Pros
Decent benefits, somewhat flexible hours and location depending upon manager, several operations centers in RI and MA, people who do the actual work are kind and considerate, room for growth within the company if you develop partnerships across business lines.
Cons
Management was terrible. Everyone had their own agenda and no one worked together, each thinking their way was right. This was the case from executive level to middle management. I worked during Larry Fish and Ellen Alemany. Fish was a fool who believed that customers just wanted warm and fuzzies and made no investment in technology which, when Alemany came in, made us very uncompetitive in the market. Alemany attempted to change the tech piece but while sacrificing our customer-centric "not your typical bank" method we had for years. The investments in tech were inconsistent across business lines and projects were always late and/or delayed due to constant competing priorities and no process engineers guiding project managers. Business Services, the Operations hub of the company, started executing many Lean Six Sigma projects which saw certain improvements in the areas who would sponsor the initiatives. Ellen's lieutenants beyond Business Services did not execute this and it lead to certain areas knowing and understanding the best way to optimize a process, supported by technology, while the business line who would be the primary input or output for that process stagnant in old ways, usually held hostage by management. Management, overall, was a game of politics with the majority of the people in those roles not adept at the business they ran or at management. I have always viewed managers as strategists, subject-matter-experts, and coaches for their subordinates. Strategy was a constant area of concern as the bank would identify a strategy which would very clearly be contrived by only 60-80% of those involved and as such would miss the bigger picture, the source of the defect or problem. Since I left the company has departed from the Royal Bank of Scotland. The two companies rarely saw eye to eye and RBS' attempts to make Citizens a carbon-copy of their own business created feelings of Imperialism in the States. The results lead to initiatives laced with turmoil and the eventual separation of the two companies. Management is typically promoted on the basis of performance within a role, usually unrelated to skills associated with managing people or processes. I find this is the case in most companies though. The dilemma becomes having a performer guide strategy and measurement of individuals in terms of that performer's working and learning styles. This usually translates into a very micro or very macro manager who doesn't tailor to the individual.
