Wells Fargo Reviews in Phoenix, AZ Area

Pros

The benefits are really good especially if you plan on having a baby. Gain good experience in the finacial industry with a company that is secure and well respected. They train you a ton and you can learn a lot.

Cons

You are stuck in every position for at least a year with no exceptions. Once you get a degree they dont care and you wont be promoted. Wells is very political and you'll move up only if you network well. They stress performance but when it comes down to it, it's all about who you know. Management is typically left over from early mergers and they are way past their prime. The older managers have no idea what's going on and no product knolwedge. You work at a fast pace and are expected to bring in huge goals for the company while paying you peanuts for comission's. They completely weeded out the Financial Advisors. You'll be expected to wear suits for a 15/hr job! They want you to look profesional but treat you like children, seriously...You will always only be considered a number. The turn over rate is huge because of this.

Advice to Senior Management

Do what you would expect from your employees. Try to not be so political. Give credit where is credit is due. You'd be nothing without your banker's sales.

Pros

The results based rewards system actively promotes for solid performance. They maintain a thorough training program. The benefits package was incredible for an hourly worker. Management was demanding, but great to work with.

Cons

There is a lot of pressure to sell. You must be willing to exert yourself, but the rewards for sales are great.

Advice to Senior Management

Get more front line feedback and use those on the floor to better understand how to get customers into packages they want.

Pros

Some skills can not be outsourced, so those lucky enough to be in management support positions, key technical and development areas and/or work in the Scottsdale location are "safe". Constant realignment, system upgrades and mergers also help to keep the body count of contractors high.

Cons

Maintenance skills can easily be outsourced to India. They are trying, but haven't quite been successful in using off-shore talent for the bulk of project staff. FTEs are like tenured professors in that even if they are incompetent, you still need to work (& sometimes be supervised) by those less knowledgeable.

Advice to Senior Management

It takes really large changes in upper management organization to really trickle down and equate to weeding out of dead weight staff.

Pros

I do believe there is room for growth within Wells Fargo Financial. Don't be mistaken though, Financial is a different company than the Wells Fargo Bank, so you better want to move up in the sales world. It is a good experience for recent college grads.

Cons

After a year of working there, it gets old- every day is the same. This is SALES, which means unrealistic goals, NO BONUSES, and pushing things on people you would NEVER yourself sign up for. 28% auto loan?? No thanks. You harass people on the phone to get then to come in. That's right. It is a glorified telemarketer (although I have heard they make much more). These people are sometimes called every week, and you are expected to call them several times a day until they agree to come in. What is funny is they require a college degree to work here, but it is a joke. This job requires no intelligence. I cannot believe I spend tens of thousands of dollars to be a telemarketer. Sales numbers are getting worse and worse and management keeps increasing the goals- very bad for motivation. You find yourself rolling your eyes because success here is impossible. Don't even THINK about the $3,000 bonus op every month. Nobody gets it. They mislead you in thinking you can make more money than the janitor, but the truth is, they are making just a couple thousand dollars less than you every month.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop the BS and be honest with us. Although we are young and recently graduated, we know better. Say "hey we understand it is a recession and you aren't making bonuses. Here are realistic goals and we are going to pay you for doing a good job because we want to end the high turn over rate and keep quality people".

Pros

Job title.. everyone knows who Wells Fargo is. Good benefits.

Cons

Management always wants u to sell sell sell and u don't see anything for a bonus at the end of the month even when u hit your goals. Products are horrible and the same thing. Customers know the scam that you are trying to pull on them when you call them. Can not feel good about the products you sell to customers, and you have to put on a straight face and "don't think for the customer" who doesn't know how to manage their finances and that is why they are seeing Wells Fargo Financial predatory lender.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop selling ridiculous products to customers that do not help their financial situation to the slightest degree and have realistic expectations for sales goals.

Pros

Wonderful co-workers who are genuinely interested in satisfying customer both external and internal. The benefits are very generous with regard to time off, health. People frequently thanked you for doing the job right. Flexible work hours. Overall I highly recommend getting a job there, just be certain to get insight on your potential manager.

Cons

It depends on the department you work in and the immediate managers. I did not have the benefit of a manager with leadership talent and capabilities. That was evidenced by their lack of promotion and the extremely high employee turnover in the department. Sometimes you get stuck but over overwhelmingly from my interactions with other departments, others did not experience these issues. I would have definitely stayed with Wells had there been other exercisable opportunities to move laterally. Cycling through contractors to catch up on the backlog is another issue.

Advice to Senior Management

Seriously review managers performances. It is all to easy to hide problems, ignore exit interview conversations, and misinterpret metrics. If a department is experiencing a high turn over rate without doing root cause analysis that is a lost opportunity towards continuous improvement.

Pros

Fairness and diversity of employees

Cons

Too large, too sales-oriented, management has little to no real understanding of what is going on

Advice to Senior Management

Pay attention to your people since they are VERY unhappy

Pros

i think the benefits are good.

Cons

First and foremost, their Processing centers have absolutely zero sense of priority. They are completely desynthizied about the transaction they process and how they relate to peoples homes. The compension plan in 2009 is based on volume, but wait you can't close any deals because processing doesn't get your deal out to close. It's so aggrivating! Customer's and Realtor don't care about brand name any more, they would rather deal with a company who will get loan docs out on time.

Advice to Senior Management

Invest in Professional Loan Processors. They will make you or brake you as a HMC.

Pros

It seems that there are great opportunities for advancement. Also, the staff seems to be much younger in the financial office, which shows that most people who are there for a while move up. The energy is really good and there is a great support team.

Cons

High demands of work, which sometimes seem impossible.

Advice to Senior Management

I think they are headed in the right direction in understanding the tough financial times and it is harder to do business in every area. I would advise management to restructure the bonus system so it is easier to reach the high rewards they have available.

Pros

The best reasons I can think of are a steady paycheck and above average benefits.

Cons

I am speaking for myself and also many current team members within the company, at least on the retail banking side of the company. The "strong sales culture" of Wells Fargo dominates every moment of working in a retail store. Most people do not realize how pervasive and important sales are in banking, unless they have worked in one. I did for 9 years, beginning as a Personal Banker (I jokingly referred to myself as a "Personal Slave") and working my way up to an upper level Store Manager with 25 team members and many thousands of transactions per month. I got those promotions primarily because of sales results. I'm certainly under no illusions about that. Fortunately, those sales were ethical and moral. I never trained or encouraged any TM to sell just for the sake of selling or to lie to customers. I feel a bank's most important asset, after their people, is their reputation. And I don't mean a AAA rating. I mean what the average customer would say about you. Ethics should be #1 as anything pertaining to money is reliant on confidence, including the value of our currency.

Unfortunately, as I progressed, I found that the sales goals became increasingly difficult to reach. I saw other stores exceeding goal by 150% or more and initially, wanted to learn from those stores so I and my TM's could make bonus and receive recognition. Perhaps they knew something I didn't or were better at communicating with customers. What I found was that they had thrown all ethics out the door. I was shocked and appalled, especially with all the lip service WF gives about their high ethics and their dedication to helping customers succeed financially. So, naturally, I alerted my manager. I reported blatant cheating to the ethics line WF provides to team members. I alerted HR. Nothing happened to the offenders except promotions! I saw this time and time again. While I was being forced to fired amazing TM's just for missing goal, these heartless, cruel and selfish beings were being promoted! ..and still are to this day! My friends who still work there told me that they have been told not to call the ethics line about cheating sales anymore "due to a high volume of these kinds of calls". They are supposed to contact that person's manager. A lot of good that does since managers make huge bonuses based on what their employees produce...obviously, there's no incentive to fire unethical people when it hurts you in your pocket book. So the cheating of customers continues and is tacitly supported by upper management.

The things that makes me most angry is the disregard to human beings: both customers and front line team members. It all boils down to numbers and profit. While I realize companies are in business to make money, the amount of profit this institution generates is mind boggling. The biggest "fee income" generator for the state of Arizona is on Direct Deposit Advance...just another name for payday loans. Usury. Team members know what it does to customers and their lives and have been vocal about getting rid of it. They know it's wrong, but since it's such a money maker, the bank continues offering that "service".

For TM's, it's like this...sell sell sell. Nothing else matters...customer service, being kind to other employees, working hard, trying to give proper advice to customers, intelligent recommendations...NONE of it matters except your numbers. YOU don't even matter...except for your numbers. They talk a good game about people being their competitive advantage, but after you begin working there, you will see the truth.

Advice to Senior Management

I'd love to hurl many four letter words in your direction. You are on a crash course with disaster if you continue to run your retail banking business this way. Your TM's will work against you and your customers will leave you. Remember who gave you the money and power in the first place. It's the people. All the intelligent and ethical ones realize this and have already left, are planning on leaving or biding their time until retirement. Wise up.