Washington Mutual Reviews

Pros

Great benefits package for part-time and full-time employees. Compensation is more than fair compared to similar companies. Expectations are very clear and regular feedback is given on performance. A job well-done is always acknowledged.

Cons

Client traffic is not always well-directed, which leads to frustrated clients and employees. Suggestions on how to improve processes are not always heard.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to you employees. Listen to your clients. Adapt to the needs of the people. Enable employees to improve their performance.

Pros

good atmospheres and nice staff. I did not have many problematic problems. This is somewhere to work at in your career.

Cons

Work can be down at times. there are not many interesting things to do. the work is the same day in and day out.

Advice to Senior Management

I advice the management of washington mutual to create more ways to for employees to be happy and willing to work.

Pros

Amazing culture that promoted strong collaboration across work groups. Egos were check at the door. Had the opportunity to work along side some of the brightest and dedicated individuals in my career

Cons

Short sightedness of senior management and all along telling everyone that everything was fine

Advice to Senior Management

After all that has happened, I am speechless.

Pros

great work-life balance and respect for employee morale. Also the benefits package and salary was pretty generous and above average.

Cons

not as equipped to handle major commercial banking like JP Morgan, B of A, Wells Fargo, and others. it tried to compete and ended up being a "wannabe".

Advice to Senior Management

don't overextend yourself on the mortgage loans and offer sub prime or zero down interest only loans because it came back to bite hard.

Pros

Fairly simple to get a job working in customer service if you have a background doing that. Not much experience is required.

Cons

Management lacked the capabilities to effectively communicate with employees. A general disconnect between management and employees made it hard to be good at what you do if your manager doesn't know what you do.

Advice to Senior Management

Take more time and care to train management to ensure they know the jobs of their employees. Have weekly meetings to discuss major issues and problems that are on the floor.

Pros

Like most companies, WaMu has a statement of values. Unlike many companies, the values are present and lived by management daily.

Cons

Acquisition by JP Morgan Chase will likely bring an end to this great company.

Advice to Senior Management

A value-based organization is what made WaMu such a great place to work with such great base of individuals. Thanks.

Pros

flexibility, knowledgeable coworkers, respectable boss, opportunities to grow and learn about stuff that has little relevance to everyday living, but is never-the-less enriching and fascinating (derivatives,etc.)

Cons

disregard of senior management for deadlines, they don't exist anymore, disrespect of some members of society, knowing less than the newspaper about status of the company

Advice to Senior Management

Trust your employees, not your borrowers; take less risk in the marketplace and tell your investors forthrightly why you've made that decision.

Pros

- Culture: You get to work with people from all walks of life. The company really believes in having diversity.

Cons

- PFRs are paid a low hourly wage plus commission. The commission plan changes every year and seems to get worse and worse for the employees.

Advice to Senior Management

Your PFRs and Lending reps are the lifeblood of the business. Treat them with dignity and respect to motivate them (higher paychecks doesn't hurt either).

Pros

For the most part, WaMu followed the core values
fair
caring
human
dynamic
driven
lots of opportunties for advancement (until "purchased" by JPMorgan Chase)

Cons

poor operational controls
took on way too much risk
unsound business strategies
very siloed organization
often insufficient resources to complete initiatives (or too many initiatives)

Advice to Senior Management

Unfortunately, WaMu is not longer around. I was not with JPMorgan Chase long enough to provide feedback to leadership other than beware of the greed that was a major cause for WaMu's precarious position and eventual destruction.

Pros

There was a lot of career advancement opportunity at WAMU. The people were very nice and WAMU paid VERY well! I was given a lot of respect in the company and once you develop a good reputation with folks, then you are granted a lot of opportunities.

Cons

I never liked their review process. We were given a rating between 1-5, but I know for certain that they started everyone at a 3 (which meant you would get the bonus).Unless you did an awful job, you'd get the bonus, so the review process seemed like a waste of time.

Advice to Senior Management

The environment of the bank is really great, but stop kidding yourselves with the review process. You should just give us the bonus, rather than wasting our time putting those things together.