Charles Schwab – “What's FERSTT?”

Pros

The stated company values are FERSTT: Fairness, Empathy, Respect, Striving, Teamwork, Trust. 4-week sabbatical leave every 5-years. You can ride the geographic strategy wave and cruise along if you are in Denver, Austin or Phoenix. 10% employee commission discount. Telecommuting. Public transportation to work if you are in San Francisco. Generous severance package if you are lucky enough to get laid-off. 15% discount for Employee Stock Purchase Plan (stock buys on February 1 and July 1 only).

Cons

Due to geographic strategy to leave San Francisco, there is bad morale eroding team & individual productivity. Employees undermine each other to make themselves look good to hang onto their jobs. Individual contributors and management alike abuse telecommuting policies. No one works on Fridays (branches may be the exception due to branch hours). Bad traffic & commute in Denver, Phoenix and Austin. If you are in Technology, expect long working hours to span San Francisco, Denver, Austin, Phoenix and India (offshore to Wipro, InfoSys and EDS Mphasis). Employee Stock Purchase Plan introduced this year only allows buying stocks on Feb 1 and July 1. No dollar cost averaging throughout the year. The 401K match only applies if you are employed on December 31. No 401K matching if you are fired, laid-off or forced to resign prior to December 31. The fattest end-of-year bonus payout is dragged out to mid-March.

Advice to Senior Management

Just give people their severance package. Don't use dirty tactics to force people out. Vice Presidents and above get their fat bonuses and one-year severance packages. Don't try to cheat your "underlings" out of their meager severance packages by forcing them to resign. Many managers are giving poor performance reviews, fabricating false reasons, providing no concrete reasons, playing god with their team's careers and livelihoods, ridiculing people at meetings, creating a hostile work environment to force people to leave.