Union Bank N.A. Reviews

Pros

There's a lot of smart and dedicated people. Company offers great benefits.

Cons

We recently went through several rounds of job cuts which impacted some folks.

Pros

The people. All the professionals in the specialty lending groups were consistently bright and fun to work with. They hired the best, as evidenced by the high percentage of employees who would receive job offers from customers.

Cons

Occasionally you would get the manager who was more focused on internal politics/posturing than on productivity. These types were usually hired in from other banks and (thankfully) didn't last long.

Advice to Senior Management

You have a formula that works and have maintained an exceptional corporate culture. However, outside hires at SVP+ level positions have tended to dilute Union Bank's standard of excellence.

Pros

Great work/life balance, recognition, training opportunities

Cons

Favoritism in the department, lack of growth in career if you are not "favorited" by management

Pros

Some good senior managers
Met some interesting people
Nice locations in San Francisco (right on California and Montgomery)
Attempting to grow
pension plan

My only positive experience is that I feel that some senior managers I worked with could help take the company to the next level. However crippled with so many horrible line managers I don't think that will be possible unless a major reorg takes place.

Cons

Horrible line managers
Horrible tecnology
More red tape than the DMV
Petty politics
Office favorites
rewards incompetance
lower comp

I worked here for a short to medium amount of time and couldn't wait to get out. Middle and line management is probably the worst of seen anywhere. Alot of ex Wamu people taking over and trying to create the next Wamu; tons of hiring of ex wamu types. My major gripes with management is that they basically doom themselves to failure by not understanding how to properly go about defining what they want to accomplish, no understanding of or commitment to technology, inability to make rational business decisions under time pressure, and cases of rather extreme favoritism. Quite honestly rather than me actually coming into work they should have just sent me a check for 40 hours work let me use my 5 year old computer to do their work in 2 hours for what took their 11 year old computer 8 hours to compute.

Advice to Senior Management

Hold managers accountable for results. I don't think I've ever seen people slide like this after losing money and/or completely screwing up SLA's on projects.

Invest in technology; a new computer/lap top costs $1000 bucks every two years; an employee wasting .5 hours per day because of a bad machine costs $25. In 40 days (40 * $25) you'd break even and have a happier employee.

Pros

Opportunities for advancement and financially strong financial institution.

Cons

starting to micromanage and turn into "big bank" environment

Pros

Union Bank does pay a lot of over time.

Cons

Don't plan on having a life if you work here. Upper management is now ex-Countrywide & WAMU management. It appears that the board is not aware of what happened to Countrywide or WAMU. Management has even told staff "verbally" that is no longer about quality it is all about quantity. Yet, do not make a mistake.... Management runs by fear and intimidation. Sad to say, because Union Bank used to be a fun place to work.

Advice to Senior Management

Try acknowleging staff by saying hello in passing. Respect is something you earn and until you have the staff's respect they will not care about your goals or your meeting any projections. And the staff does know that management gets big bonuses for meeting their numbers.

Pros

The company paid pretty well. No company likes doing lay off but given that they are sometimes inevitable, UB were perhaps the more generous ones with their severance package.

Cons

Terrible IT systems leading to a lot of wasted time collecting data. Lot of duplicate work across different departments. Complacent. Lot of wastage. Doesn't really care about employee morale or development.

Advice to Senior Management

Define your priorities and your roadmap to achieving them. You need to have a more merit based system to employee advancement.

Pros

stable company, good employees, great leadership

Cons

overcrowded facility, tight parking, location not ideal

Advice to Senior Management

none

Pros

benefits and vacation
Used to be a respectful place but not anymore

Cons

japanese parent company
senior management from countrywide - a failed and fraudulent bank

Pros

Great steady hours
cool people to work with
nice place to gain experience
clean work environment
management is usually pretty cool

Cons

Terrible place!
Impossible to get time off
awful people come into the bank
fearful of loosing job over silly little mistakes

Advice to Senior Management

chill out! you cannot ride people all day, every day, and expect them to come back to work each day wearing their name badges and smiles. Learn to let people take time off when they are sick or someone in their family dies!