Pros
Offer lots of training, flexible hours/schedules, THE BEST BENEFITS EVER! Great vacation, maternity leave, 401K and great HR. Friendly people and some great team leaders and managers. Even if you have a not so great manager, you are usually working with a lot of fun people that are willing to help you succeed. Your teams are able to work unsupervised and team is able to manage themselves. The pay is very, very generous! Even though you will see the CONS below, I would still suggest it is a great place to work. FHLB is slowing changing to modernize themselves with this day and age banking.
Cons
Sometimes teams tend to work like high school "click" forgetting that we are actually all part of a big team. Also, there are some not-so-great managers. They should offer managers training in regards to interpersonal skills or managing different people. The former Seattle FHLB employees seemed to be stuck in a different decade-meaning some managers that had been longtime FHLB employees were not up to date with modern team management skills. It was difficult for me coming from a new school, modern business background to and "old school" way of thinking. Especially towards women. I tried very hard to fit in with my team but my woman manager (I am female too) made it very difficult for me and seemed to take my concerns and questions as a way of me attacking her or blaming her? It was very childish and made me very depressed for the first 4 months I started. Things later smoothed out as it seem that some managers can be more emotional than other. Things worked out in the end because she didn't see me as a threat and I realized what I was dealing with (an emotional manager) and figured out my place and accepted her for who she was. Apparently there were some personal things going on that might have affected her judgement. She was a nice person in general, a great mother-but I didn't need another mother. I needed a strong manager. Also, read everything in regards to right and benefits. My manager and HR would sometime not very aware of the "accurate" policy as I was pulled in and almost written up for a PTO infraction. After my meeting with HR and mgr, I further researched and saw that as a new employee, I was within policy. I never went back to correct them because again, I was dealing with a sometimes emotional (hot/cold) individual.
