retail banker

branch manager

specialist

personal banker

customer service representative

Woodforest National Bank

A typical day at Woodforest National Bank would begin with cash balancing and pulling reports on new accounts from the previous day. Once all reports are pulled and cash balancing is accurate, with dual control you would buy in your teller bags and begin opening the teller line. You would process night drop payments and check balance of the ATM. By this time the teller line should be open to customers. Between operating the teller line you would place overdraft calls and courtesy call for new accounts and 14 day accounts. You would check the status of any disputes that had been filed and inform the customer of the status. You would call on any accounts that have opportunity for further sales. Through out the day at Woodforest customers come in at different times to open accounts. That is the opportune time to open the account and cross sell other products that seem to fit the customers needs. You will also be answering the phone through out the day and verifying the account holder when they call, answering any questions or concerns they may have. Close to the end of the day you should check your email and respond to anything that needs your attention before the next work day. You will make sure your drawer is in balance. Check the night drop and process any closing deposits. Check to make sure there is sufficient funds in the ATM for overnight transactions. You will balance the vault and each teller will count the other tellers drawer before selling your bag in. Once the bags are sold back to the vault you will enter in your final balancing totals for the entire branch for the day and enter in nightly reporting. Before you leave you will check to make sure the vault and all alarms are secure.
      At Woodforest I learned above and beyond your basic retail banker qualifications. As there is only one branch manager and normally two other tellers you must be able to fill the role of the manager when he/she is out of the branch. This includes properly ordering cash shipments and receiving them. Once shipments are received that have to be counted in to be verified, restrapped, placed into the vault and ATM and all must audited. The managers cash has to be audited at least once a month so you must be able to conduct audits at the teller line as well as vault and ATM audits as all are conducted under dual control. You learn many of the state and government guidelines in dealing with legal department as far as disputes, death, rep payee accounts and leagally closing accounts. You also develop excellent customer service skills as you are dealing with customers hands on throughout the entire day. Along with customer service you learn to work together well as team as most tasks involve dual control to be completed. It also takes great effort working together to meet daily, weekly and monthly goals. 
     You do not deal only with the manager of your branch but many managers from other branches. When your manager is out you will utilize the other managers when transactions exceed your limit and you need them to initial off on your work. There may also be situations during your day the require management approval. You will find that most managers are easy to get along with and happy to assist you. Though they must be thorough to be affective in the position they are happy to work together as team to meet the requirements of the job. 
     To me the hardest part of the job was attaining the for monthly business and square accounts. From the information that I have gathered the goal for Woodforest business accounts are above and beyond that of most other financial institutions. It was very hard to meet the goal for these accounts, especially their version of the square accounts as their rates weren't very competitive. It is also hard dealing with the disputes on accounts but there is usually a solution that will leave the customer happy and the situation resolved. 
      To me the most enjoyable part of the job at Woodforest was working the teller line and have the hands on communication with the customers. There are many customers in the branch that are regular customers and you develop a good professional relationship with them that makes it easier to cross sell those customers when they know you and trust you with their finances. I did enjoy opening new accounts as well. It is always nice to have that extra that extra time to sit down with a new customer. To get to know them, their financial situation and what products you offer that will best fit their needs. That to me is where the business banking relationship began with the customer and your fist impression with them is of the lasting impression of your branch. I very much enjoyed most all aspects of my job in the bank and look forward to returning to work in this field or similar fields in the near future.

10 year employee. Was micromanaged to the point of dreading coming to work each day. They literally have forms for everything, and much of it is not needed, its just a chance to micromanage. 

You "manage" and by manage I mean you coach a branch of 3-4 people and generally it was just myself and one other person each day. More often than not no lunches. Years ago branch managers were told they should act like business owners and run the branch how they saw fit, which would be what a manager would do....however in the last couple of years, they have taken that away and you just push the agenda of management above you. You have become a coach who isn't allowed to make any decisions.

 They expected us to do "Observation forms", which were an incredible waste of time. If I had an issue or an observation, I was able to address that with the employee right then and there, but they needed a form filled out too. This was just upper managements way of acting like they were doing something to better the branches, and had no explanation for the "why", and it was even questioned once during an all state meeting and that employee was pulled to the said and told "because we said so..."

Always under staffed. Once covid hit, they changed the branch hours and reduced staffing. If someone called off, you were scrambling to call other under staffed locations. The hours on the weekend were changed to extend to almost 6pm in many locations. My location would have zero traffic after 2 pm, and the numbers proved it, but corporate was committed to the changes, even though they knew they were wrong! These hours had an effect on everyone from a motivational standpoint. Even customers questioned the hours, and said it made no sense. Was hard to justify the extended hours. Corporate's justification was "more time to market to potential new customers!", however its hard to market when the store dies off and you aren't seeing the traffic needed for marketing. 

I have personally witnessed double digit exit of branch level management staff over the last year, and the company turns a blind eye to it.... They know why the staff is leaving, but they refuse to acknowledge the overall problem. They just sweep it under the rug, and then question the employee on exit to the "why" and "how it doesn't make sense". When you provide them with an explanation, they look at your like your growing a third eye.... 

Woodforest was good for laying a good foundation for banking knowledge, but most of that knowledge was self taught, by reading the Branch Employee Manual, or having to call around to other managers and tenured employees. The training program was disjointed, and hard to focus on due to staffing. Many new employees were thrown to the wolves, because the staffing levels were so low, you had no choice but to use that new employee as a key holder to keep the branch open. 

Woodforest also is starting to go away from the "promote within" mentality. They are looking for external management candidates and this is generally a bad idea. Many they are hiring have no previous banking experience. So not only are they tasked  with learning the management side, but they are also tasked with learning the teller side. Sink or swim.....Woodforest should focus on the talent they have within the branch and work better on growing and training that talent to move up. 

Pay and benefits were fair, I never had a complaint about any of those. 

Overall the job was a decent job for a single person, who doesn't have a family, and who doesn't mind being treated terribly by the general public and micromanaged daily. 

Once you have a family, and want to  be able to see them for longer than a couple hours a  week, its time to explore other options. 

I appreciate the time I had at Woodforest, but at the end of the day its not something I would want to do again. 

Worked for Woodforest as a branch manager for almost 10 years, the most thankless tiresome job I've ever had in 35 years of banking.  Not so much a bank as it's a glorified check cashing location.  Extremely long hours sometimes 11hrs a day 7 days a week.  Typical work week is 55 hours for branch managers.  Branches are consistently understaffed.  Highest turnover I've ever encountered and I've been in sales positions my entire career.  Retention rates were once posted at an annual sales meeting of 32% for hourly employees, 28% for branch managers, and 25% for regional managers.  A woman from HR explained to a room full of managers (105 people) for 1.5 hours how we could, at the operations level, change the corporate global problem of high turnover.  All of the points explained were good practices for taking care of your team (days off when requested, listening daily to staff comments, keeping team engaged in promotions, policy changes, training....), but nothing was revealed to explain how "corporate" was addressing the turnover.  When this was pointed out it was retorted by stating "You just don't sound like a team player."  Question was asked what corporate was doing to improve turnover at "Branch Mgr" level the reply was Branch Mgr's should be self motivated.  How does HR/corporate expect to improve turnover when they just spent 160 man hours explaining for 1.5 hours to 105 people good methods when they only expect to keep 28% of that group for the year?  No reply!  

Advancement is based on political connections within the company via family or long term friends...nepotism.  You either marry into it or you bring a whole lot of chap stick.   The bank did outsource a new CEO which made for an amusing period of watching the rats jump around the ship in Houston.  I wish her well in her endeavor to re-make Woodforest into a Bank for all of it's markets not just Texas.

You have to produce.  It is a high pressure sales environment, if you don't produce you don't survive.  You are forced to ride your staff like mules.  Goals are made for you and they are unrealistic.  The "bank" makes it's money from fee's, in the outer markets (everything outside for TX) it simply does not lend.  No home loans.  Few auto loans maybe 1 per year.  Credit line is offered on DDA's with high revolving interest.  CRA is a nightmare and has been for years.  It has a solid profit line that consistently repeats, but it's all based on overdraft/ATM/account opening fees.

Compensation is on the higher side when starting with the bank, after that forget it.  Increases are small irregardless of production, incentive is based on goal metrics which when achieved are vastly increased. As a manager just plan on living at the branch, say goodbye to your family and bring a sleeping bag.  

Training is an online slideshow.  Many of the regional managers receive the same training slideshow and then they are supposed to be able to explain, promote, improve.....every employee outside of corporate is "universal" which looks good on paper.  Few employees can achieve a level of competence for all aspects of bank operations, yet it is excepted at near perfection.  Having 4500+ employees be competent in all aspects of bank operations is a wonderful aspiration, but grossly unrealistic.  Some managers (at lower levels) are promoted simply because they survived and there was an immediate need.

There are good people working for this place.  I wish them well and hope they find a way out that is good for them and their families.  Unfortunately, this cultural model is throughout the entire bank, no department is immune.  I state this with second hand knowledge, but after seeing/hearing enough stories and watching the names change on department rosters it's clearly evident.  This is a poisonous place to work.

A Retail Banker position with Woodforest is to finance and banking what handing out samples in front of a Chinese restaurant in the mall is to hospitality and fine dining. There's no parallel. At no point, other than learning basic teller skills and how to open bank accounts, are you actually getting involved in the world of finances. In short, you're a sales agent working in dull, dreary black/grey/white/green mono chromatic funeral parlor colors and masquerading as a banker. Other financial institutions have their bankers trained on teller and then trained and licensed as loan officers, mortgage officers, insurance agents etc in order to perform as personal bankers. Woodforest only cares about the number of New Relationships (new accounts) they open per month at any given branch and the entire focus is heavily enforced through a rather meager incentive program up and over their bottom of the barrel pay scale. Without being licensed loan officers, you're expected to go over the details provided of their basic ReLi (revolving lines of credit aka personal loans) products and bring in a number of booked personal and business loans per month as well which, to me, seems highly unethical and illegal and just basically skirting around the legalities around licensing without Woodforest forking out the time and coin to have their Retail Bankers set up for these roles. One could argue that they're expecting employees to walk because of the unrealistic expectations set. 

Branch managers largely have their hands tied and an enormous amount of pressure put on them to get their teams to perform. Upper management are, at least in the region I served, extremely volatile, inconsiderate, and prone to extreme micromanagement which leads to feelings of low morale, anxiety, low esteem, irritability, and an extreme lack of trust in the branches. There's definitely a feeling of slugging through the trenches - especially with the company's slow and blasé, and laissez faire response to the COVID19 Pandemic. Masks and sneeze guards were implemented MONTHS after the CDC began to recommend them and other companies shut down lobbies and/or implemented structure to protect employees and customers. 

There is a HUGE degree of nepotism and a game of favorites being played. If you're not the golden child in the eye of your market manager, watch out. You're toast. Golden child status obtained? No sin you commit will ever be held against you and so much will be swept under the rug.

There is Z E R O work/life balance. You will work weird hours. You will work long hours. You will likely not leave until closer to 8pm on Thursdays and Fridays when the branch closes at 7pm those days. You will not leave on the daily until closer to 7pm on every other day of the week when the branches close at 6pm. You will find your Saturdays falling into the same grind as Monday - Wednesday. Have kids? A spouse? Hobbies? Prepare to not be a significant part of their life and for Woodforest not to care. Expect heavy amounts of guilt if you have to take sick time or plan to use your vacation time. More than one person has been terminated after coming back from FMLA.

I could go on - but I'll say right now that if you're looking for a foot in the door in the world of finance, go somewhere else. Woodforest will chew you up, spit you out, and have no remorse because they know there's 10 more lined up to take your spot. Oh... And don't plan on being promoted any time soon. They hire managers off the street rather than promoting from within. Just watched a guy celebrate his 8th anniversary in the same role as a basic Retail Banker after being promised the world when he was hired on.

What is the best part of working at the company?
Learning about the financial process of everyday transactions. Building relationships with customers and being a sort of check-in for folks' financial goals (the ones that they're willing to share with you anyway.)

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
The hours. The hours can be brutal, especially if you work at a location with lots of foot traffic. The rules and procedures, while it's easy to understand why some of them are in place, they don't bode well for busy locations. Also, management staff can have extremely unrealistic expectations of workers and set goals that would hardly be reachable in the best of conditions. Almost every branch is understaffed, traveling to help other braches is frequent (also understaffed) and no matter how dedicated you are to trying to satisfy the needs of the job you are almost always presented with another set of criteria you aren't reaching.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Hit and miss. I've met some amazing people at this job, I've met people that ultimately lead to me leaving. The vast differences in the types of people you interact with is both a pro and a con. There is often conflict of some sort in the branches, even in branches that were not my own. It can be and usually is extremely stressful, especially for more reserved people.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Show up half an hour before opening, usually have to deal with people showing up before opening time and explain to them when we open. Depending on your branch location there is almost certainly a line or a few customers waiting for you before you conduct opening procedures, with varying degrees of patience/respectfulness. Most of the time though, save for beginnings and endings of the month (which are almost always bad) it's fairly straightforward. Help people conduct their transactions, check deposits left in the box, deal with the finicky bank software, etc, etc. It's lunchtime before you know it, lunch for most branches isn't a dedicated time slot though (you have 30 minutes at best, so you have to eat in the Walmart and be on standby in case it gets exceptionally busy.) Even in the branches where they do shut down for a proper lunch break, 30 minutes is hardly enough time to order and scarf down your food, especially if the Walmart you're in is very busy. When you come back there's a line of people waiting for you (with varying degrees of patience and anger) once you get back in the swing of the things after lunch it's usually goes smoothly from there til close, just pray that you have someone with a high limit around so you're not forced to keep already impatient customers waiting (I've seen employees get cursed out, threatened with physical violence, and brought to tears because of impatient and angry customers.) Closing takes some practice but once you're used to it you just hope that the drawers balance (which they usually do, save for those pesky beginnings and endings of the month) and you're not required to stay 1-3 hours extra going through every transaction of the day.

If you’re looking to further yourself, this is a stepping stone. You’ll learn plenty, it’ll mostly be on your own but you will still learn lots. They have wonderful benefits. The thing is they are open almost all the time 9:30am-6:30pm/7:30pm and if anyone is on vacation or you’re short staffed you’re probably going to be working overtime or being pressured into working overtime. There is minimal work life balance. They have Sunday’s off now but that may change. The only holidays you do have off are Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter. If you don’t vacation the rest you’ll be stuck there every holiday with time and a half. Your pay is ok at best. You do a bankers job, a tellers job, a call center reps job, and some of what a normal bank would consider the managers job for what any other bank would pay you to do just one job. If you’re in branch and your branch mangers position is filled moving up is impossible. The company has done away with assistant branch mangers for now so unless your branch manager just leaves you’re stuck at a retail banker position. It’s potentially the worst spot to be in if you plan on moving up or furthering yourself especially if you’re not in Texas/Corporates vicinity.  The title is said not to be a sales position but you’re constantly pressured by numbers and sales performance or as they call it “providing a good Woodforest experience” all for a bonus pool that is split between bankers. The bonus depends on if your coworkers feel like helping with the goals or not. If they don’t help it’s all on you and then you still have to share the money. If you don’t hit goals they role play and see if it works. If it doesn’t they just keep using the same tired methods instead of coming up with new angles. They want you to be inside Walmart walking around possibly exposing yourself to COVID-19 to get accounts. At a time like this you would think it would make more sense to pressure the branches less and work on the online aspects to improve customer and overall bank experience. There is minimal training here, you basically can’t rely on anyone because everyone has different answers. The employee manual is pretty much the closest thing training or answers. Your reviews are completely based on how your manager feels about you. If you don’t suck up to most of the mangers you basically get an ok rating and because that’s corporates only way to know if you’re a good employee or not you might get a few more dimes per hour. Your raises are also determined by your branch’s number so basically if you don’t have a team that wants to participate your raise can be less. If you have a branch team that is always on point that is a good thing. As for starting wages, I know for a fact that the retail banker 2 position can hire in at $15.50 with no banking experience do not settle for the $13-$15 they offer originally. Remember you’re going to be doing everything in the branch besides be a branch manager. Know your worth and don’t settle. Remember the basics of macroeconomics, treating employees well and the community well will treat the company well. We are all part of that cycle. 

Starting with the good. 

Usually willing to work with you on time off. Sick time accrues generously and receive PTO even if you've just started (depending on hire date). You have to understand you'll be working a retail environment with the potential for different shifts each week (sometimes including Saturdays). Schedules are made a month in advance so they're easy to schedule personal needs around and if you have needs before the schedule is made, you can request off.  

Starting pay is acceptable for the job you're supposed to be doing.

PTO given upon hire (depending on hire date).

Customers generally tend to genuinely appreciate what you do for them.  Sure, there will always be bad eggs but 99% of customer interactions are quite pleasant. 

Now... Some negatives.

Their customer care department is under informed/under trained and is supposed to be a buffer to keep calls to in-store branches down. What really happens is they just give customers anything to keep them happy and instead of contacting branches to be informed of policy/procedure, they will simply divert calls to the branch or tell the customer to visit a location, even for issues that could be resolved by phone. This defeats the purpose of having a customer service phone line. 

There are ZERO clarifications on job descriptions. Some branches train Retail Bankers on the basics and some train to the point where the branch can run freely even without management.  Yet, it's pretty much the same pay no matter how much extra you know. And without a definitive job description, this is considered acceptable. 

Teller approval limits are an absolute joke. Only managers can approve transactions over very small limits. Management is extremely hard to get in touch with if it's not your own branch manager which leaves customers AND employees highly irritated and waiting sometimes 20min for transactions that would only take moments at any other bank. There is little to no enforced approval methods and tellers are left scrambling to find managers at other locations willing to help with approvals. 

Branches are generally open 10-7pm M-F and 10-6pm on Saturdays and it is REQUIRED that you stand the entire time unless you are helping a customer with opening an account. Lunches and breaks are not required in my state; therefore, they are not scheduled and you are on the clock your entire shift. This makes the standing much worse.  There will be days you go home in tears because your feet and legs hurt so bad.

Biggest Pro: PTO/Generous sick time and pay is acceptable for the typical work load.
Decent work/life balance if you're branch is hitting goals.
Biggest Con(s): 1) It takes ALOT for bad employees to be fired and when they mess up or slack off, others are expected to pick up the slack. 2) You can know as much as management, be expected to do the same tasks as management, and yet not receive any additional compensation or recognition. 3) Tellers can do very little without upper management consent but are expected to be the punching bag for customer complaints about final decisions. 

Working for Woodforest, at first, was a dream come true. I loved my managers and my coworkers. The interaction with customers of all backgrounds was out of this world and I loved building relationships with the staff of the other businesses inside the Walmart in my hometown; Subway, Smart Style, nail salon etc. The typical day in the life of a Retail Banker for this company included (at the end of my employment there) performing teller transactions, denying the customer of refunds even if it was deserved, making customers open accounts to cash a check for $150.00 instead of making a profit of $5  for a check cashing fee, Western Union transactions, chasing after customers and pressuring them into opening accounts and if they so chose to do so then you open the account as well and etc etc. What I learned from my last manager at Woodforest is how not to treat your employees. Such as constructive criticism is a beautiful thing and telling your employees that they're stupid is not the way to go, that denying a customer of their rightful refund is how to lose a strong relationship with a business account holder, and that being a respectable listener in a conversation is key in making your employees happy with their current position. I also learned that you can't change how an employee was taught by previous management overnight, and that you shouldn't try. That being said, it isn't hard to tell that management at Woodforest doesn't care for the employee. A good example of this would be that breaks (cigarette, drink, breather) were shortened to one 5 minute break per day and lunches were shortened to 20 minutes, any minute passed would be considered a write up and that both were taken away completely on Saturday and Sundays because they didn't feel they were needed. Saturday is a 7 hour day and Sunday is a 5 hour (and that varies from branch to branch)  It should be known that customers are not people in the eyes of management at Woodforest but rather a point (or two if you get that savings account) towards monthly objective. My coworkers were the only thing that kept me going at this job. They were supportive and I still talk to them at least once a week to catch up. Turnover, at least at my branch, was extensive to say the least. I was the longest employed person at this branch (a mere 10 months before I was terminated for calling upper management to complain about my direct supervisor). The hardest part of this job was the regret of making a poor career choice. The most enjoyable part of my job at Woodforest was the interaction and the bond I made with my customers. Everyone knew my name and I was always greeted with a smile; as were they. I loved my customers to the fullest and I am deeply saddened that I was forced to leave them in such poor hands.

Worked there for 3 years, it’s a good job for banking experience if that’s what you are looking for. Some branches have TVs so that pretty cool, and you’re in a Walmart so you see a lot of things. On the downside tho, they didn’t pay me my vacation time after I put my 2 weeks, that’s very shady. They’re very goal driven, the only thing the company really cares about is new relationships(people who have never had a woodforest account), they don’t really care about pleasing their customer, it is all about getting them in the door. They do no advertisements and want you to solicit Walmart customers all day who are not at Walmart to open a checking account. They expect you to reach this unrealistic goal in new relationships a month for you to get a small bonus. Now let’s get to the hours, they’re open 7 days a week from weekdays 8-7, and you will have to work 11 hours shifts so basically ur whole day is gone, and remember what I said about expecting you to reach you monthly goal? Well if you are not on pace to reach that goal than you have to stay an extra hour to market to Walmart customers till you are on pace to reach that goal, so really you could be working a 8AM- 8PM. You work most weekends too, including Sundays and if you are not on pace to reach goal you will have to stay extra on Sundays. They start their employees with a $500 limits in transaction so if someone wants to do a transaction larger than that they have to receive approval, The job has a lot of turnover so they’ll be times when everyone is new and does not have a approval larger $500 so they have to call other branches to see if they can get approval, and  this could take up to 20-30 minutes if no one is answering and sometimes other bankers/manager will refuses to help for risk of getting burned, big inconvenience to the customer but like I said Woodforest does not care about the service to the customer just their new relationship goal. During COVID they came off as very insensitive, they REFUSED to close any branches, there were times when someone would get Covid you would think they would close the branch instead they would send people from other branches to take that person’s spot, now exposing that person. They were times when branches were losing all their employees and they would just make someone from another branch go work at that branch even if they didn’t feel comfortable doing so. They were very insensitive about there being a pandemic by exposing their employees but to make it worst the people making the decisions were working from home. 

The new CEO of Woodforest is amazing! She has made many changes to policy. For example, a more formal dress code (instead of a different colored shirt for each day of the week). New designs for marketing brochures and posters have made our branch look more professional. Small changes like that have definitely changed how people view branch employees. We are taken more seriously than before. I started as a retail banker and advanced to assistant Branch Manager after 1 year. The new regional manager actively engages with all employees through new employee trainings and quarterly Manager and assistant manager training meetings. Any traveling that is required is reimbursed by mileage which is always way more than what is needed for gas to get there and the travel time it takes to go to the training is on the clock. Branch hours vary. My branch is open 7 days a week. Mon-wed 10-6 Thur-fri 10-7 sat 10-4 sun 12-4. The earliest I have ever been scheduled is 9:30am which allows me time to sleep in! The focus of the bank is definitely new customer acquisition and this is most certainly a sales environment. But what we have been focusing most on is how we are acquiring new customers. Our goal is to build relationships not just open accounts. There are some down sides to Woodforest. Unlike other banks Woodforest is open on sundays and holidays. You will miss some time with family and friends if you're scheduled to work. another con to Woodforest is that as soon as you get in the branch you have to serve any person that walks right past the close sign (ignoring that you're not open yet) because in store branches do not have doors. The only reason this is a con for me is because you have a limited amount of time to open the branch and basically all opening procedures require dual control (two people) and my Branch usually opens with just two people. 
All in all Woodforest is a great place to work. Salaries have increased. Training has increased. Our focus has shifted and the environment is more team/family like. We actively discuss the culture of Woodforest and what we can do to improve company wide. 
I will say this, if you are looking for a job to just show up to and have a set routine this is not the company for you. But if you enjoy taking ownership of your position and being responsible for your own success Woodforest will give you the autonomy to do just that.

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