pathetic salary, discrimination, unfair referral, nepotism... - Associate Anonymous Employee Review

The salaries of executives at State Street have increased by 10%, 19%, 30%, and 52% each year. However, the further down you go in the hierarchy, the lower the salaries become. At the lower levels, the pay is so ridiculously low that it is almost equivalent to the minimum wage. Essentially, they want experience but offer only minimum wage. The average salary increase is only about 1%, which is below the rate of inflation. I'm not sure if that's even legal. In my experience at other banks, salary increases were at least 3% as a minimum. For good performance, they hardly offer more than a 0.5% to 1% increase. The company doesn't effectively address underperformers. There are so many employees who clearly do little work but still take home a paycheck, while others end up doing double the work. What's interesting, though, is that these underperformers receive the same salary increases and bonuses. Many of them are friends of managers or other high-level employees. Diversity is heavily marketed by the company, but when it comes to promotions or advancing to senior roles, it seems to be more about where you're from or who you know rather than your experience, skills, or educational background. There's a lot of nepotism, discrimination, and favoritism at every level. The referral program is also unfair. If someone is referred, especially by a manager, they almost always get the job, regardless of their skills or experience. On the other hand, if someone applies through the usual process without a referral, they need to be significantly more qualified or have far more experience than a referred candidate, which feels both unfair and discriminatory. What's the point of going to the office if there's no real collaboration? Most of the time, you end up on calls and doing the same work online. A bank isn’t a hospital or a nursery, where you need to be physically present all the time. Some employees try to avoid going to the office by pretending to be sick, and sometimes they take advantage of the situation. Many others come to the office while sick, but some employees get notable exceptions without proper justification, which doesn't seem fair.