-Although the company was founded on great principles, the business (no longer led by John Bogle) has made some questionable business decisions. Because the company has set some aggressive goals to continuously lower cost and increase business revenue, it seems like some of the decisions in recent years have lost sight of the main focus.
This role has shifted from keeping the main focus on providing exceptional client service which in turn will bring additional revenue to the business through client satisfaction, to emphasizing using different sales tactics. Although you are managing your own book of clients and focusing on keeping them happy, you are asked to proactively sell to them at the same time in order to meet metrics.
The role recently added additional responsibilities such as making outbound sales calls from a list of your own clients, however no responsibilities were taken away. There is no commission or performance incentives at Vanguard, so the position basically asks employees to do additional work without any increase in pay.
The company recently went through global restructuring which changed the job classifications. This position, as well as many positions on a similar level, went from exempt to hourly, and in turn the end of the year bonus was taken away. Employees looked forward to this bonus because it was the only form of compensation based off of performance, therefore when the bonus was removed there was no incentive for one employee to work harder than the other (besides personal gratitude of course). The department managers stated that the change from exempt to hourly was due to the recent US Department of Labor changes, however the DOL stated that employees making under $47,000 a year should be hourly and thus overtime eligible. This position has a base salary of approximately $50,000, but the company changed it anyway. Many employees believed the true reason was in order to no longer pay end of the year bonuses and save on cost.
-The company recently started two initiatives several years ago, a new advice service and a new brokerage account. Both of these new initiatives became a much larger company change than many initially thought, and were handled very poorly throughout the process of the rollout.
The new brokerage account had many glitches and problems, creating issues with clients' accounts. The company went from offering clients the option to "upgrade" to the new brokerage account to requiring it. Due to the many issues and system glitches, this drastically increased call volumes with angry clients who had issues, thus adding stress to the position.
The resources, tools, and materials to do ones job became increasingly challenging. The systems were outdated, and when clients had unique and specific questions on complex topics, many times it was difficult to get the proper information from an expert. One reason for this is because it always seemed like the bare minimum number of employees needed were always hired, so it was difficult to reach experienced experts internally. In an attempt to remedy this situation (instead of hiring more qualified employees) the company began hiring contractors and giving them complex duties. This increased mistakes by the contractors, and questions they didn't know the answer to.
The metrics of this position are not fairly aligned to the main goals of the role. Although the main focus of the role was to provide great client service (and more recently, to increase sales), many of the metrics focused on things that were out of one's control, such as measuring how many calls you answer vs. miss, which also counts over the weekend and when one is out of the office. This also includes things such as a client survey rating based on an interaction with a different individual, but if the client is in your book then it hurts your metrics. The metrics are mainly quantity focused versus quality. Therefore in order to succeed the person who answers the most calls (assuming they didn't get too many, because the more you get the more you can miss) and sends the most e-mails generally has the stronger dashboard. Taking ownership of difficult situations, de-escalating clients, and helping clients who truly need the help is not truly measured, although it is the most important skill in the job.
The last con I would add, and the main reason I decided to pursue a new opportunity, is the difficulty to advance from this position. The advancement structure is very political, therefore unless you are considered a "chosen one" by management from the get-go, it will be very difficult to advance from this position. After the global job changes, there were very few opportunities available above the position, and many individuals who were over qualified for promotions did not receive one. With the standard yearly salary merit increase of 2% per year (95% of employees receive 2% approximately), there is not much room in terms of increased salary by just staying where you are.
This is a company where the easiest way to make money is to be hired into a high position as an external. External are typically offered a higher salary than those who have moved up the ranks into the position. This is partly because you only get a 7% raise for each level you move up, and the company has to offer higher salary options for external experienced individuals in order to stay competitive in the job market. These externals many times struggle and require the help of the experienced employees who make a smaller salary than they do.
