Morgan Stanley Reviews in New York City, NY Area

Pros

Fast pace, lots to do, great people

Cons

Long hours, aggressive culture, but motivating

Advice to Senior Management

Let/promote people to move around. MS has a culture of trying to keep people where they are until they find something else.

Pros

Work and life balance
Great opportunity to learn new products
Great management

Cons

Better salary will make it the best work place

Advice to Senior Management

Compensate people that have been working in the firm for a long time.

Pros

Easy job to do, not too stressing

Cons

Repetitive, Boring, Not that much room for career advancement

Pros

Name and rep of the firm

Cons

training and comp and time off and comp and comp. Comp was average at best. The inability for managers to actually manage and teach.

Pros

Talent people and good name
Interesting work once a while
The biggest corporate clients floating through the bullpen
Relativly stable

Cons

Strict rules for promotions
Senior people are not very accessible
Sometime you will be working at corp. development capacity
Schedule is rather unpredictable

Advice to Senior Management

As all the financial institution, it is a very political place. You need to as tough as a cockroach to survive. It is a great name despite a lot of shortfalls. And it is definitely a great place to launch a career.

Pros

Working in the IT department allows many employees the flexibility to work from home.

Cons

Despite being promoted to VP 3 years ago and taking on new roles and new responsibilities, I am still paid below market and less than my male counterparts.

Advice to Senior Management

Leadership needs to be more concerned about employee morale.

Pros

Smart employees, leading-edge technology, knowledge sharing and seminars in the work-place, opportunities to travel at the right level, good cafeteria at most sites.

Cons

Non-competitive pay in the last two years, removal of pension, increase in health premiums. Promotion process looks random at best, and biased at worst. Compensation appears not to be correlated to effort or performance.

Advice to Senior Management

Chop out the dead-wood so that you can pay the remaining employees a market rate; move away from the 'family' rhetoric and be more honest about past mistakes and future realities. Review bonus structure for employees in cost centers, increase base salaries.

Pros

MS provides an excellent, collaborative work environment where management truly provides transparency to its employees. There is ample opportunity to express thoughts and opinions in an environment of respect and professionalism. The culture of respect carries throughout the levels of management. Opportunities to contribute across the organization abound. Company seems to have for how to grow wealth management in the future, versus being simply an IB/Broker-Dealer, the diversification of the business model is positive. Gorman understands how to manage the media against speculation and false rumors.

Cons

Economy and the flagging stock price have depressed bonuses for the past couple years, so total comp is below where it should be versus some competitors in the sector. Emphasis on consolidating the Smith Barney merger has forced austerity all around. IT investments are not major, and technology isn't always latest/greatest, but it's suited to their business. Growth isn't as much a priority as surviving merger and right-sourcing. Organization tends to stumble in its own bureaucracy, sometimes the wrong people are beyond their depth in their roles.

Advice to Senior Management

Focus on creating diversity in roles and opportunities for employees to have varied roles, even if not vertically. Take a better look at the sourcing strategy for vendors to gain better efficiencies and economies (quit paying vendors in Chennai and focus on more efficient on-shore/near-shore solutions).

Pros

Good environment in IT front desk office. It's busy and one gets to learn many things

Cons

Work hours can be hard some times

Advice to Senior Management

Pay the good people for them to stay

Pros

-Very knowledgeable people on various levels
-Good exposure to various aspects of the business
-Good benefits
-Nice pantries
-Convenient locations

Cons

-High turnover - a lot of great professionals left in the last couple years
-No good talent retention
-A lot of shifting people from one group to another puts pressure to adapt to new responsibilities quickly without any extra benefits

Advice to Senior Management

Senior management has to put more effort in talent retention. Stop hiring temps, it's a waste of money and everybody else's time - they are gone within a few months and the rest of staff is left with the same amount of work or someone new to teach.