Fiserv reviews

Benefits: The benefits are terrible for a Fortune 500 company (the only medical plan is a high-deductible plan, domestic partner benefits are only offered for gay couples, vision benefits are laughable, etc.). The administration of benefits is outsourced, and it's poorly done. Payroll: The payroll group is prone to "forgetting" to pay out bonuses, so the recipient has to escalate this issue to receive their rightful compensation - and then making people wait until the next pay cycle to correct their error (this happened to me twice and to at least one of my coworkers once). They froze raises for awhile (even though we were profitable) and delayed them until October. The average was 2%. Inability for senior Fiserv leaders to agree and present a united front: * There are two different PTO/vacation policies depending on whether you were hired at a legacy CheckFree location or a Fiserv location, and this will not be changed until at least 2012. Apparently the HR people in charge of this couldn't agree, so it's continuing over 2 years after the Fiserv acquisition of CheckFree. * There is more bickering among the FET senior leadership team than I've ever seen in my professional career. I'm just a cubicle dweller and see it, so pretty much everyone can. This causes a huge dip in productivity, because priorities shift constantly since nobody will own a decision. The CIO is not in charge. * Leadership rolls out processes and then goes around them on a daily basis. They say they support the process but take people aside and tell them to do something else. Again, the CIO is not taking control. * The business groups will not prioritize their projects so that FET can figure out what to focus on - everything is a top priority that needs to be done NOW. This causes absolute chaos. Nobody in FET is telling the business groups that we won't do work unless they play fair. Hiring practices: * Despite the company making money, we still have layoffs but then hire for the same position immediately (either a cheaper candidate onshore or someone in India or Costa Rica). * Since the current CIO came on board, I have lost track of how many brand-new SVP and VP positions have been created. I thought we were top-heavy before, but this is nuts. One org has one SVP and 3 VPs for <50 people! * People are rarely promoted within the organization. Instead, they get lateral moves or outside people are hired. * If someone does move within the organization, there is a maximum 6% raise they can get for doing so. This doesn't encourage good people to stay around. * I've seen that many of the new hires are personal friends of either the hiring manager or someone else higher up in FET. The new hires who aren't personal friends of the hiring manager tend to have a lot of experience with outsourcing to India. Work environment: * Everyone is stressed out, and lots of people are actively looking for jobs (and not hiding it), either within Fiserv or elsewhere. * Most managers do not have enough time to actively manage their teams because they're being dumped on constantly. People management is not a priority, so this is not being addressed at all. * Management expects all exempt people to work a certain amount of overtime (despite getting little or no pay increases). Efficiency is not rewarded. If you can do your job in 40 hours (even if someone else might take 50 or 60 to do that work), you clearly can absorb more work. Senior leadership (up to Jeff Yabuki) is obsessed with the number of hours worked. * There is almost no accountability for getting things done when they were promised. This leads to certain people within the organization leaning on people to get things done before the deadline, because the assumption is that they're not going to do it. For those of us who are dependable, this is insulting, and for the people who can't make the deadlines, they generally don't report to people who care, so they continually miss deadlines with no consequences. * There are different rules for a few certain people who are buddies all the way up the food chain. These people do what they want and are immune to any rules, processes, etc. * Some managers simply don't trust their team members.