1) Abusive supervisors and institutional apathy: I worked for this organization for 4.5 years and was promoted twice. My supervisor had an extremely hot temper and continually verbally abused his employees. Despite complaints to HR and notes on his performance review, his behavior did not change. In fact, he was promoted.
2) Treatment of former employees: I left my job in the summer to attend graduate school and used my accrued vacation when I quit. When I left the firm, my supervisor approved my vacation and my official end date was clear (and in the HR system). Despite this, the firm continued to pay me via direct deposit for two pay periods. Once they discovered this, they had to ask me when my end date was because their HR systems were in such disarray. I asked me supervisor for details about how I was to repay the amounts and he passed it off to HR. I received a letter from HR two months later simply requesting that I pay a flat amount. I immediately sent a certified letter to Citi's "overpayment coordinator", my old supervisor and HR requesting data on the dates of the payments, the amounts of the payments, a statement that they would correct my W-2 and confirmation that they actually withheld taxes that they claimed they were owed. No one bothered to reply to my letter. 1.5 months later, I received a call from a bill collector from CitiFinancial on Christmas Eve demanding that I return her call by 2 PM that day. I called the bill collector and was spoken to quite tersely like I was a criminal or a deadbeat borrower. I again reiterated my request to the bill collector and she claimed to be sending the data that I requested. I have yet to see this data. To date, I have not repaid the company because they cannot provide the data that they would provide an employee on a pay stub.
3) Immobility: I was promoted twice, but because of my abusive supervisor, sought work in other departments. Citi's HR policies required that a supervisor "release" an employee to take a position with another department. This made it virtually impossible to move to a different department without quitting the firm.
4) Restricted stock lost when returning to school: I accumulated a substantial amount of unvested restricted stock after working for the firm for 4.5 years (most of my compensation was in the form of bonus, of which 25% was paid in unvested company restricted stock). When I quit to return to graduate school to upgrade my skills, the firm required me to forfeit the unvested restricted stock that I had earned. Such a practice is intended to prevent employees from leaving to go to other competitors. The affect was to punish an employee for wanting to upgrade their skills. I have no incentive to return to the firm. I told HR this, but they did not seem to care. They did not seem to care that they alienated a potential future employee, who would potentially be able to recruit classmates (from a top MBA program). Clearly, they have no interest in long-term retention of employees.
5) Extremely political: Relations among business divisions are extremely dysfunctional. I witnessed this after working in a staff position that dealt with the management of each top division. They do not talk to one another and approach other business divisions in an adversarial manner. The resulting culture is extremely toxic. This system encourages employees not to work together and to develop deep-seated, bitter resentment toward their colleagues in other divisions.
This list could go on! I was somewhat annoyed while working for them, but became enraged at them by their treatment after I quit (not responding to simple requests for information and harassing me with an aggressive bill collector). This is no way to retain talent. Work here at your own risk.
