Pros
By the time you leave, you will have developed an unparalleled level of personal resilience due to the toxic management culture. And if you don’t leave, you’ll be blissfully ignorant of your Stockholm Syndrome and buy into the subliminal message that you should be happy to work for the biggest bank in the world.
Cons
The Diversity and Inclusion narrative comes across as disingenuous. You have a bunch of white billionaires attempting to show that they understand what is actually going on in the world and simply react to the topic du jour. There is no real strategy, only action for the sake of saying something about a topic. There is a constant barrage of US-focussed messaging that is disenfranchising for international colleagues and creates an obvious sense of “them and us”. Operating Committee members are openly stating that they are giving their MDs targets linked to Diversity and Inclusion. This can be loosely translated to “quotas” based on racial and gender profiling. This effectively makes it a hostile environment for young white men and there have been many examples of people feeling forced to share their harrowing backgrounds and difficult stories in an attempt to fit into the narrative and prove that they’re not just some privileged white guy. The general management style of ED+ is transactional and focussed on execution. A really good example of this comes from the very top: "We want people back to work, and my view is that sometime in September, October it will look just like it did before," Dimon said at The Wall Street Journal CEO Council. "And everyone is going to be happy with it, and yes, the commute, you know people don't like commuting, but so what." This general disdain for staff percolates through the executive, senior and middle management levels. Middle managers often demonstrates elements of coercive control and psychological abuse through a pattern of manipulative behaviours and exerting power over a direct report, often through intimidation or humiliation. The culture, particularly with the CIB, is toxic. Narcissistic behaviour is encouraged and rewarded. You will rapidly go from earning more than your peers to being the lowest earner in your peer group. The compensation practices are designed to align you to the prevailing rate of inflation, regardless of your performance. There is a huge amount of secrecy around pay band by title, but it is easy enough to discover. When you get promoted, you will be given the title but not the compensation and will spend the following years just trying to scrape into the lower end of the range.