Skipton Building Society Employee Reviews
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Great people but far too many training courses for a part time role to fit in especially when my main role was serving on the counter and I had to learn that and all it entailed as well. Also, very bureaucratic and rigid in terms of their procedures. Sneeze at the wrong time and it's an audit breach! Day to day processes also hard to learn because they are not documented anywhere. I also found their products quite depressing as they all relate to death or illness!
Worked at SBS for around a year (long enough). When I started training their where 6 others and all but 1 have now left. Felt like I was taking one step forward and 10 back with development and support from leaders (5 different leaders within 12months). So many targets to meet, if you didn't mentioned online/app or marketing preferences in every call it would be marked as failed. Also in the interview they stated you would only work 1 Saturday a month, but a lot of us always ended up working 2,3 Saturdays in a row.The job title is Customer Adviser but you can't give advise to customers?!
Pros
two 15min breaks and 1hour lunch
Cons
rota badly planned, stressful, no support from leaders, pushy to sell products
Don't be fooled by Skipton thinking you'll be a cashier and opening accounts. Huge pressure on staff to hard sell anything. Financial advice, funeral plans, wills, home insurance if the customer says no to one thing you had to push for another until they gave in, if you can't hook them in branch you're made to cold call. Training is shocking too much then none at all.
then none at all
Pros
None for me
Cons
Low pay, lots of travel to Skipton and other branches, pressure selling and cold calling to name a few
I’ve worked for Skipton for around 5-6 years and they’ve been incredibly accommodating of my situations. They’re willing to support you in any way possible which makes it a great place to work.
the culture is great and everyone there is really friendly, however it can be really stressful and fast paced on busy days, and it can be hard dealing with difficult customers constatly
Work culture is improving but they do pay lip-service to some aspects of modern work culture. Innovation is coming to some areas but is slow in others. The people are mostly lovely though.
Skipton building Society is a great place to work, they really try to put the customer first and also try thier best to look after thier employees development and mental health.
SBS is a brilliant place to work for those who are looking to start out their career. There are plenty of opportunities in customer facing and non-customer facing roles for those looking for entry level positions and progression is a very realistic expectation if you demonstrate the right behaviours and work ethic.
Skipton employs great people who create a inclusive culture and this first big positive I took from working at SBS when I started out, how welcoming and friendly people were and this is still true today. Skipton has a very social culture too, particularly in the contact centre where celebration events throughout the year are major dates in the diary.
SBS is a little behind the times when it comes to processes, customer journey's and it's use of technology. Certain things are outdated, like the use of Grid Cards, which make the customer journey slow and more difficult than it should be whilst some internal processes are quite frankly ridiculous which hinder the customer journey even more. Its encouraging to see that SBS is challenging all of the above to make processes more streamlined, easier and better for colleagues and customers. Tech has always been a challenge for SBS and whilst they celebrate their customer video conferencing software being one of a kind (because it is), they are lacking in other areas i.e. the customer app. Admittedly this is in its infancy however the functionality of the app is minimal - The future could be bright though, if enough attention is paid in the right areas.
Skipton is a great place to work , of you love being part of a small close knit team then o would highly recommend. Work can be slow occasionally but is a very friendly environment and enjoyed my time working here
Great place, great culture would recommend to work here. Still needs modernising in certain areas, but is always looking forward and gives lots of opportunities to develop ideas into real life.
Lovely people and room for advancement. Only downside is working Saturdays and low pay. Good benefits and pay can be boosted with a bonus but you are expected to work extremely hard for what you are paid.
a fantastic culture with lots of personal development opportunities. Programmes for leadership development and professional study. good salary packages with flexible working options
Enjoyed my time at Skipton, learnt a lot. Most enjoyable part was the people and culture. Fun, Empathetic and Team Players. Would look to go back in the future.
Management were obsessed with targets, staff were pushed to sell . Targets were discussed everyday and if you didn't achieve them you were made to feel inadequate.
Super company to work for. Great staff and management and real concern for the staff. Pleasant working conditions. Obviously there is pressure to achieve targets but these are not unreasonable and achievable. Would still be there if I hadn't decided to retire!
I would highly recommend if you live nearby to lookout for job opportunities and careers with Skipton.
If you are ambitious, keen and career minded but also passionate about doing the right thing and hold your human beliefs and values dearly, you will feel right at home. To me it’s one of the best kept secrets in Yorkshire in terms of great companies to work for.
Pros
Pension, holidays, flexible working, culture, embrace diversity
Cons
Work-life balance might be a tad skewed
Official response from Skipton Building Society
8 October 2019Thanks for your review and we really appreciate your feedback.It is important to us that our values are evident in everything we do and it's great to hear you are happy with both our benefits and the working environment. With regards to work-life balance, we are working hard to offer flexible working as widely as possible, and colleagues are working flexible patterns such as condensed hours more than ever before. However, we recognise it has proved more challenging in some business areas, especially customer-facing, and will continue to work on this.Tim SpackmanHead of Organisation Development
Brilliant, lovely company to work for. Work life balance was fantastic. management was brilliant and nurtured you into doing your best. Workplace culture was brilliant
low footfall which usually means you struggle meeting your targets.
This has also a big impact on how engaged you can be.
The Society is always trying to do what is right for the customer.
If you are contemplating a job at one of the branches just take a step back before you jump in.
Management are very clever in how they advertise the role. You don't 'sell' you promote products to help with supporting our members... In other words you push products by cold selling either over the phone or face to face.
You strike up a conversation not to be nice and actually develop a relationship but to purely sell. I preferred a slow burning relationship that was built over time. Not here, some quick small talk and then boom into the sales pitch.
Sometimes you would identify a need that justifies your sales pitch but most of the time your just annoying someone who just wants to take out some cash and doesn't want an interrogation about their savings etc.
For your dizzying 16.5K a year, you are expected to open up the branch, do the admin, sell products, engage in customer service, learn the products, keep up to date with the ever changing rules, open accounts, registering deaths and p.o.a, identify any financial advice needs, work the till, basic transactions and last but not least take on extra duties as if all that wasn't enough.
The pressure of selling and targets was subtle but ever present.
Left just shy of six months before my probation ended. Had enough with trying to learn the many rules of the financial sector but more due to the cold selling.
If your a go getter and happy to sell then Skipton will give you the support and tools to succeed.
Just make sure you go in with your eyes wide open and make sure you ask lots of questions in your interview.
Pros
Support from head office
Cons
Pay, sales job disguised as customer service
Official response from Skipton Building Society
16 August 2019We're sorry to hear that you feel you have had a poor experience working with Skipton.Whilst we always welcome feedback, we don't recognise your interpretation of how Skipton help, support and inform our customers about our products and services. We are very proud of our customer-centric approach and of our No Pressure Promise which means we'll always give customers as much time as they need and never push them into any of our products and services. Our consistently high Customer Satisfaction feedback verifies that the majority of our customers appreciate our approach too.We are also proud that, through colleague feedback, we have been voted one of The Sunday Times Best 100 Companies to Work For, for five years in a row.We recognise the challenges that working in a regulated financial services environment can bring and that there is a significant amount of learning for new colleagues. As such, we are currently undertaking a review of how we recruit, on-board and support our new colleagues and recognise that we can make improvements to this process.
Very much a place where your face needs to fit to progress. They do favour younger people over older people whose skills are not appreciated so much.
You need to put in a lot of effort to obtain the higher bonus/pay rises which is not really sustainable and very dependent on the manager you have.
Pros
Bonus
Cons
Constant Monitoring
- Employee reviews