Management not grounded. Seems to be living in another universe.
Pros
A decent place to start your career, if you utilize use it as a stepping stone. Used to have better brand equity but unfortunately losing this edge to competitors. Financial institution - Annual Leave is higher as compared to non financial institution. Comparable to other financial institution. I.e. not better, comparable. Comprehensive health insurance coverage, maternity etc. Colleagues are generally nice, especially rank and file employees. Very flat organizational structure - pros and cons. You can feel free to talk to the CEO who is very friendly. Nice office location in the CBD. Nice office in general, good pantry offerings. Friday bar culture, weekly afternoon snacks session, which aids employee engagement, social interaction. European firm - good work life balance culture. Does not need to OT unnecessarily.
Cons
Very flat organizational structure - pros and cons. Opportunities for progression is very limited. Pride itself for being the fintech to coin the word fintech. Operations is not worthy of the term. Not very supportive of hybrid working, especially after the pandemic, feels the need to control employees is more important. Management and HQ seems to be delusional, held onto a false belief that the firm is a fintech and should be performing better than its competitors. Not grounded especially in APAC context. HQ spent precious dollars on external consultant to provide training that was curated with European context for all Saxo offices. Waste of resources for unmeaningful training. Without taking into account the effectiveness of the training, there is little emphasis on employee loyalty. More often than not, employees leave even before the completion of such costly (arguably ineffective) training. Target to increase market share and client funds but old fashion in the way the business is operated. A proud European firm. Unwilling to learn from the competitors, feels that guerrilla marketing/advertising is beneath them, employs European dark humor proud advertising language trying to attract the mass (wrong strategy=ineffective). Wants absolute client numbers but targeting high net worth. Targets and KPI huge misfit. Unrealistic targets that is forever increasing. Chasing a high that was a result of the Covid pandemic. Mentioned by many: absent of AWS and bonus even when firm is making profits. Back to the point on unrealistic targets for bonus eligibility. Constant change in directions resulting in layoffs. No job security. Always quote cost cutting as an easy excuse to layoff/not pay bonus. Put on an act to cut down on expenses such as travelling for a couple of months. After the layoff/no bonus die down, start seeing the management flying everywhere for 101 reasons. Or a back office team headed by a management taking the whole team for a retreat overseas. Extremely unprofessional HR team. Never expect Private & Confidentiality from the firm’s HR, preaching what they cannot do is the firm’s HR motto. Whatever shared with HR will be out in the open within minutes. HR is not thinking for the employees. Does not even try to be the middle person. But leans all the way towards the firm. Delusional mentorship program and initiatives in trying to be relevant.
