Pros
Pay is above average, though you need to negotiate it. Benefits are solid, good vacation. Technology is actually pretty good and computers are able to run well. A few outdated systems but you get that everywhere. Have social events monthly and we get food/lunches) alcohol sometimes. We are getting a new building near Irving I'm the summer!
Cons
Upper management is clueless after merger. So many people got laid off, in middle and upper management and it seems like it was all the good ones. Most coworkers, old and new are great, bit there are some people that may as well be robots and cannot think independently at all. The CEO just left (January) and now am acting interim board is in charge. Avantax is a merger of 3, now 4 companies in name only. All the systems and processes are still seperate. You have to know how to do everything 2 different ways. No steps taken to integrate policy or procedure. The new compliance team is way, way strict on access to systems to do daily functions we used to be able to do in minutes, now take 15 plus. It's like pulling teeth from an alligator in the dark with your bare hands, basically impossible to work with them. HD and 1st Global had different ways of doing everything and it's still that way. Communication is completely lacking from upper management. Sometimes we hear of changes from.l advisora saying they heard a new change was implemented. Or worse, we stumble onto it after weeks of being in effect when it has ballooned I go some issue with a month of backlog problems that we can't fix. I've have (Above VP )upper management ask me about a major core business process that all our advisor loved, only to have to tell them that we outsourced that process last month. Completely clueless to what goes on in the trenches and it couldn't be more obvious.. It seems like the parent company only achieves growth through Merger and Acquisition, rather than organic growth. We have lost, taken away, or outsource various products or services that the advisor were used to having.