Extremely high turnover - most IP is out the door.
Extremely poor change management throughout the whole merger. Virtually non-existent.
What culture? Ubank's culture was dead even before the merger. Do yourself a favour and go back to read Glassdoor reviews from 2019-2021. Ubank is in the exact same place as it was pre-merger, just with a different app and branding. The great culture 86400 had has also been destroyed.
The only culture that is going strong is the meeting culture. Meetings about meetings, getting more and more people/teams involved each time with no actions and dragging out deadlines.
Teams are very insular. Not much cross team activity.
Extremely toxic environment. Lots of politics.
No transparency, lots of secrecy. Minimal company wide comms. Lots of mixed messages. If plans do change, it isn't communicated properly or at all. A lot of tip toe-ing, talking in circles and only answering easy/positive questions in the All Hands Q&A’s (the rare occasions where they even have a Q&A segment and allow staff to submit questions)
Lack of ownership. It's always someone else's problem. Strong blame game culture. Tendency to blame everything on 86400's processes and staff/leadership, everything is allegedly broken. If 86400 was so broken then why was the company acquired to replace ubank’s technology and app and not the other way around? And why was ubank rebranded to take on 86400’s original branding (colours, logo, designs), not the other way around?
Definitely not a start-up or a scale-up. Extremely corporate. Majority of leadership and senior management come from corporate backgrounds and/or are new to the business - they have no desire to change from their corporate ways. Almost the entire pre-merger leadership team and majority of senior leaders have left.
Lots of red tape. Not agile or fast paced
No perks. You can pay a fee to opt into NAB benefits
No remote working. They want staff in the office for hybrid working however there aren't enough seats or meeting rooms. Mandatory number of days in the office is only increasing and not decreasing. Not to mention, ubank is located inside the NAB office. Even better, only pre-merger ubank and NAB staff are allowed to access NAB systems to book meeting rooms inside the office. If you're new to the company or originally from 86400, you're unable to do something as basic as booking a meeting room and probably won't be able to find a room on the day since at least half the people on the floor are in the same boat as you. Not much separation from NAB (in all aspects) despite claiming to be different to NAB.
Poor work life balance. You will receive messages and calls at inappropriate times of day or when you're clearly on leave and be expected to respond (usually not an emergency, just a lack of respect for boundaries)
Preference for appointing people who do not have people management or area specific experience into executive roles that own certain areas of the business
Leadership team hide behind scripted comms and can’t own up to mistakes and decisions or address evident issues. Lack of empathy, care and relatability.
Minimal opportunities for staff to voice their opinions, provide feedback or raise concerns without feeling fearful. Instilling fear amongst staff is not how successful culture is created! Lots of talk about creating a brand new culture that will mirror Aussie tech giants (starts with A and C) however no action has been taken to change or "improve".
If the merger was so successful and ubank was such a great place to work at, why would there be articles like this in the media? Search up an article on The Australian called "NAB integration of 86 400 buy spurs staff exits, culture clash" since links are not allowed here.
