ATB Financial FAQ

Pros

Great benefit package with flexibility to adjust every year

Cons

Non competitive pay, company culture is going downhill.

Advice to Management

Managers need to know what the reality is rather than setting unachievable goal.

Pros

culture, leadership, benefits, career advancement, technology

Cons

pay freeze, rotations, hours, no more free coffee.

Pros

ATB is overall a wonderful company to work for. Their Flex Benefits system makes it so you can choose how to use your benefits by adding more or using less toward dental, vision, prescriptions, general health care, etc. You can choose to add funds to a Health Care Spending Account, Wellness Account, or "buy" up to 5 additional vacation days per year. Every employee is given 2 additional "Flex Vacation" days on top of their regular PTO which based on paygrade and years of service. The company puts emphasis on mental health and has been especially flexible during the pandemic. They are good about training and there are plenty of opportunities for advancement.

Cons

ATB is a Crown Corporation and has been under a salary freeze mandated by the province for 4 years and no end in sight. The only way to get a raise is to change job titles and move into another pay grade. Conveniently, almost all executives were "restructured" into higher paygrades and allowed raises while lower level employees expected to stay where they are at, despite inflation being higher than ever. While I now work remotely fulltime and am under different management, I previously worked in a branch and the culture and environment there is toxic and stressful. Middle management is not aligned with ATB's values and frequently ask too much of employees, put more stress on sales targets than required, micromanage, and often set their employees up to fail. I have heard from other branch employees that they have had similar experiences. My small branch alone had 5 people take stress leave in the past year. ATB needs to ensure they are practicing what they preach in all areas of the company and not leave branch employees at the mercy of inconsistent and toxic management.

Advice to Management

Branch management needs to align their values with ATB's. We can't preach that we aren't like different banks because we don't push sales targets and then micromanage and nitpick and push targets anyways. Branch employees can't take the blame for ATB being behind digitally and it is not wholly their responsibility to make up for that lost income.

Pros

Flexible benefits, pension options, staff pricing on products are truly exceptional, as is the flexible work locations - home/office. Staff are very welcoming and supportive and make you feel "at home" . Base salary has gotten better in recent years to be more closely aligned to direct competitors

Cons

ATB has become overly "woke" and the culture and cultural values have drastically shifted to big bank corporate focus. There's been a significant shift from working with your leader through challenging circumstances to, if you don't like what your leader is telling you, just go above them or around them, and likewise if you're struggling with a colleague or equal partner, anonymous complaints are the new "squeaky wheel". Leadership doesn't have the depth or experience to see through and/or discern what's real or just a rant nor do they have the patience to do the right thing. Bottom line, the nail that sticks out gets pounded.

Pros

Good benefits, good work life balance

Cons

Salary is not very high. Training is lacking.