Awful Corporate Culture - Anonymous employee State Street Employee Review

1.0
Jun 4, 2014
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The benefits are fine, although the 401K matching dropped to 5% from 6% when I started. There are some great people working at State Street that just seem resigned to their jobs.

Cons

The motto of management is "Do More With Less," but that doesn't mean that they are interested in efficiency. Every year there were layoffs and the amount of work remained the same. Instead of streamlining processes and creating efficiencies, the processors were just given more work and told to get it done. Management was not interested in ideas for improvement. The only idea management had for remaining competitive was to outsource the work to India, which was next to useless given the amount of turnover over there. As soon as a process was moved to Syntel, the worker you trained would leave and you would need to start over. The same mistakes would be made so often that you could predict future problems and adjust your schedule in advance. Again, no changes were made to address chronic problems or problem employees. Any above-average employees quickly found other jobs and left. No effort was made to retain talent or promote the better workers to management. It was almost impossible to move to SSGA or even other roles within State Street, any application to a new position may as well have been sent straight to the trash. On top of everything else the pay was not competitive and the yearly raises were more often under inflation.

Explore other reviews about State Street

5.0
Jun 5, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

on-boarding was easy, lot of learning opportunities/clients to service, nice co-workers

Cons

sparse work-load allotted, difficult client assignments, strict vps

1.0
May 14, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Remote work is (rarely) an option, though the approval process is extremely slow and bureaucratic. There are a few well-meaning colleagues who genuinely try to drive positive change before burning out.

Cons

Onboarding and HR processes are severely broken, taking 11 months to approve remote status and failing to prepare basic equipment for day one. The workplace culture is deeply hostile, with anger and yelling functioning as the default communication style across teams. Leadership turnover is rampant, resulting in constant re-organizations, splintered teams, and a total lack of strategic direction. Role clarity is non-existent, forcing employees to invent their own daily tasks while receiving entirely contradictory instructions. Direct management is completely absent; I went seven months without any contact from my boss before being laid off via a three-word instant message and short call.

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