Not a Good Place to Work - Anonymous employee World Bank Group Employee Review

1.0
Aug 22, 2011
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

1/ Opportunity to travel to interesting places off the beaten path 2/ Relatively good benefits (i.e. pension, health and life insurance, good annual leave policy) but only for those on term and open-ended contracts (the latter being a thing of the past) and not for the army of consultants hired by IFC and the World Bank Group, in general. 3/ Good place for those close to retirement (to enjoy the benefits and not be affected by lack of career growth and highly political work environment)

Cons

1/ Management's Lack of Strategic Vision. 2/ No accountability - constant pressure to push through bad projects simply to meet internal annual volume targets. 3/ Consensus decision-making: increasingly bureacratic in a complex matrix structure with no clear decision-maker authority all the way to the top. 4/ Extremely limited career advancement - promotions are mostly based on networking or being connected to someone higher up than on merit. Top position is a political post with pre-determined nationality (IFC's EVP has to be a European and historically always a man). 5/ Relatively low pay (for financial professionals) with no bonus; annual salary increase normally just around or a touch above cost of living adjustment. 6/ Developmental impact is a farce - viewed only as a means to allow teams to push through projects 7/ Questional professional & ethical integrity of some mid-level and high-level management 8/ HR with extremely low calibre (even relative to HR departments within only the World Bank Group) 9/ Institution constantly in a reorganization or restructuring mode.

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