customer service representative

FirstBank Holding Company

Politics and false culture rule the environment here. This is a bloated micro-management first org that pretends it is still a small mom and pop shop, but has grown into the most corporate toxic environment imaginable. If you adhere to the "culture" which essentially means you do not question any management move or decision regardless of how misguided or uninformed it may be. If you blindly and "cheerfully" praise the redundant and overbloated layers of management, you have a chance of breeching the "in club" and will be mostly bullet proof. If however you dare to provide even the most constructive criticism, you will be shunned, ignored, and at some point pushed out of the company. The technology department is in the midst of a full meltdown after a mid-management change a year ago. Long-term senior talent is leaving in droves. Management turnover in the various departments is constant. Project managers come and go almost monthly. The org has been pretending to adopt an "agile" methodology which has spanned 6 years for a department of less than 400 people. The teams are illogically siloed, and while they may be undertaking individual agile and scrum efforts, there is zero coordination between teams. One team may have top priority efforts that rely on another team who will "try to fit that into a future sprint". Management refuses to address missing or single-homed skillsets and is convinced they can simply micro-manage missing skills into existence. Overall the company serves up its "Banking for Good" false philosophy like Jonestown coolaid. The delusions that this organization is somehow an elite place to work, that it cares in the slightest about its employees, or that it treats its employees like anything other than highly expendable resources to plunder are force-fed to the masses in every internal communication and poster around the building. The line-level workers don't even get their own cubes because management can't hire within the physical capacity of the building. Employees live out of tupperware containers and have to reserve random desks for their mandatory on-site days. If you get hired into a manager role or higher position, never fear. You get your own desk., And if your position and ego get you to the point of senior director, they will remodel one of the ever-shrinking number of badly needed meeting rooms into your office, further poking the workers in the eye. Then there is the "not really mandated, but we will bully and harass you into participating" employee gives forced charity donations to make the company look benevolent. Expect to be called out publicly if you don't donate every year. Lastly, be prepared to surrender control of your personally owned cell phone for the mandatory Firstbank app installation and mobile device control. If you work from home, be prepared to surrender control of your personally owned PC. firstbank will not provide any equipment to employees for either purpose. You will surrender control of your equipment to this company if you expect to work here.

FirstBank is a very large Colorado bank.  It employs thousands of people.  Most of those people have worked with the bank for decades.  The people who have worked their way from from tellers to the corporate sector do not take kindly to people who were hired outside of the FirstBank structure. They are disrespectful, rude and arrogant.  Training is minimal and if you were told once how to do something, you better not ask again, or you will be ridiculed.  The culture is borderline bulling.  

Pay raises are given automatically at the end of the year and are not based on performance.  There is no way to make more money at FirstBank other than sticking it out each year for one of the annual raises.  The starting pay is very low (most new hires are offered a lousy $11.50 per hour), so don't expect to make a living wage for at least 10-15 years.  

Once you get your foot in the door, you are stuck working at that position until you get your first 6 month review, then you can look at the internal job postings. You will not get a raise if you change jobs, though, so all you can do is just learn something different.  

Most of the people at the corporate level who are not Officers, have worked their way up through the ranks.  They are not formally educated and came to FirstBank straight out of high school.  Their mentality never left High School, so expect your daily work life to be close to the movie "Mean Girls" and considering that the male to female ratio is about 20 to 1, it's like working in a hen house each and every day with a pecking order.  

Bad behavior is not addressed by middle management even when complaints are made.  Middle management is either passive aggressive, or super aggressive. Some managers would rather turn a blind eye to an incompentent employee than fire them, other's will fire you if you make one mistake.  Working at FirstBank is like being a contestant on a psychologically/mentally abusive mind game show on a daily basis. 

The entire staff is overworked and no one is happy. I would not recommend working at FirstBank.

The first red flag was upon interview I had advised I was a student and needed to have Monday and Wednesday off or be off early to get to school. I was promised that I could get this to happen. When I took on the role I found out that they would not accommodate any longer and forced me to do online school which eventually became too hard to maintain with this job. They offer tuition assistance when it comes to getting degrees in specific areas but will not help when it comes to getting to school. They pick on your wardrobe more than actually work. I am 5'3 and long pants are just a thing in fashion for someone so short. I was given 8 hr notice to have my dress pants hemmed or I would be sent home. When I expressed I need more time to get a tailor to work with that I was told SOL. I was a new accounts rep in the DTC area. When I worked there we had a new Supervisor take over the department. The worst part of the new supervisor was she had a bad rep from all the branches she floated around. She had a reputation of starting drama with other female employees. Eventually I started to go to the officers and the officers started to harass me for not liking the supervisor. There was no safe place to go to. When I started to become in an overloaded amount of stress it began to fall on my work. I expressed how much stress I am under. Telling them the supervisor always called on my day off to ask me work questions she knew the answer to. I was never alone to de compress on my off days when my phone was ringing off the hook. The officers didn't take my concerns seriously and started to write me up every two weeks, when I would ask how to improve to avoid write ups they told me to slow down. When I slowed down on my work I was screamed at to speed up. 

A typical day consists of helping customers while being on your feet the majority of the time. Co-workers soon become like family and it is a comfortable environment to work in everyday. The hardest part of the job for some may be how repetitive the job can get from day to day. Others may also find the long work days unnerving. Branch employees typically work 9 hour days with an hour lunch. (Making you gone from home 10 hours a day plus commute time) Branch employees do get 2.5 days off each week though.

Training here is laid out very well and you don't have that typical new job nervousness. They do not throw you right into work. A week is spent shadowing and then another week is spent in actual training classes in Lakewood, CO. Sales goals are pushed but you don't feel like you will lose your job if you have a few off months if you open accounts. Tellers have sales goals but they are not mandatory to meet. 

FirstBank is generous with their paid time off to their employees. However, sick time is lumped collectively into PTO. Managers work very well with you to ensure that you get specific days off that you request. I never had to worry about taking time off. This bank also offers paid holidays for all employees. FirstBank has more recently been known to shut branches down an extra day or 2 around Christmas to give employees more time with their families while still paying employees for that time. 

You are able to leave work at work and don't have to stress about the job at home. 

FirstBank offers medical, dental, vision, 401K, PTO, holiday pay.

FirstBank and it’s culture are toxic. They’ll tell you that they’re happy to have you, but they’re not. They just need a body to fill a job. For any of you considering this job, I hope you never make a mistake. I was once told that I didn’t want “to ever be caught making mistakes” because I would “never progress in the company”. I was encouraged to ask questions. And then I was shamed for asking those questions. I was told to look up what I didn’t know. And then I was “spoken to” about the way I proceeded. I was afraid to ask questions and told to figure things out for myself. When I made mistakes because of this, I was the one in trouble. I once apologized for trying to ask questions because after a while, it seemed like the wrong thing to do. The response I got was “oh, I love questions. I just hate mistakes.” I sat in a meeting in which I was a new employee. I had some customer service experience but almost no sales experience. Plus, I was new to the department and still learning about the products and services. My branch manager spoke at the meeting. She said “good customer service is about helping your customer find what is best for them. It’s not just about being nice to them.” At the end of that sentence, she very pointedly looked at me and everyone else followed. I agree with her statement. But why did I have to feel bad for being nice to customers?  This job will make you question yourself. It will make you believe that the problems you are having are yours and only yours. I have many many more stories like these. But I only have so much room. Don’t do it.

There are many good things about working at FirstBank.  Benefits are good, especially the 401k and ESOP.  The headquarters building was fully renovated a few years ago and is very nice.  Everyone is respectful and kind. FirstBank is very generous to the community and also truly promotes diversity. If you're the type of person who likes potlucks and team happy hours, this is your place.  But there is also plenty that isn't great.  There are two types of employees; officers and everyone else.  If you're not an officer life can get difficult fast.  There is not much respect for anyone who is not an officer.  Every decision made is based on one piece of criteria: will this make life easier or harder for the officer involved? Scheduling is fairly rigid although there have been some attempts to modernize.  Work from home will remain in some way once everyone is back to the office which is great. However, if you are salaried, don't expect to manage your own time like you could at another business. Negotiate hard when you're hired because after you're going to get 2-3% annual raises and nothing more until the day you leave. If you are a skilled professional (IT etc.) expect to report to an officer who may have no idea what you do but are convinced they are an expert. 

As a Personal Banker, I worked inside a grocery store branch so the atmosphere had constant traffic and commotion, making for every day to be different than the last. 

We assisted members with teller transactions, account management (opening closing or adjusting accounts), and loan applications for small lines of credit. 

The Firstbank team was absolutely great in ensuring we always had a thorough knowledge of what was required and assisting in further development in skills.  

The hardest part of the job was advancing into management, despite having the required skill set. Created a competitive work environment when multiple coworkers went for the same advancement. 

I enjoyed being able to move into many different roles while starting my career path in banking.  This gave me the ability to learn the different sides of the required roles to ensure a bank operated smoothly.

Overall, solid company to work for and would recommend. Awesome staff, good benefits, but actual pay could be better considering the extra time and responsibilities you might have to take.

Really depends on what market and branch you work at. Every market and even specific branches have their own culture. Some markets are more active with personal loans and others with business loans. Also, some are more well-staffed than others which can factor into your average work-day.

As a Banking Officer you will be dealing with A LOT of loans, so you will be e-mailing, calling, and meeting up customers constantly. 
Occasionally you will help with day-to-day transactions at the branch but it really depends on YOUR branch, some officers rarely help and some are actually having to step in and help the teller line. 
You will be dealing with a lot of customers and other people within the company. So expect a lot of phone calls, meetings, and unexpected occurrences (questions, customer complaints, overrides, etc.) This can be a blessing and a curse because it makes the job not so repetitive but it can make time management/workload difficult .

FirstBank is a good company that has a lot to offer. At the officer level however, the amount of responsibility that is thrown at you within the first couple years is a little too much. Depending on the market you work in, you will be thrown right into lending and difficult situations that you are expected to figure out on your own. Management is there to help but will act like they don't have the time of day to sit with you and help explain things a little more thoroughly. You basically have to me molded into the "FirstBank Officer" or you won't be successful even if you try to stray away from that persona a little bit. Good compensation but for the amount of hours most officers work  with all the after hour events, early morning meetings, and opening and closing of the branch(50-60 hours per week, at minimum 45) it really limits your work-life balance and will burn you out in a hurry. Good place to gain a lot of different experience, I just wouldn't want to stay there for the rest of my career.

Have no real complaints except they need to up their wage for hourly employees. Since they are the backbone on the front line, they should be compensated a little better. Living in Colorado is not cheap, and with the high cost of living, they need to match that and come up. Biggest turn over in the branches was becuase of too low of wages. 

Management was good. Training was great! The Chance to learn something new to build in the company was always there. Sadly, it was up to management to sign off though. With that, some managers would take advantage and refuse some employees to train further for fear of them moving branches or to another department, leaving them to have to hire a new employee. (Note: this was not common across the board, just on occasion) 

Benefits were great. They acknowledged there employees birthdays etc. I would recommend working here to anyone. I enjoyed most everyone I worked with and enjoyed the atmosphere. 

It’s a great place to work. There is always soemthing at work that isn’t great but nothing out of the normal expectations.

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