CIBC Reviews in Vancouver, BC Area

Pros

good bank to work at, very good attitude. many competitions inside bank. compete makes better.

Cons

there is none so far. good place to work if u live close by. friendly people. good choice

Pros

Great challenges, always lots of interesting work

Cons

Very toronto centric approach to running the business

Advice to Senior Management

Out additional resources where needed - at the front line and eliminate the top heavy infrastructure in Toronto

Pros

Challenging work, great group of peers that you can learn from.

Cons

Snr Management is a challenge - no focus on how to grow the business, Product groups run the business

Advice to Senior Management

Product groups have a role to play but they should not be driving what the front line is doing from day to day. Its always about selling the latest or greatest instead of foucsing on meeting the needs of the clients

Pros

nice coworkers, family-oriented atmosphere. training is good. promoted within.

Cons

over-time without pay, working long hours to make sales calls, sacrifice of personal life
low salaries compared to other major banks. too much meetings talking about the same thing over and over again. Marketing strategies is average.

Advice to Senior Management

should come up with innovative products in the market, instead of changing just the minor details of a campaign and announce it as some totally new enhancement of a new marketing strategy. Raise compensation on all roles, as we work lots of overtime without pay. Incentives on meeting sales quotas is a joke, we do need want a set of movie tickets or just some aeromile points for working overtime and meet the numbers. We need extra cash.

Pros

Get your foot in the banking door. Then get out.
There are some great colleagues who have stayed in the company for 10+ years, some of the most dedicated people I've seen, some whom never taken a sick day for 20+ years. I think they get a chocolate bar at some point. Seriously.

CSC-PFP-CFP - then go make your $60 base as a Financial Advisor or leave for another bank. At a high enough tier most of your clients will leave you for a private wealth firm anyways due to the perceived lack of quality for the group.

Cons

Managers with no merits who take time off and still knocks you on your PMM upon their 3-4 week holiday return. Ha! As long as you have decent ties to SVP's of the area you're pretty much set. The amount of nepotism in the whole area is sickening. In certain districts unless you're wearing a skirt you won't get promoted past branch manager. Ask around! Terrible pay structure where new hires can potentially get paid significantly more than experienced staff who will have to end up training them! Sure that makes sense.

Advice to Senior Management

Look at RBC's leadership, BMO even, CIBC is anemic when it comes to changing for the better. Other bank's stock prices have gone up, whereas my employee shares are still underwater. Thanks alot!

Pros

It's easy to get your foot in the door with CIBC, either as teller earning $11/hr and with (depending on management level of lenience) unlimited sick days or from the plethora of administrative or call center roles available (as high as $17/hr with union in some cases). From there on, earn your designations as anyone would in this industry, CSC, CPH, and eventually CFP and you could be doing reasonable well without much progress until 7+ years into the roles.

Cons

Office politics and the way promotions are handled are areas of concern, especially in clusters of Vancouver where non-performing managers are "promoted" laterally without any significant merits (and in some cases have truly atrocious work performance and even attendance issues). It seems like certain senior management clusters worked together years before and have a tendency of hiring from within - repeat this over time and you have a very lax and unrewarding system to look forward to.

Add on time consuming personal feedback form that award seniority over actual dollar revenue generation and you have the resulting drop of CIBC from no2. to where it is sitting now

Advice to Senior Management

Senior Managements have mostly been fired by the Board of Director with the exception of good ol' Gerry, who also happens to sit on the Board. Perhaps a more thorough shuffle to management would do more good.

Shifting nameplates and titles is a redundant waste of millions of after-tax revenue and truly does not make employees feel like their efforts are going to the right places. Branch level management is another case-by-case issue - not to mention employee-banking offers are a laugh and it seems like employees often get worse offers on major items such as mortgage rates and such. Sorry, CIBC is a great stepping stone but not a career ender.

Pros

Advisor Bonus can compensate for base salary. Company Bonus is low.

Cons

Constant re-organization of company policies result in a disorganized [and confusing] work environment. Poor training but access to lots of information (i.e., can "train yourself"). Organizational structure results in situations where "the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing" resulting in valuable time wasted. Penny wise, pound foolish. Annual Salary increases do not match cost of inflation. Employee morale very very low due in part to lack of respect provided by management. Employee reviews do not seem to be related to quality of work, rather reviews tend to be subjective.

Advice to Senior Management

Incorporate philosophy of Integrity, Honestly, Fairness, & Flexibility with employees. Managers should offer guidance and support instead of deflecting and blaming employees.