Company: J-P-Morgan
Date: 2016-01-25
Overall rating: 2/5
Employment status: former
Experience level: Junior

Corporate and Investment Bank
Pros: Compensation - While not at the top of the financial shared services industry in terms of basic pay, they make up for Night Differential (covers entire shift worked) and Holiday Premium. There are 15 Vacation Leaves and 9 Sick Leaves for Team Leads and below. Not much but adequate. These empty pretty fast in a span of one year.

Benefits - Their HMO is relatively extensive and covers an additional number of dependents.

Infrastructure and Location - Their building is located closer to the main road (EDSA). More accessible for many living in the north and western side of Metro Manila. Clinic is round-the-clock operational. Also has a 24 hour cafeteria serving passable and very reasonable meals which many other companies don't offer.

Internal Mobility - IJP (Internal hiring) is strongly present here and this gives staff the opportunities to look for  which role suits him/her best.
Cons: Politics - This is the main root cause of the high attrition and less-than-satisfactory scorecards for certain processes. As long as you're currying the favor of the upper management, you will have no problems in the risk of being reprimanded or given a disciplinary case despite breaching company rules and policies (e.g. no completing the 9 hour shift, leaving work undone). Hence, some of the main contributors of the process are left out.

Performance Management Not Objective Enough - Depending on the team, despite the highly complex level of performance metrics given, what is written on the evaluation does not reflect on accomplishment of the employee. In short, the objectives are not followed completely and ratings could be factored on the general impression of the management towards the individual. This can affect the promotion of the employees since on some teams promotions can take very long or even not at all.

Work-Life Balance - Again, depending on your team, working at an average of 15 hours per day is needlessly terrible for your physical, mental and emotional health. If you're unlucky enough, work days of 22 hours for five straight business days are not unheard of. The obsession of FTE Saves by the upper management should be stopped or lessened since this is taking the toll of their employees' well-being. To make matters worse, Infrastructure cost reduction is attained through hotdesking, where worstations are shared by at least two people with different shifts. Hence, when one is rendering overtime, he/she should move to the overtime work area to give way to the next user. Quite a hassle considering overtime is the norm here.

Process Improvement - The amount of time for one process improvement to migrate is incredibly slow. It goes into several bureaucratic issues before being approved. Too many shifts available are on WHEM (graveyard). Morning shifts are on the rare side. If other shared services can make the WHEM processes do on morning shift, why can't JPMC?

Hiring Strategy - For the lowest ranked employees (Team Members), they have a soft spot for fresh graduates since the salary offered is on entry level. For those with experience however, they are reluctant to hire one due to the possibility of asking a much higher rate. Hence, the external hiring of Senior Team Members are less common now. Most are through level promotions (which can be slow).