Pros
-"New" Building: the building and work environment is great. The building is new and has all the amenities you need. It's like a work campus. Cafeteria, gym, nurse's office, arcade room, lounge, basketball, outdoor games, etc. Cafeteria is overpriced for bad food though. -Benefits: GREAT benefits, very competitive. Lots of vacation hours, after 3 years you get like 21/23 days of vacation, health plans are great low priced, matching is awesome-good 401k, VTO, birthday day off. Benefits are far better than any other financial company in SD. Stock options, stock options rewards to employees (most employees that get it are lifers (8+yrs) -Few good people: I had the luck of working for a really good manager. She helped me achieve my goals and motivated me and took me to the next level. She was a rare case. But her manager wasn’t that great or other managers in different departments. The newer faces are a breath of fresh air. I made some really good friends here. -Events: they have cool events such as health fair, Halloween celebration, and departmental events such as Holiday Party. -Bonuses: Everybody gets a bonus no matter what position you’re at and it starts at 5.5%. If you are a good hardworking employee and your manager likes you, you can potentially receive a good bonus! They also have yearly inflation raises. Even with this the pay is still low compared to industry standards. But if you are in management level, your paycheck is fat and your bonus is starts at 9%. -Good stepping stone. If you have no experience in the financial industry LPL will be a good stepping stone. Use it and leave it. Once you get your experience it’s not worth it to stay there.
Cons
-Management: Management are arrogant and a big joke and think they rule the world and think they are so important that they do not talk to their "lower staff" but really they do not know how to manage their employees. They are horrible managers; many are inexperience and only got to where they are because they know someone. Not the brightest batch. Many are hired with NO experience, it's ALL politics. They do not know how to value their most hardworking and brightest employees. The brightest and best leaves to other companies bc LPL management doesn't know employee retention. Promotions are given to people who don't deserve it (like I said, it's all politics and you have to know somebody). -Advancement: It's extremely hard to move into management roles (unless you know somebody) No matter how much knowledge, hardworking, work ethics, licenses you have it's all about kissing up. You do that well you'll do well here. Also the compliance/GRC group is a big joke. They do not supervise or properly -Employees: you have the lifers who think they are entitled to everything. They've been working here for "10 + years" and "did their time" so they think you should respect them and/or they don't respect you, especially new younger Millennials generation. It's a changing industry get your head out of your behind and get with the times! Things are changing for the good and deal with the innovation and new thinking. Also you have SOOO many lifers that are lazy and they've been doing the same thing for the last 10 years. No motivation, 9-5 job, only there to get a paycheck. No dreams, no motivation, no goals, you come here to die if you stay that long. Your life is drained out of you like those people. Also intercommunication- no other departments like taking the accountability of anything. They never respond or follow up. Always a roadblock in communication. -Pay: If you started as a temp and made your way to permanent you will get pay lower than industry average. They take advantage of you that way saying that because they bought out your temp contract they'll pay you $2-4 dollars per hour LESS. Pay is ONLY good if you are in management level AND/OR you leave the company then come back. Other than that I left LPL and got paid more than the same position there. They reward the higher ups and give financial advisors lavish vacations or what they call “conference” with masters and summit and gifts and everything and take no investment in their employees. They also pay a lot of fees to FINRA due to their lack of compliance/supervision. That money can help increase pay for employees since they really under pay you here. -Licenses: they do not sponsor you nor/or let you sign a promissory note for repayment if you fail or leave once you pass. They do not encourage employees to seek knowledge. They stop you at your licenses. They have a program that allows 30-40 people from the whole firm to opportunity to take your licenses but it's not for everyone and HARD to get in. -Environment: LPL is basically "LPLMATCH.COM" everyone sleeps with each other here. It's like a big pool of polygamous dating. Everyone dates each other, all the males and females are on the lookout for a mate. I get it, it's work and you spend most of your days here, but the guys can be dogs. You hear about that one guy that got around or that girl that got around. -Professionalism: LPL is very unprofessional. The dress code is casual (which is good) but some people take advantage of it and dress like frat bros or street walkers with 5 inch heels. Image of the people in operations are horrible. They are the worst offenders of the dress codes. I've seen PJ pants, yoga pants, crocs, slippers, double collar shirts, low cut shirts to fully expose breast, miniskirts, see-through shirts, etc. Very unprofessional work environment. -Ever since they went public, they've been going down hill -Offshoring: they are horrible. Tons of mistakes, ended up creating a dept to QC their work. They do not understand the industry and they do it for pay. They don't care and don't understand the process. Advisors blame you for their mistakes, management blames you. There's no way around bad work that they provide.