon as someone leaves the job they're replacement is hired at a higher job level. External hires are given higher job levels and current employees are kept in the dark regarding opportunities and management decisions

Advice to Senior Management

consult your front line employees before making decisions. These are the people who understand issues that are facing the business. Stop treating your employees as expendable assets, especially in knowledge intensive areas. AND stop giving excuses why you can't promote people then turn around and hire at a higher job level as soon as they leave. Be honest with your employees.

Pros

Good people; There are plenty of opportunities to learn and master the details of a specific project, paid professional courses. The work environment is fairly laid back.

Cons

Difficult to be involved in projects outside of your group. Growth opportunities within a specific group are limited (implying that one has to eventually move). Compensation below the industry standard for comparable positions.

Advice to Senior Management

People in a particular group must have opportunities to grow

Pros

Interesting technology projects
Varied team members
Good working relationship with business partners
Excellent funding for projects
Supportive senior management and executives

Cons

Stifling politics
Decisions take too long before they are made
Strategic decisions are too timid
Hard to move up within group, may have to move out before moving back in on a higher scale
Salary and benefits below industry norms

Advice to Senior Management

Ensure that strong resources are promoted within, reduce misalignment among all executives, turf wars are killing employee morale, allocate funds for training

Pros

- good pay
- generally have good people to work with, though this depends a lot on which group and the management style
- benefits are on par with other big banks in Canada

Cons

- lots of politics in the technology division between managers
- generally poor morale
- senior leadership doesn't properly communicate or explain many decisions, especially as some of those decisions seem to take the organization in circles
- lack of 360 feedback means there are many poor people leaders in mid to senior level roles (director or senior director)

Advice to Senior Management

Specifically for Technology:
- get a unified vision/strategy and stick with it for more than 2 years
- work with business so that the understanding that technology is a partner is driven through all levels of the business side (maybe vps recognize this, but most directors and below don't)
- Identify ways to boost organizational morale. Right now, many areas seem quite disfunctional in their group dynamics.

Pros

Alternate work arrangements, colleagues (while they last), occasional opportunity to do interesting work aligned with corporate mandates.

Cons

Senior Team are risk adverse. This boat is going to sink. Move them on...

Advice to Senior Management

find another boat to turn around -- and learn when to hand it over to the right people to get it to the destination.