There is something that has been gnawing at me for quite some time regarding the reality behind the corporate facade at Citi.
When you look at the day-to-day operations—from suing a man over a $2,600 balance to policies allowing the clawback of bank accounts following disciplinary reviews or overpayments—a clear pattern emerges.
Displaced employees are expected to swallow workplace grievances in exchange for measly severance, while parallel transfers offer no pay increases, completely stripping away any incentive to perform well. Of course, staying put doesn’t guarantee fair compensation either.
Word has been going around that employees are intentionally rated lower simply to justify withholding pay for their efforts. In a toxic and abusive environment like this, it paints a picture of a petty, small-minded, and unluxurious banking experience.
All of this sends a loud signal of a financially struggling institution that chases every small profit yet never seems to turn the corner.
Leadership has repeatedly promised investors ROTCE improvements, only to fail to impress during Investor Day, followed by announcements of tech investments that will slow those expectations down even further.
This comes from a bank that has supposedly been working to fix its legacy systems under a Consent Order for the past six years—or have they?
It makes you want to question the endless musical chairs of business unit rearrangements every 18 months in a desperate search for profits that never materialize, made even harder to measure when the baseline keeps shifting.
Meanwhile, Jane Fraser collects tens of millions in pay while the bank refuses to settle lawsuits as a matter of strategy, fearing it will lose the upper hand against a mounting pile of complaints about a handful of problematic managers.
It is an incredibly short-sighted approach; kicking the can down the road invariably costs more in legal fees and resources than resolving issues quickly.
A genuinely rational alternative would be for executive leadership to cut their own compensation to fund the resolution of pending actions and finally move forward.
Or maybe expecting accountability at the top is just being Pollyanna.