Fannie Mae Reviews

Pros

Highly customer service oriented. Very knowledgeable recruiters.

Cons

Management could get recruiters bugged down with too much administrative work.

Advice to Senior Management

Try and catch your employee doing things right!

Pros

work life balance was good

Cons

very slow in getting things done

Advice to Senior Management

i dont have any feedback to the leadership

Pros

- Ample resources to learn more about the industry.
- Opportuinity for enrichment training for your current position.
- Opportunity to work at the pulse of the industry, gaining knowledge and expertise that no one else will have.
- Ample opportunity for lateral job changes to increase your skill set.

Cons

- Highly political. It's all about who you know.
- Decisions about people are based on perception and not fact. If someone is very vocal in a meeting and "appears" to be knowledgeable, they seem to get all of the recognition. However, the folks that talk less and work more are not respected as having knowledge of their jobs.
- Too many meetings and not enough action.

Advice to Senior Management

The leadership at Fannie Mae should take a closer look at the talent pool, as there needs to be more consideration for how to groom the staff below the management level to become managers. Consider leadership training for those who want it, or a rotation program to allow employees the opportunity to learn new parts of the business. Also, there should be leadership training for middle managers who want to become Directors. There is a vast amount of talent in this segment of the employee population that is possibly being missed. Would also encourage leadership to have zero tolerance for favoritism and office politics. Promotions should be based solely on merit and skill set. Employees should not have to contend with popularity as a basis for promotion.

Pros

Leaner and faster pace organization than the past, ability to get ideas into action

Cons

Low morale due to negative public impressions, constant government interference and lack of stability

Advice to Senior Management

Keep this ship together or it will disintegrate quickly

Pros

Good compensation 6%matching 401k +2%vested after 2 years

Cons

Not much of career advancement very hard to promote people and talent

Pros

Better overall compensation as compared to many firms in the area.

Cons

Reorgs every other week. We are bleeding with many regular rank and file employees leaving. Constant stream of layoffs and subtle threats of layoffs. Senior management paying themselves wall street bonuses on the backs of hardworking suffering American tax payer money. They feel the same level of entitlement and "we deserve that money" attitude like the wall-street bankers. Morale is so low that you can almost feel it in many meetings.

Tons of chaos internally as technology tries to re-architect itself to a new vision. New senior management recruits from places such as goldman sachs bring a wall-street brashness and who cares about you attitude that is so typical of wall-street but changing the internal culture by blaming everyone but themselves.

The sad thing is most Americans do not have a clue about how fannie and freddie work but love to spew poison at them. Without them most would never own a home and those who did would pay 12% interest rates. So when I hear them complain I feel - yes please close these firms and pay 12% interest rates. Don't complain after that.

Advice to Senior Management

Mgmt needs to stop trying to waste tax payers money and instead simply run the firm until the government figures out what to do with the firm.

Pros

somewhat flexible work environment, opportunities for professional advancement, immediate management is knowledgeable and caring, pay is reasonable, work load is average for the industry

Cons

No raise two years in a row, although management is awarded multi-million dollar bonuses. Somehow the employees are not seen by management as a justifiable expense to the Treasury, and in order to keep top talent you have to incent them to stay. If the employees are not allowed to have a raise two years in a row, at least implement some type of employee recognition program, or set up regular work from home scenarios. Something to offset the insult of not receiving a raise right before Christmas while the upper management takes home millions of dollars.

Advice to Senior Management

Don't send out an email the week before Christmas announcing that we will not get a raise for the second year in a row, after awarding yourself millions of dollars. The announcement about not receiving a raise was also announced a week before Christmas last year. Terrible timing and makes employees feel miserable. No one will stay working at this company if there is not some type of incentive to stay--too many opportunities elsewhere with the looming question of how long Fannie Mae will exist in its current state.

Pros

Work is consistently interesting and challenging
Collegial environment - I enjoyed the people with whom I worked
Pay and benefits were a bit better than average

Cons

The organization is in a instant state of downsizing and reconfiguring, sometimes seemingly without purpose
People are concerned about the future state of the organization and in particular their own positions
Confidence in the CEO could be higher

Advice to Senior Management

Make an occasional effort to connect with employees beyond the broader settings like all employee town hall meetings; employees recognize that you don't have much time, which would make it even more impactful. People have a hard time understanding the value proposition of staying with the company.

Pros

Vacation time is extensive, unlimited sick time, monthly time off to volunteer, terrific 401k plan, employee assisted housing funds, etc.

Depending on what group you're in, some managers and above are a lot of fun. They recognize hard work and reward performance.

Fannie encourages volunteerism - but the down side is they're CONSTANTLY asking for money for something they're raising funds for. WE DON'T HAVE ANY MONEY! We haven't gotten raises in two years.

Cons

Geez, where to start. No raises two years in a row while executives collect millions in salaries and bonuses. Horrible wasteful spending on travel and "negotiated" rates that are often much higher than every day rates.

We get a quarterly full color magazine - probably 100 pages. I don't read it, right in the trash. This should be electronic, very costly to print.

We also got technology mousepads. Another waste of money - how many of us didn't already have a mousepad.

Over Christmas we got a Fannie Mae Healthy living color calendar. Mine went from the mail to the trash. More wasteful spending. Take those 3 items and give me my cost of them in the form of a pay raise!!

Did we need poinsettias all over the offices? They just die - more wasteful spending. Yet we weren't allowed to do any company paid holiday lunches or parties. Hmmm..okay

Almost everyone is eligible for quarterly bonuses except the admins. Why? Do they not work as hard as the rest of the employees to help attain the company goals? Talk about treating people like bottom feeders. So demoralizing.

Good luck moving up in the company if you come in at an entry level position. Even the HR VP said it's almost impossible. There's little to no training either. Everyone's too busy with all the cuts to help you most of the time. Better be able to do it alone!

It's really become a downer to work here but we're stuck. The economy is so bad it's hard to go elsewhere so even with no raises again, we stay. Well most of us. The CEO just quit and took his multi million dollar salary and recently announced million dollar bonus and hit the road. NICE message to send to the rest of us peons.

A lot of VP's have left recently, I don't blame them. Now there's a moratoreum on spending - no lunches, dinners, meetings, events, etc. Just work, work, work no reward. Oh, and they raised the cost of our insurance so technically we are all working for less money than we have in 2 years. Ugh.

Advice to Senior Management

Why?? Nobody listens. Stop the wasteful spending on the items listed above. Give back your bonuses while you starve the rest of us - single parents, struggling to make ends meet while you live high on the hog.

We know you get graded on the percentage of employees that respond to the survey each year. Nice tactic pressuring us for weeks to respond and the day before the last day to respond, you announce no raises again. Too late for any of us to chime in. Well this year, I'm waiting til the last day to respond and awaiting the bad news first. People can't respond properly to that news.

Give us SOMETHING. Casual dress every day. Work from home a few days a week to compensate for the cost of living (gas) to commute and make up for something! Half days Friday once a month or something. People are being worked to death with zero reward. Why do we stay?? Oh wait, crappy economy. Watch the mass exodus though as this continues.

Raised the cost of insurance. Took away the healthy living day. No raises again. It's just become ridiculous to work here.

Goodbye Mike Williams and your $6 million salary - you don't struggle like the rest of us do you? You have no idea what it's like to be one of us and what a horrible message you all send out with your high salaries and bonuses and wasteful spending.

Pros

Stable- maybe? I would rather state that Fannie Mae is a more stable place to work than a year ago. There is an increase in transparency in the way that management communicates and depending on where you go and who you talk to people are beginning to exhale. Remember change is inevitable no matter where you work and as long as you are OK with that fact, then Fannie Mae is a good place to work.

Cons

Healthcare benefits, lack of cost benefit analysis on some decisions, impulsive decision making, pendulum-swinging regulation mentality