Nationwide Building Society Compensation FAQ

Pros

Good facilities, good salary compared to cost of living and the area, relatively good work life balance, good pension

Cons

Recognition, people in higher positions get comfortable which makes progression very hard, cost cutting, bad decisions at the top (investment in business/commercial which went to waste), shared bonus pool

Advice to Management

Have a clear cost cutting plan, cutting jobs and bonuses is understandable but when you waste the money you save both on internal and external programmes and strategies that are a waste of time or don’t work, it just reduces morale and makes you question the people at the top of the firm

Pros

Salary is really competitive Great Benefits, sick pay, pension and bonuses Friendly atmosphere, great place to work and meet like minded people Not sales driven, no pressure to get sales

Cons

Stop making unnecessary redundancies when the mortgage market is really busy and you have staff that have been there 20 years plus

Advice to Management

Look after your older employees

Pros

Annual bonus of about 7% of your salary, Generous sick pay allowance, Good pension, The internal training provided for roles is of a high quality.

Cons

Salaries are so low the bonus and pension are meaningless, with no opportunity to increase it outside of the annual inflation bump, The worst bullying culture I've seen in a workplace, and unfortunately this is rewarded, Complete lack of ownership across the business, No direction from the business, for instance they've removed targets for sales roles but still act like they are there during 1-2-1's, There is a consistent level of incompetence in all areas across the business, and a huge separation between the retail network and head office.

Advice to Management

Get rid of the majority of your staff (including upper management) to remove both the cosmic levels of incompetence and the rotten culture that sits at the businesses core, and perhaps incentivise the few brilliant people I met to stay? Nationwide does one thing very well, and that is it's marketing (both internal and external), however in reality it is all farcical. It is nothing more than a high street bank, and as much as it would like to portray otherwise this will always be the case. In all honesty nothing can be done to turn this business around, and the sooner modern financial businesses such as Monzo and Starling Bank put them (and the other major banks) out of business the better. To summarise, don't work here, it really isn't worth the hassle.

Pros

Fantastic benefits package with yearly bonus & pay rise, extremely good pension plan, and you can work where you want 100% of the time (Office, home, cafe, or all!).

Cons

Busy body culture - if you're not working late well past your finish time and if your diary isn't full then you're not dedicated enough or you're missing out on work that needs doing. Improving ways of working is a big struggle for a lot of teams. Change happens far too slowly, duplication is a big problem, tick box exercises that aren't allowed to be challenged/improved etc...

Advice to Management

Managers need to understand the systems and processes their teams are using to understand why/where there are problems.

Pros

Good maternity pay and aftercare

Cons

Not very transparent with its employees