Everyone wants to leave because:
- Bonus, what bonus? Your bonus is to be employed here! People were amazed to hear that the gross bonus pools were up - and the largest in the industry and then everyone receives zero bonuses - clearly the pool is skewed towards the very top.
- Process driven, risk obsessed culture - you will be rewarded for NOT booking business
- AML, Legal & Compliance are literally prison wardens - it is very easy to get into huge trouble here and the punishments are severe - to deter others.
- Opening accounts takes ages (3 - 6 months in London, vs. 4 weeks in Zurich) - many cases clients simply go to Zurich for the business.
- Obsessed with getting new AUM at all costs and then driving clients into low return, expensive discretionary mandates above any other business. In practice we end up with lots of clients who generate no real revenue.
- Culture of victimisation against whistleblowers - speak up, be fired
- Siloed business model - your biggest competitors will be UBS Zurich, UBS Geneva, UBS Singapore...
- Psychos for managers - please see Alec Baldwin's scenes in "Glengarry Glen Ross" - its hard to believe, but this is what our weekly sales meetings are like.
But no one can leave because:
- They hide restrictive (if legally unenforceable) provisions in their employment contracts - e.g. you cannot work for another competitor or potential competitor in the UK for 3 months after resigning! No you will not be paid during this time.
- If you are on an employer sponsored work permit - you only have 2 months to find another sponsored role - which is not possible because of the restrictive covenant.
- Don't bother going to HR - it's a "cloud" service here (I am yet to meet anyone from HR who is not in external recruitment). All HR engagement is via the intranet or by telephone.
- The only way to avoid this is to go through redundancy - so everyone is putting in their worst possible work so they can escape via the prison sewer system!
The general atmosphere is one of fear and resignation - people are literally tricked into the bank and then trapped and resigned to a life of legal slavery. If offered a role here, please watch "Glengarry Glen Ross" or "12 Years a Slave" they perfectly describes the situation within this bank.
