Harland Financial Solutions Reviews

Pros

The employees are really good people, some of which have worked for the original company most of their careers. A lot of dedication to products that are no longer top of the line in many arenas. The benefits were quite good as well, including time off.

Cons

It's all in who you know if you want to get ahead. Lots of upper mgmt. changes when I was there. Leaders were pretty out of touch with employees and were not very forthcoming with information. Leaders were definately more concerned with their salaries/bonuses than rewarding hardworking employees for their contribution. Advancement was a joke unless you spent most of your time "playing the game" and kissing up to the right people.

Pros

The people are nice although the talent does not run deep.

Cons

Incredibly shrinking benefits are the current theme

Advice to Senior Management

Stick a fork in it.

Pros

Good people to work with, including immediate supervisors. Smart, hard working, creative, and willing to help.
Lots of freedom, little micromanaging
Decent pay

Cons

Long and hard hours
Industry is contracting due to consolidation and excessive regulation

Advice to Senior Management

Senior execs should listen more and talk less -- communication is a two way street. You can learn a lot from the little people in the organization. Company does a terrible job leveraging its products to work together, and is very product-driven, so some people have little reason to cooperate across product lines, to the detriment of the overall organization and customers. Customers want a single point of contact with the organization.

Pros

Co-workers, Management, General Staff compentency, Clients. Great products and services that match, or exceed the competition for quality and for the most part competent staff to support.

Cons

At one time management was not communicating effectively to staff, however that changed with new management changes. The changes have been confusing but necessary to better compete in the new environment.

Advice to Senior Management

Management should develop better capability and capacity to help clients understand the potential of their products and systems and how more effective use would result in better service to the users clients.

Pros

Responsive to employee issues.
Good benefits.
Respectful of work and personal life.
Tried to be as communicative as possible with employees.

Cons

Tended to get placed on projects for years limiting your potential to grow in other skills or use other skills.

Advice to Senior Management

People can do more than one thing, look at all their skills.

Pros

People are good to work with

Cons

Benefits are not that great

Advice to Senior Management

Align your IT better with your business needs

Pros

The benefits are half way decent. But, they have been decreasing each year as the company looks for ways for employees to "share" more of the costs. They are big on "sharing" the costs, but none of the rewards.

Cons

Management incompetence makes Michael Scott look like a genius boss. Harland Financial Solutions (HFS) is a financial services software company and is very similar to the environment in Office Space. Recently there has been a number of high profile departures from the company due to job dissatisfaction and frustration with management decisisions.

Before taking a job with HFS, the company has announced that they are going to move their programming development to India and they are looking to do this for many other functions within the company. They need to do this because sales have stalled and they have fallen further and further behind the market place. They are now a bit player in the marketplace. So, their solution is to cut costs and move the critical function of the company to India, the critical function that is involved with key customer and private information. I am sure people will be very comfortable having their personal information in India.

The company has been going through a consolidation called "Fusion". Internally it has been called confusion. The people put in charge are placed because of their relationships and not because of their competence. Customer satisfaction has been falling and employee morale is at a low. Unfortunately, HR cherry picks the statistics to paint a good picture to management and that there are no problems. The reason for this is because the senior management team is not receptive to negative news and are vindictive to those that do provide transparency. The head of the company, just surrounds himself with "Yes" people.

Advice to Senior Management

It is time to bring accountability to the senior leadership ranks and evaluate based upon performance. You have had to go through multiple restructurings and now move activities to India while multi millions in bonuses only go to 10 individuals in the company. A little appreciation to those that do the real work with the company is long overdue.

Pros

Harland Financial Solutions has ok pay, pretty good insurance, GREAT time off and in general is a good place to work.

Cons

Management tends to make decisions about placing people in positions that do not make any sense. People not at all qualified for jobs are running departments.

Advice to Senior Management

Pay attention to what your customers are asking for. Keeping a product up to speed with current regulations should be a top priority not a “wish” for customers.

Pros

PTO, Expense Reimbursement, Trimet Passes. Hard to type a 20 word minimum when that's all that's good about the company.

Cons

"Employees are assets" really means employees are cattle. CEO takes a 25% bonus while not backfilling positions, nor promoting employees. Salary increases have been pitiful three years running. Surveys are given out but ultimately ignored when the bottom three scores are career advancement, communication, and compensation.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop using up HFS resources to throw money at other failing units. Treat employees as something better than just a commodity.

Pros

Senior management makes an effort to communicate regular updates to employees, the vacation time is decent compared to many other companies, tuition payback, well recognized in the banking industry

Cons

Low wages, no bonuses, limited opportunity to grow. Most internal employee moves are considered "lateral" and thus do not include a pay increase. Tuition payback takes two years, longer than most companies.

Advice to Senior Management

Pay incentive programs would be very useful. Many employees coast along knowing minimal effort will keep them employed forever. Employees who are ambitious should have incentives and be rewarded for their effort. Make efficiency a focus, not keeping old processes in place because they are the norm.