Company: J-P-Morgan
Date: 2008-09-09
Overall rating: 4/5
Employment status: current

Great benefits, great pay for top performers - but managers need to better communicate with and encourage their teams.
Pros: Jamie Dimon's dynamic and intuitive leadership style is inspiring, and makes many employees proud to work at the company (avoiding the subprime disaster is one such example).  Jamie has a very strong executive leadership team. Employees enjoy progressive benefits such as same-sex /domestic partner health insurance coverage,  paternity leave and lactation programs/private rooms for new moms at many locations. Salaried employees get four weeks of paid vacation, - all full-time employees get 6 sick days, 10 paid bank holidays, 2 personal holidays. Top performers are rewarded well financially and with greater work flexibility (hours/work from home days).
Cons: To be considered a top performer, one must work longer hours and take the initiative to request extra work and special projects. The bell curve -like system used to rate employee performance (and allocate bonuses) can be a disincentive for employees to be team-players. Pockets of incompetence create more work and stress for diligent workers, but this is usually eventually cleared up by moving poor performers to another role or out of the company altogether.