Deluxe Corporation FAQ

Pros

There are some healthcare benefits.

Cons

The negative reviews speak the truth. Deluxe is determined to drive itself into the ground. Part of the problem is its painfully incompetent staff. There is a high turnover rate. You’ll be emailing with one person one quarter and they will completely disappear the next. The staff members seem visibly confused as to what they are doing at any given time. There is a tier structure where you need to get through multiple people in order to achieve a task, rendering it impossible to complete from going through the tiers and receiving no help or support. Staff members pawn big workloads onto people that have a track record for following through with their work rather than doing it themselves. The term “exceeds my bandwidth” is used frequently as a means for senior members to get out of doing actual work. Be mindful of backstabbers in the midst. Staff members will request information from you and take credit for coming up with the ideas themselves. Throughout COVID-19, one of the SVPs has sent daily emails to employees that are little more than internalized ramblings about his personal life. These are companywide emails that everyone is able to read. The messages are mocked relentlessly among employees for being tone deaf. Absolutely nobody wants to read these emails, or any sort of corporate communication emails, when you cannot give your employees raises in a timely manner.

Advice to Management

I would recommend cleaning house, but that would hardly help given that Deluxe is likely to hire more of the same people with “yes man” mentalities. Deluxe seems to like the hole it has dug for itself. In the event that they get sick of being in a hole, consider being open to innovation, growth, and change. Stop hiring and appointing individuals with little to no experience into leadership roles. Look for people who actually get work done, overhaul everything, pay employees a fair wage, and bring meaning to the workplace. And please end the “Mental and Physical Health Break” email series. Your work email is not your diary.

Pros

- Met some really amazing people and had a relatively flexible schedule - Benefits (medical, dental, vision, 401k, tuition reimbursement, paternity & maternity leave, 3 weeks PTO) - Flexible schedule but can depend on your function and manager - New CEO is making great changes that are long overdue

Cons

Short version: - Management lacks management & leadership skills - Patronizing attitudes towards Millennials & Gen Z = stark lack of younger talent - Outdated tech. You can’t say you want to be a tech-enabled company but have phones and other tech from the 70s. - Bureaucratic. It takes weeks for any kind of progress to be made. People are overworked and spread too thin to affect any real or immediate change. - Senior leadership is aloof or unwilling to handle conflict or make necessary personnel changes For a detailed account: 1) Within HR, you might not see your manager for 2-4+ weeks at a time, but you also might get lucky with someone great! Often, mid-level managers are not actively involved in their employees’ growth, especially when it comes to their younger talent (if they even have younger direct reports). This means that reaching your goals can be like hitting a moving target. Many don’t have (or use?) management skills, which is okay, but they shouldn’t be paid to be a manager or have "manager" in their title and then not do the job they’re being paid to do. 2) If you’re under 25, you’re absolutely going to struggle to be taken seriously. The culture towards Millennials/Gen Z is often patronizing, disparaging, and outdated. The stereotypical statements about Millennials can be heard from one function to the next, often on calls or casual conversations directly to you. However, one would think that with such common reasons for leaving, this would signal a red flag to senior leadership that a change should take place. This leads me to the last point: 3) Senior leadership across the board is aloof, and because they’re often not around, it seems as if they are unwilling/unable to address issues to make culture improvements specific to their teams. However, this is part of a broader issue. Some of the leadership members aren’t actively involved on the teams they’re meant to lead. The ability of leadership to handle conflict is abysmal, almost embarrassingly so. At the moment, the Deluxe value prop: Awesome benefits and they’ll pay you to do a job, but then silo you to that job. There are a lot of changes and uncertainty (such as breaking down those silos). In a year or two, after all the growing pains, it’ll hopefully be a very different atmosphere. Until then, wait it out before beginning your career there.

Advice to Management

Value your younger talent and stop feeling the need to babysit them. You can’t tout your desire to recruit new grads when you impede their growth by disparaging and patronizing them and then expecting they'll stay. Leadership and management need to be involved and engaged with their teams, not a figurehead. You can't make change if you don't know what's happening on your team and are you really a manager if you're not actually managing or developing your people?

Pros

Nice people to work with and depending on your job, can be a flexible work environment.

Cons

Benefits very average, terrible PTO, holiday schedule and 401k match compared to many companies (Deluxe does the bare minimum which shows how they treat employees), toxic work environment, management/leadership manages up not down, and people are very disposable. I knew with a few weeks I had made a career mistake. It is a revolving door of layoffs and people stab each other in the back to keep their job. Employees are "yes" people in fear of speaking up and that they will be next. The layoffs are constant and it's an unsettling environment. I saw it throughout the company, not just certain areas. And for people that had been there a long time, they coached me to keep my head down because of the layoffs and don't rock the boat. It's not a culture of being open and honest and sharing ideas. And the fact that the CEO prior to the one now called it "Fall Festival" which was the big layoffs in the fall was a huge sign on the culture. There are many companies in the Minneapolis area, this is one I wouldn't waste my time applying at. And even though there is a new CEO, he came in and wiped out hundreds and hundreds of employees and kept it under the radar by spreading it out over 5 months and doing small increments at a time. The list goes on and on.

Advice to Management

Need fresh senior leadership and management. The ones now manage up and don't focus on their people and have been there so long, they follow the "old" way of doing things. Take a look at your benefits offering, it is below average compared to other companies in the metro area. You won't draw good talent in with poor benefits. If you want the culture to change, bring in fresh new people. People that have been there 15, 20, 25 years are living in the culture of fear and have nothing to offer, they are "yes" people and just do what they are told to do. And the time theft I saw while working there is out of control. People take advantage of short days and not tracking PTO. I saw several employees never put a full day in in the few years I was there. I even reported it and nothing was investigated or done about it. The culture and leadership needs an overhaul.

Pros

Health and dental benefits; 401k; prize incentives; steady work. Wonderful coworkers and team leaders.

Cons

Repetition; the odd nasty customer.

Advice to Management

You should have done more to save the Greensboro offices and not put over 100 people out of work during a pandemic.

Pros

- Met some really amazing people and had a relatively flexible schedule - Benefits (medical, dental, vision, 401k, tuition reimbursement, paternity & maternity leave, 3 weeks PTO) - Flexible schedule but can depend on your function and manager - New CEO is making great changes that are long overdue

Cons

Short version: - Management lacks management & leadership skills - Patronizing attitudes towards Millennials & Gen Z = stark lack of younger talent - Outdated tech. You can’t say you want to be a tech-enabled company but have phones and other tech from the 70s. - Bureaucratic. It takes weeks for any kind of progress to be made. People are overworked and spread too thin to affect any real or immediate change. - Senior leadership is aloof or unwilling to handle conflict or make necessary personnel changes For a detailed account: 1) Within HR, you might not see your manager for 2-4+ weeks at a time, but you also might get lucky with someone great! Often, mid-level managers are not actively involved in their employees’ growth, especially when it comes to their younger talent (if they even have younger direct reports). This means that reaching your goals can be like hitting a moving target. Many don’t have (or use?) management skills, which is okay, but they shouldn’t be paid to be a manager or have "manager" in their title and then not do the job they’re being paid to do. 2) If you’re under 25, you’re absolutely going to struggle to be taken seriously. The culture towards Millennials/Gen Z is often patronizing, disparaging, and outdated. The stereotypical statements about Millennials can be heard from one function to the next, often on calls or casual conversations directly to you. However, one would think that with such common reasons for leaving, this would signal a red flag to senior leadership that a change should take place. This leads me to the last point: 3) Senior leadership across the board is aloof, and because they’re often not around, it seems as if they are unwilling/unable to address issues to make culture improvements specific to their teams. However, this is part of a broader issue. Some of the leadership members aren’t actively involved on the teams they’re meant to lead. The ability of leadership to handle conflict is abysmal, almost embarrassingly so. At the moment, the Deluxe value prop: Awesome benefits and they’ll pay you to do a job, but then silo you to that job. There are a lot of changes and uncertainty (such as breaking down those silos). In a year or two, after all the growing pains, it’ll hopefully be a very different atmosphere. Until then, wait it out before beginning your career there.

Advice to Management

Value your younger talent and stop feeling the need to babysit them. You can’t tout your desire to recruit new grads when you impede their growth by disparaging and patronizing them and then expecting they'll stay. Leadership and management need to be involved and engaged with their teams, not a figurehead. You can't make change if you don't know what's happening on your team and are you really a manager if you're not actually managing or developing your people?