Washington Mutual Reviews

Pros

-Internship was a great career boost as a high school student
-Supportive team environment

Cons

-Limited promotion potential
-Management was under a lot of pressure, set unrealistic goals
-Upset customers could ruin your day

Advice to Senior Management

Be more realistic in setting goals

Pros

A good work environment.
Generally, employee morale was high until the mortgage crisis.
Good work was recognized by my management chain.

Cons

Slow to adapt
Inability to respond to problems and change business practices to protect itself.
Senior management was a mixed bag; lack of accountability at the highest levels.

Advice to Senior Management

Management should take greater accountability for bad direction and mistakes. Management should have promoted a culture of agility to respond to rapid changes in the banking industry for the sake of the survival of the company.

Pros

Work life balance, time off when you need it, people are nice to one another

Cons

Very passive agressive leadership and environment in general. Efficiency and Effectiveness is not valued (on a scale of 1-5 I give this a 2). Leadership is not grounded in reality and seems to focus on the theoretical rather than the issues at hand.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop being in the clouds and take the time to figure out what is truly driving the business. You need to quantify risk better.

Pros

Benefits, corporate culture was superior, a willingness to train employess, co workers were very competant, knowledgeable and easy to get along with

Cons

corporate leadership was not looking at the big picture or focussed on the needs of the employees. When the company went down employees were left holding the bag

Advice to Senior Management

No advice needed, company does not exist any longer as an entity. It is now a part of Chase Bank

Pros

Like most companies, there are good managers and bad managers and WaMu was no different. I was fortunate to work for good managers -- people who cared about doing a good job and doing the right things. I had several great opportunities while I was there for promotion and recognition.

Cons

Response time from senior management was slow and indirect. When we could have and should have been dealing with customer and employee fears and concerns, you could hear crickets from the upper floors. It was a shame...

Advice to Senior Management

Surround yourself with people who know how to deal with a crisis and can do it quickly - while at the same time not upsetting the regulators.

Pros

The Pay and benefits were good....The co-workers were friendly. IT support was good. It was a nice work environment until the the financial crisis hit.

Cons

Poor risk managment at the top. Over the top salaries at the top. The blackberry extends the work day. Should of focused on their core products.

Advice to Senior Management

You don't have a job anymore so I don't see why this would matter that much...Hope you have found a job.

Pros

Good compensation and benefits, Professionalism of co-workers was outstanding, Lots of opportunity for visibility and opportunities to work with executives, Good Community support

Cons

Being in the finance industry at this time is very difficult. WaMu is being held up as a "how not to do business".

Advice to Senior Management

Despite everything that has happened at WaMu, there were some highly capable, inelligent people who worked there who did everything in their power to make the customer happy. It is a shame that it will be remembered otherwise.

Pros

Opportunity for advancement was stressed as something that all management valued. Much manager face time was granted and there was an open door policy.

Cons

Although oppotunity for advancement was one of the incentives offered at the time of my hire it did not seem to pan out that way.

Advice to Senior Management

More attention needs to be given to employee growth and career developement and the benefit and compensation package needs to be increased.

Pros

Great work life balance, ability to take time off as needed. Great benefits packages, IE Health, 401k medical, dental vision etc.

Cons

Inability to have a definitive career path with the wall of the company. Managers were more concerned about their we;; being than ensuring eployees had a natural career progression

Advice to Senior Management

Leadership was out of touch with the inner workings of the company, they were all too concerned about the stock price and not the stability of the company. GREED!

Pros

A lot of vacation days, sick leave, and holidays.

Cons

HIghly political work environment, little recognition nor reward for hard work, poor upper management, highly disorganized, and basically ineffective. As the results speak for themselves in 2009.

Advice to Senior Management

Should spend more time reviewing viable and effective strategies rather than playing politics. Also, there should be greater control over internal growth, which occurred too quickly and resulted in a highly disorganized structure.