Pros
Santander has sincerely made the commitment to staying in the US, and is looking to grow after turning-around a dysfunctional entity in the US (fmr Sovereign Bank). Conservative staffing policy will prevent layoffs unless the US has a severe economic relapse.
Cons
Extremely conservative philosophy in regards to expenses unfortunately extends to employee compensation. You might say the turnaround from being insolvent to several quarters of growth was made "on the employees backs". Base compensation was frozen across-the-board for several years while benefits were substantially cut, to the point that they had to give some benefits back over the past couple of years, or there would have been a massive employee exodus. Their staffing model has been to heavily invest in young (read: cheap) talent through their their Santander Universities outreach initiative, and heavily in technology standardizing business processes. This way, when an employee leaves, they could just plug-in another fresh graduate. Anyone looking to rise through Santander US corporate ranks could expect to do so only in Boston.
