Wow, where do I start.
Diversity: The company struggles to retain diverse talent, particularly among Black employees. Bloomberg promotes young white employees to Team Leaders who lack the emotional intelligence to lead a diverse team. Many Black and Brown employees get passed over for promotions that have the job's leadership skills, work ethic, knowledge, and emotional intelligence.
Equity: Black and Brown's employees are underpaid. As an entry-level candidate, while you may start with the same salary as your peers after your first end-of-year review, that's when the pay gap starts. Bloomberg does not disclose their data on employees' wages, b. Still, some colleagues are transparent with one another, so it's easy to find out who's making more, and most of the high earners are white men and white women in second place.
Inclusion: They do a poor job of informing employees of all the leadership opportunities within Analytics. On some occasions, you'll walk into work the next day and find out a co-worker was selected to lead a campaign or selected as a point of contact for a specific product or promoted to Deputy Team Leader (assistant Team Lea. There wasn't an interview or application process present to give everyone a chance to apply. It was handed to them (favoritism and white privilege)!
Limited Career Progression: Bloomberg's management hierarchy is flat. Meaning leadership positions are limited to Deputy Team Leader, Team Leader, Department Manager, Regional Manager, Global Head, and then there is the Management Committee where Michael Bloomberg sits on. The management committee comprises white men and women (mostly men) who are old and conservative, and they wonder why they struggle with retaining Black and Brown talent. The same managers hold leadership positions year after year. The same managers are promoted unless one of them quits, gets fired, or transfers to another department. They rotate them from one role to the next.
Lack of Technical Transferable Skills: Bloomberg wants to be the Google or Microsoft of Financial Data Software. Meaning 98% of the tools you'll use in Analytics are specific to Bloomberg. You're a Product Specialist. There is nothing wrong with that, but that's not how the role is presented. A lot more companies use Google and Microsoft compared to Bloomberg's software known as the "Terminal." Unless you plan to work at Bloomberg until you retire and stay in one department, it's more advantageous and attractive to employers if you know how to use other software such as Salesforce, Tableau, or SaaS and programming languages such as SQL or Python.
Strict Work Schedule: Analytics is a queue-based role. You must be in queue precisely at your start time, and your lunch break is assigned to you. If you're assisting a client and it's time to go to lunch, you must finish helping the client before you can go to lunch so sometimes, you'll only get a 30-minute break.
Work-Life Balance: Even though Analytics is a shift-based role, you'll constantly find yourself working long hours to catch up on client requests or studying to pass an exam. Some of the exams are stupid and the information is useless outside of Bloomberg. You're also required to work some weekends and holidays. The company is open all year round.
Performance metrics: It's a numbers game. It's either you hit your target or didn't. They don't care why you didn't hit your target regardless of if the issue is with their workflow. If you're white and a butt kisser, they'll look past it. You're also ranked against your peers, which isn't always fair because they will evaluate an employee who's been in the role for only six months against an employee who's been in the same position for two years. The knowledge and experience are not on the same level.
Resistance to Adopt WFH Culture: Bloomberg thrived during the pandemic. The company's revenue increased. Their employees kept the company running while dealing with a deadly virus, parents had to juggle work and virtual school and civil unrest across the country, and how did they repay them? By giving all employees a four-week notice to return to the office three days a week. If you moved out of state and couldn't comply, you were let go or had to resign. Depending on your Team Leader or manager, some will give you a hard time if you can’t make it in three days a week regardless of if you can get the work done from home just the same. The company eventually plans to resume employees coming in five days a week.
