Northern Trust Reviews

Pros

-Vacation time is very generous for bank officers
-Some departments have great management

Cons

-Some departments are very back stabbing in client servicing
-Too much work on everyone's desk
-Inadequate compensation compared to other companies
- Low morale

Advice to Senior Management

Use some of your funds to reward and compensate the people that are facing your clients every day.

Pros

people, benefits, good resume builder, good networking opportunities

Cons

LOW pay, advancement opportunities only after a LONG time, little to no bonuses

Advice to Senior Management

provide some kind of incetive. Also, upper management needs to do a better job of hiring middle managers -- I know more than my manager (as does the majority of my team)

Pros

Conservative culture which teaches you the fundamentals of the industry. Although you will not be working with the newest and riskiest financial products, you will build an extremely strong finance based foundation. Great work/life balance.

Cons

It is NOT a meritocracy culture. Networking and "who you know" goes much further than being rewarded for hard work. Additionally, it is tough to move up through the ranks, no matter performance, because of other employees with tenure. Salary is also lower because of the work life balance.

Advice to Senior Management

Although a conservative culture is very respected, I believe it is important to adapt to ones environment. Yes Northern was not involved in the credit default swap issues and other financial products that brought about the financial crisis, you are still feeling the hit. Northern needs to increase its risk tolerance.

Pros

Great employee development programs.
Tenure and experience is appreciated.
Senior Management support and open to mentoring.
#1 in work/life balance.

Cons

Some employees are complacent (taking advantage of work/life balance).
Takes too long to implement solutions.

Advice to Senior Management

Trim the fat...look at individual productivity and hold employees accountable.

Pros

Northern Trust focuses on their clients by supporting their people and keeping the highest ethical standards. They also recognize the strategic benefit of having a diverse client and employee base.

Cons

Northern Trust has a culture of collegiality and this makes it difficult to get quick decisions and to expand quickly into new markets.

Pros

work/life flexibility and tuition reimbursement

Cons

performance reviews are very subjective
little opportunity for advancement
advancement based on who you know and not skills or education

Advice to Senior Management

complete overhaul of the performance management system
hold senior managers accountable for their expectations and leadership abilities

Pros

Good start to ur career.
Learning curve is seep for first 3 months.
Good HR practices with immense help for employees.
Employee friendly atmosphere.

Cons

Learning stops once you learn your job and then on its borking and repitative.
Tenure based Growth
Low payscales
Very high attrition main reason: employee dissatisfaction.
Very poor middle management.

Advice to Senior Management

Connect to employees at analyst level to find out why so much of attrition.
Meritocary should be funda instead of the tenure based growth.

Pros

Good benefits, Stable and profitable company, good reputation, excellent time off, opportunities to rotate, location close to Metra and the L.

Cons

Culture is very conservative. Very consensus driven. Hard to implement change. Obsolete technology systems and infrastructure. Cheap about certain things. Great disparity in pay among similar employees.

Advice to Senior Management

You need to shake things up. or else you will be taken over...also, you got to move faster and run the place with a greater sense of urgency.

Pros

People, Culture, Business Exposure, career oppurtunities

Cons

Pay & package, Need to have strong Sr. MGMT

Advice to Senior Management

Strong Sr.MGMT & increase on par or high to competitor companies to retain good assets

Pros

If you are competent, passionate about your work and act with integrity this is a terrific, growth-oriented firm to be at. There is a lot of history here, but also a realization that there is a need to change and grow to continue to prosper.

Cons

Sometimes a bit resource constrained.