The Co-Operative Bank
Happiness score is 53 out of 100
3.3 out of 5 stars.
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The Co-Operative Bank Employee Reviews

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United Kingdom62 reviews

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3.5Work-life balance
3.1Pay & benefits
2.8Job security & advancement
2.9Management
3.1Culture

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Excellent staff and colleagues

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Training was excellent, plenty of opportunities to progress and good team bonding.Senior and middle managers at times could be out of touch, especially with targets. But when they made mistakes willing to own them.Positive workplace and culture where equality is primary consideration

Pros

Good environment

Cons

Marketing
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So much room for improvement

My overall experience wasn't great and feel the higher ups need to look into every department! Everything is going downhill. I feel sorry for the management that have to deal with the mess the company has made for them and their teams to deal with! 80% of the time nobody knows what's going on, systems keep crashing, policies are out dated and the call waiting times and complaints are unbearable!

Pros

Break Times 1 hour lunch and 20 mins break

Cons

Understaffed and overworked
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Worst job I've ever had - my mental health is still next-to-non-existent

The call centre made my mental health decline so much I legitimately debated jumping off the building twice a day. Management and customers were awful

Pros

Supportive, friendly team-colleagues

Cons

Irregular hours, Don't get paid enough for the amount of abuse you get from customers and higher-ups, Most of the people in training are horrible and unsupportive, People higher than your team leader are always making excuses for why call times are so bad, Absolutely no support for people with mental illnesses
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Out dated systems- poor pay

the pay for the work load is unreasonable. The systems are truly out dated. The recruitment journey was great but once you are on your role there isnt much management can really do as the systems are terrible- there is a reason why many branches have shut down and why so many customers have left the company as well as staff. Think about it. Management are supportive but there is only so much they can do. You are added to upskilled groups without any of your own consent.

Pros

good working hours either 8-4 or 10-6

Cons

Terrible systems- poor pay
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Poor culture. Top heavy with senior management, very hierarchical. Bullying managers are not dealt with it.

Very risk averse culture therefore very difficult to get anything done. Very bureaucratic.Having already worked for a regulated organisation I was surprised at how much more policy there was at the bank.
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Stressful and caused a lot of anxiety

During the initial training period it was fine, and it seemed like it would be a great place to work, however after joining the team that feeling changed pretty quickly. Due to increasingly long wait times, that we were told repeatedly would improve but never did, you often had to deal with angry customers one after the other who had to wait sometimes upwards of 1 hour, and being yelled at by so many people on your shift had a really negative impact on me. I was always terrified of the next call coming through in case id be yelled at yet again, although sometimes you did have a nice customer who was perfectly understanding of the situation. Also, when you had an angry customer demanding to speak to management, management refused to come to the phone, I had several instances where an angry situation could have been defused immediately if management just came to the phone. After the call, if you where effected by it, you were often recommended to take a few minutes after to compose yourself, which didn't help me.The training was thorough for the processes and requests that customers would have, and I can't fault that, it was just lacking in how to deal with angry customers, all you where told was how to log a complaint and not how to defuse the situation.

Pros

Reasonable pay, free tea/coffee on shift, work alongside great people on your team.

Cons

Continuously dealing with a lot of angry/frustrated customers
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Excellent Employer with Excellent Employee's

I worked for The Co-Operative Bank from 2002 up until 2018 and they were some of the best years of my life & I have made the most amazing life long friends during my time there that are as close to me as family! They had excellent pay rewards for commitment & hard work & they had excellent ethical policies & people policies. I took redundancy from The Bank in 2018 & fortunately it came at the right time for me but I have missed working for them so much since that day! :-( Whoever secures a role with them can class themselves as very lucky as they are fantastic employees were never anything short of nurturing & encouraging whilst I worked for them! I miss you Co-Op! 🥰

Pros

Excellent people policies, actively develop & encourage staff, excellent rates of pay if you put in the work

Cons

None
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Official response from The Co-Operative Bank

20 July 2021
Thank you for your 5* review. We are delighted that you consider us a great place to work and you have taken the time to highlight our colleagues, our benefits and our strategy. We're pleased that you've called out teamwork and colleague relationships in your review, as one of our values is ‘stronger together’. Thank you for your service and contribution to the bank.

Really great atmosphere loved every minute of it, shame it was to much travel for me

Really good company very supportive, full training and really good huddles group meets lots of praise and encouragement very understanding when unforseen family issues arise, unfortunately too far for me to travel or would have stayed, position was meant to be temporary but contract was extended regularly, really lovely staff including management no power trippers just excellent place to work was a pleasure for duration of my employment there.

Pros

Lots of praise, rewards, lots of support, excellent training, pleasure to work with the co op banking group

Cons

None
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Official response from The Co-Operative Bank

20 July 2021
Thank you for your 5* review. We are pleased you have called out our family friendly working arrangements. We are the original ethical bank, and what matters to our people matters to us.We have supported colleagues through the ongoing challenges of coronavirus with flexible working arrangements and, for those colleagues who are unable to work from home, a ‘protect and support’ programme to keep them safe. Thank you for your service and contribution to the bank.

Great atmosphere at Co-operative Bank

It's good place to work with rubbish pay. Your work should demonstrate your worth with hard work and dedication but not in this place. They never appreciated the hard work their employees did.

Pros

Great location

Cons

Rubbish pay
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Official response from The Co-Operative Bank

20 July 2021
Thank you for leaving us a review and sharing your thoughts, I am sorry to hear your concerns on salary and hours etc, we are a living wage employer and aim to always be competitive in our internal and external salaries and as you know, we have a range of policies and support in place to help our colleagues maintain a healthy work-life balance and we are doing more to promote this. . We have been through challenges in the past few years which we appreciate can be hard... We recognise we need to do all we can to support and value our colleagues.

Struggling bank in need of innovation & proper management

Started working then left very shortly afterwards due to pedantic and very overbearing micro-management. I'd been told Co-op is an ethical bank as they dont lend to arms companies and such, but in my opinion this bank have dined out for free on that redundant sentiment for too long. What I saw working here shocked and saddened me. IT systems were inherently broken and not fit for purpose, management shirked responsibilities and took evasive action whenever anyone suggested streamlining broken processes. I witnessed a lot of favouritism and nepotism in my time here. On the plus side, I found the initial induction fairly standard and most of the customer facing staff more welcoming, training & initial impressions were fairly ok. However this changed as soon as I started my day to day duties as a mortgage adviser which fell in the domain of the "training academy". This academy was one person who essentially decided whether you stay or not, and this largely depended whether they wanted you there or not rather than your ability to do the job. I immediately encountered a level of scrutiny in my work that involved every tiny piece of my conversations with customers being picked apart, over-analysed and nitpicked to the Nth degree whilst other advisers producing similar outcomes were allowed to sail through. During my training one chap resigned due to stress and another colleague confided that they were taking anti-anxiety medication because of the amount of over-zealous and pushy scrutiny that a particular staff member was placing on them. This lead me to feel extremely unwelcome - 

Pros

Fairly decent pension, central location.

Cons

Poor IT, management unwilling to listen to any constructive feedback, favouritism and office politics are a very big problem.
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Official response from The Co-Operative Bank

20 July 2021
Thank you for your feedback, I will certainly take your comments back to our Senior leaders for consideration. We have made changes to improve our IT through a bank wide desktop transformation, which has provided all colleagues with a better tech platform on which to work. We appreciate there has been a lot of change recently, but our strategy remains consistent under our new CEO, Nick Slape. Nick was an internal appointment, which has helped with continuity against the existing plan. I am sorry to hear your concerns on salary and hours etc, we are a living wage employer and aim to always be competitive in our internal and external salaries and as you know, we have a range of policies and support in place to help our colleagues maintain a healthy work-life balance and we are doing more to promote this. We recognise we need to do all we can to support and value our colleagues.

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Stressful low wage job with little benefit

If you work here in customer services you’ll be treated with contempt and be given little/no support. Due to serious failings by management you'll bear the brunt of any issues like systems crashing daily, not enough staff or call waits of over an hour. Besides a wage that hasn’t really increased in years you’ll get nothing more. They used to offer bonuses, prizes, rewards but now you just get access to discounted gift cards. I can get that myself online! Direction to develop the company changes every year when the management team leaves and gets replaced. Which means they spent money making people redundant and new systems that never get finished. So you end up with no staff and old systems from the 80/90s. Due to making so many people redundant they’ll give you many roles to perform and leave you to it. During the height of covid they didn’t care and provided little support. Only when staff absence increased did they try to put processes in place. If you’re after a stressful job and don’t want to stack shelves for the similar wage. Be given no support and work in a toxic environment then this is a job for you. They made people redundant late last year (2020) in customer services and they’re recruiting to fill those jobs. So you can see that the staff turnover is shocking! At least at McDonalds you get a free meal.

Pros

Sick pay when permanent

Cons

Poor management, Below Industry Pay, stressful, poor training & Support
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Stressful

No job security. Currently up skilling staff so that everyone can do everything, including dealing with fraud!Training from other skills has been so diluted and rushed so that they can have enough staff trained.

Pros

Good pension

Cons

Were to start
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For People With Purpose

Loved my time at Britannia and The Co-operative Bank. Good benefits and working environment. Sadly, couldn't escape the latest round of redundancies - otherwise I'd be there forever.
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No Support/Constant System Issues

I work at The Co-Operative Bank for four months and I absolutely hated this job with a passion. This was the Bain of my life. The first three weeks training is okay then your moved to ‘academy’ where your put on the phones but trainers listen to your calls and ‘support’ you. During any of the Co-Op Bank calls you have to read and follow process maps and are not taught how to anything it’s a case of reading and doing while the customer is on the line. Next whenever I had a customer who wanted to raise a complaint I had no support, I wasn’t taught how to deal with complaints, never mind raising them. I wasn’t taught this in academy and they would advise with how would you rectify the issue. Lastly the system is so ancient there is constantly system crashes and they do not run efficiently. I would not even recommend this job to my worst enemy.

Pros

None

Cons

Long Hours, No Support, Training is absolutely dreadful and System is ancient.
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Fabulous although I left in 2007

A fabulous place to work at the time. Superb management, great ethics. Hard work brought decent rewards. We really cared about our customers, although profits also featured; customer opinion mattered, staff were listened to.

Pros

Subsidised lunches, gym at cws

Cons

Long hours
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Official response from The Co-Operative Bank

20 July 2021
Thank you for your 5 star review. We are pleased that you consider us a great place to work and you have taken the time to highlight our colleagues, our benefits and our strategy. Thank you for your service and contribution to the bank.

No support, stressful, mangers just see stats and targets no care for staff

So many silly target to reach, making appointments, keep your customer feedback score up amongst all the other stupid targets. No real training left to it and told too “read the process maps” when you make an error your then clamped down on even though you’ve not been shown how to do it properly. Also certain members of staff are favoured m no really team effort. Every man for them selves springs to mond

Pros

Good holiday entitlement

Cons

Too many to name, just don’t go for a job here it’s not worth the stress
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Terrible culture

Terrible culture. No leadership from management. Project was continuously stopped and started. Over £350m was waisted by indecision and poor management.

Pros

None

Cons

Terrible culture
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Official response from The Co-Operative Bank

20 July 2021
Thank you for leaving us a review and sharing your thoughts. We appreciate there has been a lot of change recently, but our strategy remains consistent under our new CEO, Nick Slape. We acknowledge it's a challenging environment, but also exciting and rewarding, for colleagues who want to help us shape our digital ethical Bank.

So my pressure put on staff to meet targets

So much pressure to meet appointment targets, even in a pandemic we are still expected to. The training is awful and your thrown in the deep end and not much support. Manager and team leader have a short fuse and not very helpful when it comes to training g.

Pros

Holiday entitlement is good

Cons

Stressful job, So much pressure, Targets to meet and your sat behind and made to feel absolutely awful.
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absolutely no support

trainer for first three weeks was great and then you go on phones, you are supported for two weeks by more trainers and then on to your team the team leader could not be bothered with you. on the first week she sat and set out a training plan which was the last time i sat with her. when i went to ask for her help she said why have you walked past other team leaders , because they were busy and she was my go to team leader no one tells you how to check holiday entitlement and wage slips go to your works email which you can only access in the workplace therefore anyone could look over your shoulder and could see how much you earned. you are threatened with disciplinary action if you do not sit in the correct place depending on the time your shift starts and the system is that antiquated that it crashes on a daily basis and you are penalised for it I would not recommend it at all
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too much pressure

say they care about the customers but they don't . they pay lip service to vulnerability but don't do anything when faced with mental health problems caused by stress at work. they just want to tick boxes.
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Fun place to work

Great experience, wonderful people. Standard working hours , learnt a lot amongst colleagues. Would love to progress and be challenged. A good company to work for
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Overall rating

3.3

Based on 63 reviews

Ratings by category

3.5
Work/Life Balance
3.1
Salary/Benefits
2.8
Job security/advancement
2.9
Management
3.1
Culture

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