Wells Fargo Reviews in Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN Area

Pros

pretty hard to get fired....

Cons

management is terrible.....
no growth opportunities

Pros

Great benefits and 401(k), challenging work

Cons

Management sometimes were disconnected from lower levels

Pros

upward mobility, develop sales and customer relations skills. really good health and financial benefits. also employee discounts on sporting events and other things

Cons

high pressure to make sales referrals even though customer service seems to suffer. The job itself is easy but there are a lot of rules and regulations

Advice to Senior Management

Making sales the core focus of service is fine until a point. Too many customers end up with products they dont need and it causes problems. We're not selling magazine subscriptions

Pros

The benefits are excellent
Many locations so you can find one near you and not have a long commute
Peers that are great to work with

Cons

Pay is lower than equivalent jobs outside of Wells Fargo
They are more concerned about the "social game" than getting great results and getting work done
Difficult to get approved for reimbursement of outside work-related education. This is a benefit that they offer.
Severely understaffed in many departments
Lack of organized training - most is side-by-side, on-the-job training

Advice to Senior Management

After almost 18 years and a reorganization to a new manager, that manager wanted to see me fired instead of helping me to find a new job so that they didn't have to deal with me because they didn't like me. Every year I received bonuses, had great annual reviews and received hundreds of recognition and yet, if someone doesn't like you, that's it. It's the easy way out for them. No points for loyalty and hard work in this company. Management needs help when it comes to helping employees to advance in their careers or move out of their teams/departments.

Pros

Great culture...for a bank. Very customer oriented

Cons

Too much infighting across divisions

Pros

I drank the kool-aid back in the days of Norwest. I'm a senior level manager who has had nothing but GREAT experiences with Wells Fargo - up until 2 years ago. I worked hard, and they rewarded me with promotions, recognition and increased compensation. Unfortunately, I'm located in Minneapolis. Now with the merger of WF and Wachovia, the senior level positions are being positioned in Charlotte rather than Minneapolis.

Cons

There will be dramatic centralization efforts done over the next few years. This will likely mean even less jobs in Minneapolis.

Advice to Senior Management

Please quit saying "people are our competitive advantage" it just rings hollow and feels very disingenuous. Please don't lose the Norwest values that were maintained through the original Wells Fargo conversion. So far, for those in Mpls at least, it feels like Wachovia purchased WF.

Pros

WF offers a variety of business's to be involved in and grow your career. It is a solid, large and respectable company in Minneapolis metro area.

Cons

The merger with Wachovia has change the dynamics of WF in Minneapolis. Decision making is further removed and much more bureaucracy to get things done.

Advice to Senior Management

Work and life balance that is "promoted" within the company is non-existent in some lines of business. An increased of hours worked thru the Wachovia conversion is expected - in many ways fun to pull it all together. But team members have become exhausted, frustrated and feel "all used and abused up" and fearful they will be the next cut. Too many fte cutbacks.

Pros

Sometimes it gets busy real busy and we have to work overtime. That the only potential negative. I love it.

Cons

Mandatory Overtime can be exhausting

Advice to Senior Management

Keep on going in the right direction

Pros

Well established market leading well capitalized and profitable. Theoretically unlimited opportunity throughout the organization. Diversity is a priority and co-workers are generally fun to work with and motivated

Cons

Very difficult to gain access to information among business lines. Lots of bureaucracy, not a lot of mobility, very little coordination or communication among managers, arbitrary statistics used in performance review, never get raises

Advice to Senior Management

Need to have more dynamic and creative managers, need to have a systems based approach to creating policy. Need more quantifiable performance measurement with financial rewards

Pros

It is a great place to learn to grow professionally and as a person. Pay and benefits is great. Staff is friendly.

Cons

Be prepared to do more work than you can handle.
Be prepared to deal with angry customers.
Be prepared to handle computer work, phone, email, voicemail, fax and extreme multitask.
Training was useless.

Advice to Senior Management

Do a better job training employees with the system and purpose of the position and I think the turnover won't be so high.