Citizens Financial Group Reviews

Pros

The benefits are fantastic and you are given 18 days of paid vacation starting your first full year. If you are working at a traditional branch as opposed to an in-store branch (inside of giant eagle's), you get nearly every holiday off.

Cons

There is a baseline each quarter in sales you have to reach before you start earning bonuses on your accounts and loans opened. The baseline is way too high and really hard to reach.

Advice to Senior Management

Have a more realistic baseline for employees to reach and you won't have such a high number of turnover. Also, cut down on the micro-managing with all of the manager meetings where you rip them apart for not reaching the goals for the store when they are too far out of reach to begin with.

Pros

Good benefits (tuition reimbursement up to $5,000 for undergrad, $8,000 grad), flexible schedule

Cons

Hard to get into corporate side from the retail banking side, very low pay compared to other banks for same job, lots of micromanaging, conference calls, and very pushy on sales. Customer service is "promoted" but not really

Advice to Senior Management

Offer better salaries, and focus more on the customer, not on yourselves

Pros

Great 401k, pension, vacation time compared to other banks. Good people, fairly laid back. Tough bonus structure.

Cons

Hard to hit big bonuses if slow store.

Pros

There are a lot of things I enjoy my place of work. There are a ton of great people. The atmosphere in the office is largely relaxed- it is certainly many steps removed from the chaos of a trading desk, for instance. All of these things make coming into work something that I enjoy.

Cons

Constant change- as well as a RIDICULOUS amount of grey area that one must presume is a result of management not wanting to step on THEIR management's toes- these have been my biggest gripes. Lack of guidance and support from senior management is a big missing piece for me. If they engaged us, the employees, they would see SUCH a better return on employee engagement. With the resources and might of a company this size (CFG is a subsidiary of the behemoth Royal Bank of Scotland), things could be run so much smoother.

Advice to Senior Management

Engage, engage, engage. Morale matters most.

Pros

Great bank to gain entry level experience

Cons

Very little opportunity for advancement

Advice to Senior Management

Greater focus on colleague career development

Pros

Work life balance is excellent
Sales goals are fairly reasonable
time off is good
If you are someone who is looking for a job and go home it may be for you.

Cons

Benefits continually getting worse
Never promotes from within
If you get promoted, you will get paid far less for the same position as someone coming from outside the bank
Does not care about keeping its best employees, very high turnover

Pros

Good benefits (health, maternity, etc)
Lots of vacation
Active market participant

Cons

Technology investment is minimal
Compensation does not reward outperformers
Management has little decision making powers

Pros

People are intelligent, friendly, and community support is tremendous

Cons

Upper Management is focused on advancing their own careers instead of doing what's right for the customers, the stockholders, and the employees.

Advice to Senior Management

Don't lose sight of your customers and employees. They are your greatest assets.

Pros

Bank holidays and generous vacation. Location (depending on where you live). Fairly flexible work hours.

Cons

Favoritism was rampant. The only way to get promoted is if you were a favorite of a senior manager. All promotions were not created equally - different criteria is used depending on who you are.

Advice to Senior Management

Value employees contributions for what they are and not based on who they are made from.

Pros

Pays well for a bank teller. There is decent growth opportunity within the company but the pay is not worth the hassle to pursue.

Cons

They push sales way to hard for checking accounts which usually get closed quickly because you are forced to give them to individuals who overdraw too much.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop focusing on checking accounts and think of ways to bring in more loans and customers for the FCs if you want to be profitable.