Franklin Resources Reviews

Pros

Good benefits. Reasonable technology. It became tough to get upgrades over time. IT projects are very beaurocratic slow. Not as responsive as you would expect for a company heardquartered in silicon valley.

Cons

Poor managers are allowed to wreak havoc too long before changes are made.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep your eyes open rather than gloss over the surface. People want to do a good jobe but need some more support to do it well.

Pros

Stock Purchase, Medical, Work Life Balane

Cons

Low pay, Management needs to be better trained

Advice to Senior Management

Pay the money to train your managers better. Too many with poor people skills

Pros

Flexible schedule, travel, ease of communication with management. Pay is satisfactory. Scheduling jobs is easy and done on a monthly basis. THe better your performance the more work assigned. Simple, fair.

Cons

Work can be eratic mainly due to seasonal nature of retail business. Traveling can wear on employee. Some jobs assigned are actually farther outside of assigned region than managers realize.

Advice to Senior Management

The direction Franklin has taken in the last year is a good one. THose I know who are still employed with Franklin are quite pleased with the steps the company has taken both in training and reporting. The ability to communicate easily with supervisors and auditors is particularly commendable.

Pros

Pays tuition reimbursement. Good work experience. Good people

Cons

Not very many opportunities to advance within the company

Advice to Senior Management

A few of the managers have a tendency to micro manage which makes the work place miserable. Lighten up and offer more incentives and you will see a dramatic increase in employee morale.

Pros

some coworkers are very productive and positive. some are very bad and poor. some think they are the sky.

Cons

gossip and be friend with boss - typical work place
operating model leans to be outsourcing
- so costs down even if stocks go up; profit goes up but allocated unevenly to higher ups and employees w/ more sorority.

Advice to Senior Management

respect talented employee and pay them fairly
mandate employees to review professional achievements after 5 years working in the firm

Pros

The benefits were top notch as far as i was aware. They do a merit raise program unless it is a down year. some of the employees were very friendly.

Cons

Very biased view of the department from the management and supervisor. Some employees are given jobs that they can't handle, and moved around to avoid their layoff; while others have to ask for jobs to progress and do extra things and don't get any compensation or recognition. They don't give you any fore warning of a layoff coming.

Advice to Senior Management

make sure all employees are treated equal. Have management and supervisor training for new supervisors (my supervisor had at least one job function she had no training on and had to figure it out as she went.)

Pros

Access to resources is great
For the most part, its a very collegial environment
Not a high stress environment - the markets are stressful enough!

Cons

Limited feedback on employee performance
Weak day to day employee management
Not a very dynamic environment
a bit too laid back at times

Advice to Senior Management

Focus more on employee feedback
Encourage more interaction between the various groups at Franklin. There's tons of intellectual capital and little sharing across teams

Pros

They have very good benefits. The full-time work week is 37.5 hours. Depending on the department, they are open to telecommuting and alternate work schedules. The company does a good job in stressing work / life balancing. They encourage self-learning and do provide many educational opportunities.

Cons

Many jobs have gone overseas and they have had several rounds of layoffs over the last year. A lot of the executive management are family members and they are a greedy bunch. The company is very slow to change ineffective processes. Upper level management is distant and blind to what goes on within the business units and for the most part incompetent.

Advice to Senior Management

Take a closer look at what your directors and managers are doing.

Pros

Franklin Templeton is a well-recognized mutual fund industry name, so it helps to have it on the ol' resume. Back in the day, they actually paid you a bonus to voluntarily take and pass the Series 6 exam. They also used to have an excellent charitable giving division.

Cons

Oh my - where to begin?

When Franklin acquired Templeton in the mid-1990s, you could hear the screams of pain from the east coast. The concern was that Franklin would destroy the good Templeton name. Those concerns were not unfounded. The Franklin stranglehold has turned Templeton funds into mediocre performers, and taken Templeton's shining star, Mark Mobius, from the spotlight to relative obscurity.

If you happen to be a family member then you're qualified to run one of the mutual funds or even a division of the company, regardless of competence. If you're a family friend, then welcome to senior management (again, regardless of competence). If you attended the "right" school, then welcome to middle management - compentence not expected. Anyone else is relegated to the trenches to eek out an existence of indentured servitude - all while smiling and praising management.

Hours are long (for those who are salaried), going "above and beyond" is expected, and genuine appreciation for a job well done does not exist.

Cronyism prevails in marketing, product management and portfolio management. The HR department is a sorority not to be crossed.

Salaries are well below what they should be for such a company. Benefits packages leave something to be desired.

It never was a "woo hoo I work here!" kind of place, but at one time we were all proud to be there. In fact, the company truly enjoyed a sense of employee camaraderie when Franklin was voted #1 in its industry way back in the mid-1990s. That's long gone now. My boss at Franklin was a jaded old fart who made the work more interesting, but even his character idiosyncrasies couldn't overcome the nastiness that is Franklin's management team.

I wasn't looking for the proverbial "gold star" or "happy face" while employed at Franklin, but it would have been nice to know that my efforts were appreciated. That's a bitter realization when at last you walk out the door and go to work for a company that appreciates the small things you do.
I smile when I read the positive reviews of Franklin - those folks must be currently employed friends and family members. And it's easy to heap praise on the company when you're well compensated for grinding the underlings to death (hey, whatever it takes to help you sleep at night, right?).

But for those of us who suffered way too long under the Franklin name, it's hard to step back and see the positive in this company.

Advice to Senior Management

Seriously re-think your policies and practices of promoting those who can't manage to tie their shoes, let alone run a department or fund.

Pros

the building, good bonuses, on-site gym

Cons

if you haven't been there for a long time, it's difficult to move up even if you're more qualified than the existing employee base. If you're a male in human resources, you are unlikely to be accepted into the sorority.

Advice to Senior Management

ensure you have better systems and procedures for promoting and developing your people!