Pros
We have some great people working at CFE and leading departments. Real Estate and Lending have great leadership now. Real Estate, especially, has always been a pleasure to work with. Training is always very helpful and positive. They go above and beyond to assist internal clients as a training team should. They have made positive improvements in the last year or so. The IT department is starting to become easier to work with and friendly. They are getting better about finding solutions to issues, but there still needs to be more of an edge as a financial institution. Project management and development are always eager to help and collaborate any way possible. Half of the branch managers are good at their job and actually lead their teams as opposed to sitting in their office alone all day. We have a great 401k plan, get bank holidays, and have a gym at the operations center. The CEO also sends regular emails to everyone as a form of open communication, which is awesome. We value the transparency. I hope other senior managers start to adopt the same habits. He also has a podcast for employees which is pretty cool.
Kontras
There are some departments that are just a huge pain to work with and we really don’t look forward to it. Business Services is not organized at all. Their leadership is subpar and they don’t have any type of follow through. Meetings are regularly blown off or rescheduled last minute. You might even have to have the Same meeting 2-3 times before there are any deliverables that get completed. HR is also a nightmare. If that isn’t scary, I don’t know what is. The leadership in this department is very rude and even disrespectful. He talks over people in meetings, if he makes it and doesn’t forget, and he will cut you off mid-sentence. They are also known to be gossipers in that department. Which is also bad if you have private medical circumstances you have to disclose. Culture is not a priority at CFE right now. With any luck, when it is important, they will not leave it to HR to institute or start. Collections is another department that is more difficult to work with than necessary. Leadership is combative, rude and impersonal. Any time a problem comes up they always blame it on another area. Marketing has zero idea what a timeline is or how to communicate the status of a project. Except when the deadline arrives and there is no material ready. While they have creative people on the team, they are not being used in the correct capacity. There is no brand recognition and minimal social media involvement. I’m hopeful that this is in the process of being changed. We have been tasked with being more collaborative and communicate with each other more. Some department heads might not even reply to emails. That’s seems to be the opposite strategy. But nobody is held accountable for bad behavior except tellers in the branches. They are the only ones who’s feet are held to the fire. It’s sad. They have some of the hardest jobs, but see the smallest rewards. There is no recognition. Not from the top down. Unless you like a rainbow lapel pin and canned memo.
