I joined in lockdown remotely and was good for first year or two but as lockdown lifted and we returned to the office things slowly deteriorated paired with consumer duty challenges it’s all handled very badly. I worked in the admin pods and progressed quite quickly and had no complaints however as I progressed through the admin ranks things got slowly worse. There is minimal to no training which for a financial services job is very poor it got worse as I progressed as I went into a more technical paraplanning type role writing reports but with no formal training on research or report writing you had to either hope for the best or seek help from peers. The higher ups are very out of touch with the job on more than one occasion I had to help or correct them on certain processes, they offer no support in day to day operations just telling you to prioritise if busy taking on no work themselves. Some are part time and often aren’t in, They offer no support on tasks or cases but expect the world and everything done and wasting time with pointless catch ups. In my time a lot of staff came and went the turnover there is very high the ones who remain often aren’t thanked and expected to pick up 2-3 peoples work load while replacements can take up to 6 months or more to come and even then they need to be trained or aren’t up to scratch. This attitude extends across all departments but the pods in particular is a very negative environment. When you walk onto the floor the atmosphere tells the story with stress and burn out being rife. The IFA’s are often bully and seem to get away with speaking to and how they want to staff and you dare say no to a request. higher ups are one big club who constantly find ways to make the job harder for staff and not offer any support. They are bureaucratic trying to pass the buck and deny blame and just purely incompetent who does very little when there. Most processes are outdated, don’t fit and are designed to please regulation and hold someone responsible but fail to get the actual task or job done making it harder and longer. The company seems to take on a lot of acquisitions but doesn’t have the staff to handle them and doesn’t seem to want to replace them when they leave. The company boasts a lot of benefits but it’s boils down to a basic level of private medical care which no one uses.
