UMB Financial Reviews in Kansas City, MO Area

Pros

increasingly competent people, doing a good job with executive development, working on best places to work initiatives, working to improve internal business structure

Cons

few cross departmental training or learning opportunities, lots of tenured employees... not necessarily bad in itself, but gets in the way of needed cultural change

Pros

UMB has a culture that inspires excellence internally. They promote community involvement, sustainability, and have great benefits like transportation, adoption and education assistance.

Cons

If you have any issues working at UMB, management will find a solution for you. One downfall is the formal business dress code and no non-traditional work schedules.

Advice to Senior Management

It would be fantastic to drop the formal dress code for non customer facing positions. Non-traditional work schedules would help improve the work / life balance.

Pros

UMB has great people, and a general positive culture of camaraderie. Additionally, the company has a slower pace than comparable financial institutions

Cons

UMB is very conservative, both in terms of the products that it sells and the financial risks that it takes. These qualities have served it well in down economies, however it does prevent it from being an exciting place to work.

Advice to Senior Management

Get rid of your under-performing middle-managers and replace them with strong competent leaders. Spend resources building a world-class retail online banking and investment platform to compliment the stable, secure "worlds strongest bank" mantra

Pros

Easy place to slide by for those who are content with below avg individual performance. deSilva and Kemper are making improvements in the long-time chomatose system, but still have a long way to go.

Cons

Outstanding performers are not fairly recognized. They are very cheap and very old school. Lots of politics and plenty of perks for the good old boy network within.

Advice to Senior Management

Look at your Sr. Commercial Officers. Very poor leaders and have been the beneficiaries of being compacent in the Kemper system. deSilva and Kemper should drop some of the dead weight directly beneath them if they want more upward movement.

Pros

Good company with a strong conservative foundation that sets the stage for long-term success. Have a strong focus on technology and have always focused on diversified revenue streams through fee income products and services. Stayed true to their core geographic footprint. Good place to work if you're looking for reasonable stability (nothing is guaranteed forever), but not necessarily if you want to launch your career rapidly.

Cons

Smaller than bigger companies so opportunities for advancement are more difficult. Like all companies they need to make sure organizational walls don't get in the way of doing business correctly. Have always been a little cheap when it comes to rewarding employees.

Advice to Senior Management

Talk to employees more. Make sure employees are all focused on the vision of the agency and the role that everyone can play in making it come true.

Pros

Patience is rewarded, strong financial perfomance among commercial banks.

Cons

Sub-market compensation,no incentive or bonus structure to non-sales employees, a culture in transition from toxic to productive lacking meaningful buy-in from key senior management, exhausting bureaucracy, strong executive management lacking strong number two's and three's to fill the empty promise.

Advice to Senior Management

Market compensation will retain key associates.

Pros

UMB cannot retain mid level managers, leaving huge holes in the organization. This creates an opportunity for new grads, or inexperienced transfers from other companies to step into responsibilities they would not be at other firms.

Cons

Pay and incompetent management. The target raise for the Investment Management division was 2.8% in the spring of 2008, with half above and half below. UMB already had most employees at below market salaries.

There are no general managers at UMB, this leads to people trying to do a task job and manage people, the communication is poor, training and career development is very poor, and overall the management of the company is inefficient.

The company is known for not telling employees what their bonus or raise will be until they see it in their paycheck, so there is no opportunity to discuss the decision if you don't feel it is fair. Formal performance reviews are very rare, and when they are done it is normally in relation to a bonus or raise and completed with no feedback opportunity for the employee.

Advice to Senior Management

Their HR system and general ability to recognize and reward employees needs a significant upgrade. Management is so focused on improving short term earnings that they are allowing the foundation of their business to rot out from under them.