UBS reviews

3.7

72% would recommend to a friend

(14,550 total reviews)
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Sergio P. Ermotti

84% approve of CEO

62% positive business outlook

UBS has an employee rating of 3.7 out of 5 stars, based on 14,550 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The UBS employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Finance industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

15K reviews
1.0
Sep 3, 2018
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Nice office in IFC2 Nespresso coffee Great perks for senior management - Free Country Club membership for MDs, extra holiday Good opportunity in HK for below average Swiss bankers to get promoted

Cons

- Constant change - new managers, team members cut, teams merged - it feels like a headless chicken is running HK sometimes - Long hours for junior staff - Salaries are way below HK market rates for locals - Old fashioned processes - made to perform compliance controls that seem like they are from the 1990s - Culture is still an issue - the IB still has issues a la Kweko Adeboli and Tom Hayes - if anything goes wrong, be prepared to be a scapegoat so management can be protected - UBS is potentially going to be banned from sponsoring IPOS due to misconduct - expect big cuts when this happens

1.0
Mar 25, 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Lots of real and genuine teammates especially at the junior level Some good managers Decent health coverage for emergency purposes Apparently compared to other banks, we are consider "better" in terms of culture Use to be a good company and friendly culture... but the last 6 to 7 years have been brutal...

Cons

Terrible structural problems. Very Low Morale. High Turnovers. Long Hours. A "poppies that stick out get chopped" mentality. Senior managers are really cold and calculative. Company is highly political. All the good senior manager who actually care about people were all slowly forced to quit in my department in the last 3 years, as certain political camps won out (department and geographical merging to cut costs). A massive trickle effect downwards to manager and junior managers is easily apparent. Most are cynical managers really abusing (passively I mean) their staff, rather then fight senior managers for work-life balance or even fair compensation. Mentors often advise (be less "cheery" and avoid being "noticed" and to be "fortunate" to have a job) An unfortunate result are genuinely nice people are literally quietly begrudging walking dead. Angry, peeved off, but desperate to keep the jobs. Senior managers takes advantage of this.... Example: Recent promotions (with 1.5-2x the responsibility) are rewarded with pay raises less then 5%. This is not an exaggeration, with 5% at the upper range (with also a very low starting base to begin with). I and a few colleagues have declined the promotion. But, I suppose they served their purpose of "trying to promote". All other staff have pay raise freeze for all others (some colleagues saw no raise for the past 4 years). Therefore real earning wages has actually declined year on year. For my market that actually is a decline of 12-16% of real income after accounting for inflation. Previous years 2013-2015, a strategy of "natural attrition" was employed to reduce headcount by "freezing" almost all promotions (on top of pay). A good point to note, that strategy was effective in pushing some folks out. But us average individuals with limited prospects in a tightening market... it is very disheartening to see good friends leave and replaced by very young, very inept graduates (if they choose to replace staff at all)

2.0
Mar 10, 2017
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Maternity and medical benefits are good! Flexible working arrangement. Pantry service is good too! Colleagues are nice to each other!

Cons

No salary increment annually! Bonus is minimal! No reward at all even if you work hard! And management is saying 2 is the new 3 when 3 is meeting expectation in the performance appraisal process.

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