The Vanguard Group Reviews in Philadelphia, PA Area

Pros

Work life balance is important
Good ethics
Friendly co-workers
They offer Great benefits

Cons

The organization is top heavy

Pros

The people are very friendly and the culture is not confrontational or aggressive. The Malvern campus is beautiful. Work-life balance is good.

Cons

It is difficult (thought definitely not impossible) to be rewarded in the short-term for strong performance. It can be frustrating at points to find the right advancement opportunities though I would say most managers are helpful here.

Advice to Senior Management

No advice.

Pros

benefits and the training courses are great!

Cons

salary and bonuses are horrible.

Advice to Senior Management

Be willing to take criticisms and not punish people for being opinionated

Pros

Good benefits and opportunity for time off. Good work life balance is a company value
Company Integrity
They respect their clients and are not driven by commissions

Cons

Like nearly all big companies very inflexable. Don't expect quick decisions
If you chose the wrong career path in most cases you have to leave the company to change
In house computer systems/software are not first class
Too many unimportant job metric's are given importance and measured which the client could care less about. But this happens at most employer's these days..

Advice to Senior Management

1.Your interviewing process doesn't identify the best candidates just those that think like you. 2.Eliminate metrics that have no effect on the client experience. 3.Think what would you do if Fidelity, T Rowe Price, American Century or Charles Schwab had an office across the street that your employee's could walk over and visit.

Pros

Vanguard does offer tuition reimbursement and paid time off. Very little chance of layoffs.

Cons

The culture is very old boys network. It's very hard to advance in this company.

Advice to Senior Management

Remove some of the dead weight in your management ranks. Over all the company manages to mediocrity. People reach a certain level and they stay there reaping the salary benefits adding little tono value and blocking the paths of others who may have something valuable to contribute.

Pros

They paid on time and the check always cleared.

Cons

Very unprofessional staff. Catty behavior. Constant talking about one another behind each other's back. Very mean spirited people toward each other. Dirty filthy work environment. People would leave food out for days on the table, unwashed coffee pots left to collect mold. They use permatemps to avoid paying benefits. Contractors work 3 years then are cut loose.. If a contractor/TEMP leaves before the 3 years Vanguard has the nerve to be upset..

Advice to Senior Management

Stop hiring temps to do the work of full time employees, it really damages morale..

Pros

Benefits are good nothing extra ordinary. Most of the employer's are cutting back on it.
Good starting place for fresh graduate. If you want to advance within it will take long long time.
Flexibility is there only for people starting grade level D and above. (Exampt).

Cons

Flexibility for grade level A,B, & C is horrible.
Too many unnecessary monitoring matrix, especially in retail processing. (for example if you are working on a complex client request which may take long time to process then you are being penalized. The processing rate per hour is so outdated. They expect you to do minimum 10 to 15 items per hour regardless of complexity.

The Aspect, one of the worst time monitoring tool used in retail processing. if you have to go to restroom, time must be approved before taking a break.

Very unfriendly management staff. The morale in this area is probably the lowest of the entire company.

Advancement from this area to other areas of Vanguard is ZERO. Unless you know someone at the higher level. Most of the jobs are posted internally but hiring department already know who they are going to hire. (Too much politics.)

Advice to Senior Management

You are putting an AXE on your own feet by getting rid of your most tenured and knowledgeable people. Stop hiring Temps, they are only temps they do not care about the quality. Keep your employee happy. Look at Goolge, Wgmans, Scottrade etc, they take very care of their employee.

Pros

They do a great job on entry level positions, such as grooming new employees on the phones to service customers, assist employees with finanical certifications, training employees through Vanguard University, etc. A great first job for any recent college graduate. Decent salary , good benefits.

Cons

No nosense founder of the company known for challenging the wall street establishment,and original thinking was forced out of his own company. He was a terrific asset.

Pros

10% salary contribution to 401k automatically (vested), matches 4% after 1 year of service, generous time off (16 days to start), year end bonuses, partnership mid-year, friendly coworkers, good work-life balance, high ethical standard, good feedback on performance, flexible work hours, decent salary, tuition reimbursement

Cons

People tend to drink the coolaide, getting promoted is hard, if you don't volunteer you are looked down on, upper management is not always competent, not cutting edge technologically, not able to work from home effectively yet

Pros

If you are young, great place to get a career started

Cons

While they are plenty older employees, they have been there for decades, getting hired and being over 45 is next to impossible. My observation that most new hires on the front lines are under 30. I would love to hear others thoughts on this issue.

Advice to Senior Management

The management I worked under won't get it.