Deutsche Bank Reviews in City of London, England (UK)

Pros

Business: Strong European bank, more business thanks to balance sheet use.
Culture: Very open culture. People willing to help all the time. Was shown around by different people in the bank from many different teams. From analyst to senior management always found some time to talk to you, take you out for a lunch and chat, answer questions.
Social: Events were organised to meet other interns and also business representatives. Well organised and fun. Information provided before hand to allow to prepare.
Extra: HR is very helpful and well organised. Flexibility with important issues, tries to accommodate different needs. Catering is wonderful compared to other places, as is location, in a large building in the City of London.

Cons

Possibly a smaller, younger investment bank. Less brand name in the investment banking industry, although it is one of the largest and well-known universal banks.

Pros

- It can vary but hours are usually fair
- Has still performed well despite the financial crisis
- Decent benefits
- There are some very capable people in the Org.
- Attempts to embrace new ideas

Cons

- Hugely bureaucratic and complex organization to navigate,
- Ineffective processes
- A unpractical IT organization with too many layers
- Far too many Program Managers not nearly enough people who do!
- Outsourcing gone mad!

Advice to Senior Management

Drill down into some of the detail so you can make more informed decisions, don't blindly go down the outsourcing route ... how about your IP. Quality is suffering.

If you want to save money look at the amount of time, employees are spending following impractical process. Surprise yourself!

Pros

Benefits package
CSR
Name
Internal job mobility is promoted
Global presence, opportunities available to work in most key deutsche bank hubs

Cons

Poor senior management - Severe lack of direction, some are promoted not on merit but on who they know.

Worryingly, there are some senior managers, especially in technology who are protected by senior MD's. This "allows" them to behave in any manner they wish, resulting in a bullying culture and some very talented people leaving the bank.

Difficult Promotion process - Although in technology there is a more structured promotion process, the management in charge are not always the right people to make the right decisions. Promotions should be based on meritocracy and the persons ability to work at that level. I agree that a SME that struggles to work with others is a difficult candidate to promote and justifiaby needs to improve this aspect if they are to be promoted.
There are many examples of employees who get promoted based on length of service, surely something any tier 1 investment bank should not do if they are to remain competitive.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to your employess.
Look after your talent before they leave.
Stop protecting senior\middle management that are obviously not fit for the roles they do

Pros

Excellent benefits, friendly workforce, opportunity to work with a variety of people on many different projects, largely due to their outsourcing strategy. Met some really likeable people here.

Cons

Very very very poor management. They're trying to reorganise the technology division but are just making it worse. Too much management, too many layers. In fact, it often seems that the place is full of managers. Everybody is trying to become AVP, or VP, or Director, or Managing Director, most of the time without merit. People are promoted for the wrong reasons - for length of service and friendships rather than deliverables - definitely NOT a meritocracy. People are more focussed on promotion and building their own mini-empire rather than delivering well.

They also outsource a lot, and accept work done at a sub-standard level. Most of the management do not understand technology and do not have a handle on quality of work and timelines. They waste a lot of money on this. Most of the technology staff are sub-standard external consultants. This leads to poor results.

People are also free to choose whatever technology they want to get the job done. There are very few standards. The people at the top of the technology division need to ask themselves what they are doing and why such basics standards are not in place.

They need qualified people brought in to change things. People with guts to get rid of the mis-firing management, and greater focus to bring in talented developers who will hold the knowledge long after a project has been delivered.

I cannot stress enough how frustrating it is to see layer after layer of middle management. I do not understand why all the MDs, Directors and VPs are needed, and moreso, what they actually do. Don't get me wrong, there are some very bright people here at all levels, but they are diluted by really poor employees.

They struggle to keep their best staff for many reasons, and tend to hang on to the people who are performing poorly. They should look into why this is if they really want to change technology at the bank.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop promoting your friends, stop all the horse trading that goes on when deciding promotions. Promote only on merit.

Have a flatter structure. Hire better managers. Don't be afraid to sack people who are not performing. Offer training to those you want to keep so that they can actually do the job at hand.

Reward those that do well, and focus on keeping them at the bank. The attrition figures for the high performers are attrocious for a leading bank.

Pros

The name is the only good thing

Cons

Training and development. Compensation. Mangement ethos.

Pros

Pride in working at such a prestigious firm, great facilities, excellent accommodations

Cons

Easily can get lost in the crowd, sometimes great talent goes unnoticed

Advice to Senior Management

Strong knowledge of what motivates individuals always helps with decision making

Pros

Good financial courses. Good initiatives!

Cons

Bad management!! - Don't follow he bank's initiatives.

Advice to Senior Management

Follow the bank's initiatives! - Stop wasting so much money !!!

Pros

Teamwork and within and accross teams is effective and productive with little no politics getting in the way, very much a one bank, one team attitude.

Senior management appear to have recognised how under invested IT has been for some time and are making many of the right sort of changes to process and people management. There are lots of signs of improvement but it's slow and painful.

Cons

Lots of carryover from the silos of old where IT would be highly aligned with the business group they cover and not at all with the wider IT direction if one could be said to exist. Though this is changing it's a big culture shift.

Base salaries tend to be lower than competing banks. Very difficult to be promoted internally - many people appear to leave to take more senior positions outside of the firm.

Advice to Senior Management

Stay the course of the recent reorganisation initiative but minimise further churn until it beds down properly. Seek to retain your better people who are feeling extremely undervalued at the moment.

Pros

global community with large scope for internal movement. Strong European roots

Cons

unequal standards in promotions. Rewarding facilitators rather than achievers

Advice to Senior Management

more national diversity in regional huns to level the playing field

Pros

Very professional, inspires growth and development, motivates personal growth, inspirational leaders, tools to excel are easily located. Self starter culture no hand holding which is good as it pushes you to drive yourself further. Amazing experience would love to return one day.

Cons

If you are a temp you can only stay for maximum of 45 weeks until you have to be made perm or leave. Extensive screening - dig very deep and fill every single week gap you may have (took about 2weeks)

Advice to Senior Management

Invest and seek out more younger candidates who have potential and hinger to grow, nurture and support the development and they will soon blossom into strong minded, smart young professionals with the right guidance and support