UBS Reviews in London, UK Area

Pros

Family friendly culture exists in the company. Senior management trying to communicate much better recently. Promotes internal mobility much more nowadays.

Cons

Could be more of a meritocracy. Ever changing structure but I guess that this is the same as most banks in the current environment.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep on trying to communicate the vision and also how we are going to get there. Fewer restructures would be appreciated by everyone.

Pros

Visible drive from executive board to turn business around despite ongoing market turmoil

Cons

Messages cascaded from central rarely turned into tangible actions locally
Decentralised operating model with little evidence of knowledge sharing or best practice
Long term vision blured by short term reactionary approach to problem solving

Advice to Senior Management

Putting the right person in the right job and empowering them to deliver clear objectives without continuously changing the goal posts

Pros

- Large organisation with good insight into wealth management industry
- Benefits package is good
- Constant changes in the organisation giving opportunities for new roles if among top talent

Cons

- Career progression not great unless you are top talent, which the selection criterias are unknown and selection based on being around for long.
- Limited support on performance or training
- Lack of risk culture

Advice to Senior Management

- Foster risk culture - room for embedding this deeper in the front office functions particulary.
- Improve accountability in some areas (support functions)

Pros

Upper management was very intuitive in making the necessary changes to turn the bank around. Was given a lot of independence to complete my own tasks without my boss breathing over my shoulder and within a couple of months my responsibilities doubled.

Cons

Hard to break in as people from other teams aren't welcoming to inexperienced hires. There was a lot of redundancies being made while I was there.

Advice to Senior Management

I would hold off on the redundancies and place higher emphasis on cutting losses. I wouldn't be afraid to take risks, especially in an economy that is on the upswing.

Pros

Excellent corporate culture. Looks after it's employees well and pays adequately. Work / life balance couldn't be better. Possitive attitude towards learning and professional development.

Cons

Got greedy of other more risk-seeking investment banks and leaned to far out of the window in the process. Now needs to re-build the trust in the market place that UBS is still a safe haven in a chaotic world. That will take time and until then success will be limited.

Advice to Senior Management

Focus on what UBS was seen as synonymous for. A risk-adverse safe place to put your money. Being the quintessential swiss bank is a differentiating factor that few other organizations of this size can bring to the table.

Pros

UBS's company reputation and leadership position in the European market, career development and growth opportunities, competitive compensation package and benefits.

Cons

Large organization so may probably involve some red tape, recent bad press about UBS and its financial performance and how this may impact bonuses.

Advice to Senior Management

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Pros

A good place to start a career. A good place to learn and advance you skills.Good talented people to work with. Good employee benefits. Though most benefits are reserve for managment

Cons

Incompetent middle management. Promotions are given to people who rarely work hard to deserve those promotions. Managment promotes a culture of flattery and a** kissing to recommend staff for promotion. Its mostly about "Who you know " than "How well you perform". No transparent promotion criteria. Favoritisn is rife. Certain employees are "Picked" for higher management roles using a discrimanatory no transparent "Ascent Program" to promote choosen ones.

Advice to Senior Management

Open your eyes. Talente dand hard working people are leaveing and UBS is only left with crap non perfromers who can not find jobs else where. Have a transparent performance and promotion system. Reduce the bureaucracy among managers. Make tough decisions and get rid of the army of Managing Directors (MDs).

Pros

Great people, but lack a general level of education. Employees have very good people skills, but lack in competence and logic.

Cons

Hard to get promoted or move positions, very political and all about who you brown nose to get promotions. The wrong people often get promoted.

Advice to Senior Management

I would look more into the people who you do not always see at the door to your office but are hard working at their desk. Take actually intelligence more into consideration.

Pros

I joined UBS after graduating from Columbia. I had interned at another firm but I preferred the people at UBS and the fact that I could get a good work/life balance here. I’m looking forward to taking on more responsibility and exploring the wider opportunities here later in my career. I’ve found that wherever you are based, you can do interesting, high-quality work.

Cons

Conclusion
Be scientific
Do as much research as you can. Talk to people who work for companies that interest you and see if it’s a place that is right for you. You need to think about what’s most important – is it work/life balance, early responsibility, a commitment to talent development or something else? Make sure all your boxes are ticked. Another good exercise is to measure how happy people are in their jobs. If it’s a good firm, they will be.

Advice to Senior Management

What I do today
Each rotation gives you a different perspective on the business. You get to meet a lot of people and see where there are opportunities for career development. As part of the Private Wealth Management team, my responsibilities included running daily reports, working on long term strategic initiatives and fielding questions from my team and Financial Advisors in the field.

My current rotation is in Sales Development. I’m helping Financial Advisors to build up their businesses by servicing their existing clients and establishing new relationships. It’s a mid office role. There’s a lot of content creation, putting together presentations and so on.

Pros

Very able, (some amazingly bright) and approachable colleagues
Lots of possiblitiy for advancement and taklng responsibility
Plenty of access to senior individuals
Collegiate atmosphere is very pleasant to be a part of

Cons

Low pay relative to other banks
Support personnel are stretched, thereby putting more pressure on you to ensure jobs are done right

Advice to Senior Management

what the hell were we doing investing our entire balance sheet in sub-prime and associated debt? even the basics of risk management talk about a 'balanced portolfio'. seems like many senior managers forgot the basics