teller

phone banker

guest service agent

technical support specialist

senior compensation analyst

Desert Financial Credit Union

The good:
They raise a lot of money for the community and have lots of volunteer activities for employees. The pay is competitive in some areas of the business with 401k matching, flex spending, etc. There are employees who really care about the member experience and moving the business forward.

The bad:
If you’re considering working at Desert Schools in any back office position here is what you need to know. At one time I’m sure this place had a heart, cared for their employees and took employee complaints about management seriously. Today leaders are allowed to mistreat, target, bully and create a hostile work environment with no consequence. To read more about how the IT department is managed and how the organization and HR have dealt with complaints please read the review titled “Just. Don't.”

If you’re a marketing professional considering employment at Desert Schools please reconsider. The executive marketing leadership in this company is incompetent with no technical, strategic, tactical or applied knowledge of marketing. Instead of innovating, unactionable member data is presented year after year to executive leadership and never applied to any marketing strategies, tactics or plans. The marketing department has no yearly planning, goals, objectives or accountability for its budget or performance; it simply follows the sales goals set at the beginning of year.

For seven years it’s Groundhog Day, throwing away money on banner ads, sending untargeted emails and tripping over each other to understand the basics of SEM, social media, lead generation and branding. Each year the Creative Team is a slave to corporate clients who get what they want no matter how ludicrous, ineffective and despite negative ROI. 

The real creativity and strategic effort that comes from this department is met with opposition from the all areas of the business because the executive marketing leadership cannot effectively speak to the strategies directors and senior staff inside the department recommend. This includes baseline strategies like content marketing, inbound marketing and targeted campaigns.

Because of this and because one particular executive marketing leader felt threatened or couldn’t deal with conflict; new talent hired within the past two years has been systematically bullied, targeted and unjustly performance managed out of the organization. These are leaders with mottos such as “Make my life easy and make me look good.”

Over the course of the last year, a large group within the marketing team filed a joint complaint against a member of the executive marketing leadership along with several other individual complaints about this individual. These complaints covered items like lack of communication, favoritism, severe lack of integrity, unprofessional behavior, bullying, targeting individuals and trying to get them fired because they disagree, stripping responsibilities from employees in retaliation, moving groups of people to different floors in retaliation, fits of rage and many other items.

This wasn’t the first time that complaints had been filed against this particular executive leader by marketing employees, it had occurred more than once in previous years. But, despite the continued efforts of the employees to get help and defend against this marketing leader, the situation was swept under the rug and blamed on poor communication. HR provided no relief from the leader's systemic vindictive actions; they handled it casually with no communication or visible consequence. The CEO/President, Executive President and HR allowed this executive marketing leader to continue to destroy morale and target employees for termination.

I am new to DF in a newer branch but have like 6 years experience in the financial/retail banking world, so take this review as you will. The company holds community involvement as a high goal and they have given millions with a pretty large budget for it. It does seem they're giving to organizations that are genuinely good ones with a priority on local. But there's also the slight distinct flavor of buying local support in that too. 

Almost every higher up I've spoken to says the company is the best shizz ever...but when you talk to frontline ppl-tellers,bankers-it's not as strong of a drink of the company kool-aid. 
Initial basic training is all of two weeks with a whole week spent on just company culture. The week spent on the systems you'll actually be using daily is a week and basically surface level knowledge.
The same systems used for teller and banker transactions is clunky and IMO a bit difficult to learn. There's also been many times when my branch team has learned of a process that should've been shown during initial training and then that process itself has soo may steps to it when it shouldn't. Much of what's in there seems not streamlined or intuitive-there's also extra stuff in there that nobody seems to fully know how to interpret.
You're also expected to work your own loans, which would be fine if training were scheduled for a timely matter and not a month later which basically excludes you from having HELOCs which are your main money maker.
Micromanagement is definitely in my branch. 
Myself and another newer hire have been waiting two months for business cards...two months. 
There's a really good feeling of I can call someone and they'll help with something but often it's a bit of 'why do I need to call because I don't know this? I should know this/have gotten the training'. 
I ultimately do not feel prepared for anything, mostly because training is st and doesn't cover what I felt should have been covered in day to day operations. 
The company basically says 'sink or swim'. 
Which isn't always a bad thing but we're getting involved with ppl's lives and money,  all while trying to reach sales goals. Don't believe it if they tell you it's not a sales position, it basically is. DF is ultimately still a bank and still want to make money just with somewhat better rates.

Working at Desert Schools was leaps and bounds better than working anywhere in food or retail. When I started in a branch I was fortunate enough to have a strong team that worked very well together for a long time. I even went on to become more or less a "Teller line general" in my manager's words. Meaning I was regarded highly by my coworkers, old and new, as someone who knew what I was doing and knew it well enough for them to approach me with questions or looking for advice. Being there from open to close wore on me after about a year and a half however. I also felt that our opinions as employees weren't valued very highly. I had great coworkers and an excellent management team for most of my time working in the branch. I was also part of a great team when I made the move back office. The department I worked in was crucial to the day to day operations of the credit union so there was definitely a feeling of being on an all-star team. while observing in other departments however I got my first look at some of the office cliques and overheard way more gossip than I personally care for. There was also a big "us vs them" mentality displayed by some of the other departments I had to contact while trying to help a branch or call center get the answers they needed to help their members. Overall not a terrible place to work at all.

The benefits were great! However, I felt underpaid especially having to take on higher level job rolls while the branch was short staffed. Management is a joke, they like to gossip about their employees to other employees and to other leaders at other branches and play favoritism. Most of the managers are very fake people. This company is all about sales even though they claim to “want to do what’s best for the members”. How are you supposed to meet sales quota in a town when 95% of the people aren’t credit qualifying for loans or new accounts?! And then get in trouble for the branch not meeting their sales goals. Also, being there 9-10 hours a day and sometimes not getting a lunch break or being able to sit down because management thinks it’s looks unprofessional... well then why is there chairs in the branch? Management is so poor, they would rather be laughing in the back room or on their phones than leaving their only teller out on the line by themselves to possibly get robbed. There is also no room for advancement, their technology is outdated, and the training isn’t efficient enough for the day to day job roll.

At DSFCU, I deal with members on a daily basis. I provide them with the best possible solutions to help them meet or exceed their financial goals. I open accounts, perform account maintenance such as adding joint owners, ordering copies, etc., all while giving them exceptionally outstanding customer service. At DSFCU we hold our service standards extremely high. I do love this about Desert Schools. The hardest part of the job is exceeding our monthly sales goals. There are times that I am so busy with helping members and handling their initial request and resolving certain issues that I am forced my management to sell something I don't think will benefit them. What I do enjoy about the job is the administrative tasks and the interaction with the members. They come to me, personally, to solve all of their banking needs and that makes me feel very humble. However, I am currently looking for a different job where I can utitlize my skills with possible room for advancement.

As a teller, this company is great for entry level positions. From the day I started up until about a year in, the company was amazing! I loved the culture, and what the company stood for. After the CEO changed, it started to go a little down hill. The work became more of a competition than it did an enjoyable place to work, and a place to serve customers. We were expected to focus more on making the company and our managers money, rather than ensuring the customers were satisfied with the service they were receiving.

I would still recommend the company to anyone, because it really is a great learning experience, especially if you love the financial world and customer service. It comes with great benefits if you take advantage of them. Great for college kids because they do offer tuition reimbursement, and are usually pretty flexible with school schedules.

It was great helping people, but there is no work life balance if you work in any of the call center positions. The do not keep enough coverage to allow you to participate in any company activity unless it is mandatory for the whole company.

An example would be. Your annual review includes participating in the charity functions at the company supports. In the over 5 years I worked there; I was never approved to take even a few hours to participate. What little I could do was in my own spare time/days off. We were told we would be allowed company time off and there is even a "bank" of 8 hours to use for this. However, no one that I know of in the call centers were allowed to take advantage of this due to "company need". The worst part is that did reflect negatively on that part of the annual review. 

I started with Desert Schools over two years ago.  Upon learning about my skill rich background they allowed me the freedom to use those skills, even outside my own department, to assist those within I.T. who needed help.  I originally started in a Tier 2 Support Role in Desktop but worked some responsibilities of Network Engineering into my day to day duties.  I played an integral role in the programming and deployment of Cisco 7940 and 7960 phones.  I also managed to gain responsibilities working with Network/System Administration in the creation of packages in SCCM 2007 and 2012 as well has setting up Printers, DHCP Reservations and managing User/Group accounts.

The location that I worked was chronically understaffed due to turnover, because it's just too far out for most people, including myself. When the commute combined with car troubles made it difficult to regularly get to work on time, the management team gave me accommodations in the form of later state times to my shifts, in exchange for always working to close. The most difficult part of the job is the members, as with any public facing job. Managers tend to have many meetings, so tellers will get to know their on site seniors quickly while training, and will at times message multiple managers with the same question to hopefully get a response in time. There are paid volunteer hours, up to 16 a year, that let employees give back to the local community while also meeting other employees they wouldn't normally interact with.

I was there a little over a year.  I started during COVID, and had numerous hurdles and obstacles to try to learn my position.  It wasn't until I got into the office early 2021 that I was finally really able to start learning how to do my job.

Sadly, by that point, my team's new manager had already decided they weren't interested in keeping me.  I quickly realized I was on my way out the door and started looking for other work well before they terminated my employment.

Beyond that, my prior manager, as well as my teammates, were amazing, fun to work with, always lending a hand, and keeping up with me, helping me to improve my processes and work.  I'll always be appreciative of what I learned here, and will take all of the good and bad experiences as a lesson learned...

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Teller 8 salaries reported	$17.88 per hour
Phone banker 2 salaries reported	$19.50 per hour
Guest service agent 2 salaries reported	$17.50 per hour
Technical support specialist 1 salary reported	$23.50 per hour
Senior compensation analyst 1 salary reported	$37.00 per hour

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