Nationwide Financial – “Nationwide - All about the money....for the higher ups”

Pros

+Immediate co-workers are, for the most part, great.
+Decent facilities at the home office, for many things needed during your daily activities.
+They give you a paycheck.

Cons

-Poor management at all levels.
-Promotions are based on everything but performance and ability.
-Cronyism runs rampant.
-Pay scales are a joke.
-The leadership does not care about the people that actually get the job done.
-Advanced degrees are used against you for promotions.
-Work/life balance is only achieved if you have 0% life and 100% work.
-You rarely have the tools needed to do your job.
-Offering opinions for positive changes immediately gets you labeled as a troublemaker.
-Everything is political.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop promoting morons to management positions. If everyone on a team files complaints on a "manager" and the performance of this so-called manager is lacking, remove them from management. Do not let them carry on for years and then give them promotions. Beyond that, when a manager is identified as a problem and they are removed from their jobs, do not let them fill out performance reviews for the people who filed complaints against them.

If someone has a long background in an area and could be considered a subject matter expert, stop ignoring their input. I have been in meeting after meeting where a former sales person has demanded changes to application and business rules. These changes directly conflict with guidelines, rules, and regulations, but management always allows them. Several months later, there is always a mad scramble to fix the mistakes made. In fact, if a person has zero technical knowledge and/or background, please stop letting them be in charge of technical teams. Instead, promote someone with years and years of management and technical knowledge to lead the team. The results will be better.