bank clerk

teller

senior underwriter

health & welfare consultant

client associate

Alerus Financial

Alerus is company that looks good on paper and will sell you on anything to get you in the door to work for them. The HR and hiring managers find out what your interests are and then sell you on the job and company telling you that you'll be able to help out various departments (the ones you're interested in) and work into a role within them, which could not be further from the truth. Management regardless of if it's upper management or a direct supervisor are decent at best but most of them are very bad. You will be treated like a peasant and no matter how hard you work, it will never be good enough in their eyes; management is supposed to be uplifting and act as role models for those under them, you will find none of that here. My direct supervisor was late to work nearly every single day and while at work was incredibly lazy, they would rather play on their phone than help out with assisting clients, they were more of a child as the days went on than an adult constantly gossiping about other employees and belittling everyone that comes their way. If you're looking for a positive and fun culture with advancement opportunities, and to overall enjoy most days you have at work then I am telling you do not work for Alerus, there will be more bad days than good days and this is exactly why you see the kind of turnover you do with this company, throughout my time here I saw over 10 employees come and go and that was only one year,  something needs to change and it starts with a complete overhaul of the HR department, the hiring process, and the way management is supposed to be run. 

The day consists of confirming that our work done the previous day traded correctly and is paying out properly, receiving all new customer forms and evenly dividing the work among the technicians, carefully managing the order in which they came in. We assess any issues with the forms and resolve any missing information or discrepancies between what is being requested and what is allowed under IRS regulation and plan rules.  We carefully and methodically process each form.  This sometimes involves communication with our administrators, the HR representatives from the various companies we serve, third party administrators, or the participant who is requesting the distribution.  We have a cut off time for our processing, and once we are done processing, we exchange our completed work with other technicians and audit each other's work.  Once this work is done, we also process corrections, and manage monthly installments.  
The hardest part of the job is actually keeping up with all of the work that comes in, and managing the end of the day corrections and installment work.  This sometimes requires 10 - 11 hour days - I have even been known to work 12.
The most enjoyable part of the job for me is the detail and getting the problems solved.  I also enjoy my co-workers.

Alerus is experiencing growing pains as it expands from a small, very personal company to a much larger, publicly traded company.  
Department managers are generally very good; concerned with the welfare of their department and their employees.  Upper Management at Alerus is outstanding- inspiring and personable.  Middle management is where things get complex; important items disappear into that black hole and take months to years to resolve, if ever.  Asking for help is encouraged but generally the help given is what the giver feels like offering and not necessarily the type of help truly needed.  Plenty of self-driven training is available, hands on training with experts is hard to come by.  
Benefits are good to great.  Paid time off is quite decent with upper management strongly encouraging employees utilize all their time off each year.  However staffing levels are kept so low that taking time off places undue hardship on your team.  Overtime is discouraged by upper management with a good work/life balance encouraged, but in reality overtime is plentiful as the workloads increase at twice the pace of new staff.  
Be wary of offering to help with a project as you will likely end up owning it forever.  Job duties change frequently and often it's difficult to determine who is responsible for a particular job.  
 

I love my job at Alerus. My coworkers are so supportive and encouraging, and they are always ready to help me and answer any questions I may have. The environment is positive and laid back, and I feel comfortable talking to my coworkers. I feel like I do not get paid enough for the amount of work that I do, though; I have taken on many projects in addition to my normal everyday work, and I feel like I deserve to be paid more for what I am doing. I have learned a lot about the banking/finance world in my time at Alerus. I feel like getting time off can be a hassle at times, though. If you ask farther in advance, it is pretty easy to get the time off. However, during the holiday season it is extremely difficult to get time off. I requested a few days during the holidays off about 5-6 months in advance, and got denied because it was the holiday season. However, a few weeks later, someone else got those same days off that I had originally requested, which was quite frustrating. Overall, I think that Alerus is a great company to work for, I just think that time off should be fairly determined. When there is downtime, as long as everything else is completed, we are free to work on things not related to work, such as homework or reading a book, which is nice. 

Due to staffing shortages within the department, temps were hired to support operations. Throughout my tenure, I consistently demonstrated a strong work ethic, often working OT even after becoming a salaried employee, and received positive performance evaluations on an annual basis. After experiencing prolonged personal and medical challenges, I utilized all of my paid time off for medical appointments and sick days, leading me to file for intermittent FMLA to ensure job security. Ultimately, it was determined that my productivity had decreased and my employment was terminated. Although I valued the relationships I fostered with my colleagues and managers, this experience highlighted that HR policies ultimately prioritize organizational interests over individual employees. This insight has left a lasting impression that I will not forget.

What is the best part of working at the company?
Flexibility and Benefits (PTO, 401K match, paternity/maternity leave) 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Change is slow and almost impossible. Upper Management doesn’t listen to employees concerns. More work, less staff, no extra pay incentive 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Stressful. There is no accountability in departments for laziness or poor work. Stingy- no wage increase due to mass inflation across the US for the simple reason that “inflation won’t last so when it goes down should we take your increase away?” If you have ideas for improvement, you better hope to have an “in” with upper management otherwise you will be ignored 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Sitting at my desk for well over 8 hrs without breaks, eating at my desk while working as work load is so heavy. Listening to customer complaints about how slow the process is. Other associates coming in and talking about the stress and frustration of the job. Watching good people quit

Used to be a great place to work but employees are flooding out the door and management doesn’t do anything to fix it. Admins have more plans than they can handle with no relief coming. You have a lot of vacation time at Alerus but if you use it you are behind for weeks and so stressed it’s not even worth taking time off. Upper management had a huge turnover in 2022 and the new management is awful and the company is falling apart. They can’t retain current staff and can’t hire new staff. Also every employee leaving is getting way more money at other companies as Alerus does not pay well especially for the long days and excessive workload. Little opportunity for growth despite turnover. Company is at least 10 years behind on technology and they loose clients because of it. 

You'll hear how much they care about their employees but they don't put their money where their mouth is.  They do not invest in their employees, not enough training, not enough pay for the workload. You get a good amount of FTO, hopefully you will be able to use it. Several departments are under staffed. Company is very siloed. I had 4 managers in my department in 3 years. They have more poor managers than good. When you share any issues or problems with your superior, manager, HR or through surveys they do not address it or try to improve it.  The c suite will talk about the 80% approval rating on their survey but never address the 20% that should be a priority. I guess if your in upper management and you work at the home office Alerus might be a great place to work.
I would not recommend anyone to work there.

I don't recommend team mates to work for Alerus Financial. Not a well diverse company and management will find every reason and issue after another to make team members life unreasonable. Also they threw a huge fit about my children pictures and ask me to reframe from sending them to team mates. Only I show team mates who I was close with and my former boss was always harassing me every single time. Also I had a doctors appointment which was just during my lunch time and it was over 30 mins on my one hour lunch. Leadership over reacted like it was the end of the journey and gave me unreasonable grief. Also when team members point out issues that they have with leadership, they will play a victim and act confuse like they don't know what's going on and point the finger at you like you are the main issue.  

The management style and overall corporate structure specifically for the Fargo locations is almost laughable, schedules aren't finished until the Friday or weekend before the following work week, full-time employees and leads aren't required to work nearly as many weekends or closing shifts and if fully staffed you may not see your actual teller supervisor at your location for multiple work weeks. In the past six months most duties for one of our locations have been pushed onto two people (both part-timers) while they've been filling positions. On top of that the salary for the position doesn't weigh in with some of the local competitors and your year-end raise and bonus are almost irrelevant and you're capped out at a little over $18 an hour unless you're a lead. 

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Bank clerk 20 salaries reported	$16.75 per hour
Teller 3 salaries reported	$21.17 per hour
Senior underwriter 4 salaries reported	$76,000 per year
Health & welfare consultant 2 salaries reported	$82,500 per year
Client associate 1 salary reported	$16.50 per hour

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