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Coventry Building Society

Engaged employer

Coventry Building Society Reviews

2.8

37% would recommend to a friend

(422 total reviews)

Steve Hughes

43% approve of CEO

26% positive business outlook

Coventry Building Society has an employee rating of 2.8 out of 5 stars, based on 422 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an average working experience there. The Coventry Building Society employee rating is 25% below average for employers within the Finance industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

422 reviews
1.0
8 July 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

None, not even the fruit makes the place any good

Cons

So, CBS, are you going to recognise that you now have an issue with your culture, with your management style, with the Severn Trent people who have infiltrated the place over the last number of years who have no clue how to work in a Building Society? Are you going to acknowledge you have no issues whatsoever and instead give me a generic HR reply saying "Thanks for your response"? I saw your reply to an employee a few months back who asked you not to respond because of how badly they had suffered with their mental health and what did you do? Did you respect their request and not respond? No, in your arrogance for thinking you know best, you responded. How disrespectful is that to still respond to someone who asked you not to. I genuinely hope that person didn't get even further affected after getting a response, I hope you can live with yourselves if it is discovered that you set that person back even further. This is the arrogance and superiority that you now operate with, that you know best. This is why you now have this issue that you won't recognise because you arrogantly believe it is all because of 'change', not that you have incompetant leaders, that the culture is so toxic, people are suffering mental health and physical health issues and are going off sick or are voluntarily taking redundancy to get away from you. You should feel shame perpetuating a lie that CBS still have values for its members when its staff are so badly treated. I say the term members but the CEO, having taken his £2.2 million pay packet this year, clearly wants to be a bank and doesn't care about the people who still choose to 'bank' with CBS. All he wants is the prestige of being a bank and getting as much money out of it as possible and woe betide the people who lose their jobs along the way. Shame on you, CBS, for failing your staff, for forgetting why you exist in the first place, for failing your members even though they aren't aware of the failures and for creating such a terrible environment. For not respecting the mutual values that created you back in the 19th century

1.0
5 July 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Free fruit in the head office building is genuinely the only decent thing this company does!

Cons

Coventry Building Society has become one of the most toxic workplaces imaginable since the merger with Co‑op. Whatever humanity, identity, or pride once existed has been completely wiped out. What’s left is a bullying, militarised, productivity‑obsessed machine run by people who seem to have no grasp on the real world and no interest in gaining one. The culture is rotten. Not “slipping.” Not “declining.” Rotten. Bullying is now normalised. Staff are spoken to with open disrespect, dismissed, ignored, and pressured relentlessly. Management behaves like they’re running a barracks, not a building society. They bark orders, impose unrealistic targets, and treat employees like disobedient soldiers rather than human beings. Employee welfare? Non-existent. They don’t care how you feel, what you’re dealing with, or how their decisions impact your mental health. They care about one thing: productivity metrics. If you’re breaking under the pressure, they don’t fix the problem — they blame you for not coping with the environment they created. People are going off on long-term sickness because of the stress, anxiety, and psychological damage caused by this so‑called “leadership team.” And instead of asking why so many employees are burning out, management pretends everything is fine and continues piling on more pressure. The leadership is completely detached from reality. They make decisions from an ivory tower, with no understanding of the actual work being done. They don’t listen. They don’t learn. They don’t care. Staff feedback is treated as an inconvenience, not a warning. HR engagement is performative — a scripted routine designed to look supportive while doing absolutely nothing The atmosphere is suffocating. People come to work exhausted, demoralised, and afraid to speak up. The organisation’s external image — friendly, member‑focused, community‑driven — is now a complete lie. Internally, it’s a toxic, bullying culture where wellbeing is irrelevant and questioning anything is treated like insubordination. If you value your mental health, your dignity, or working somewhere that treats you like a human being, avoid Coventry Building Society in its post‑merger state. It is not the organisation it once was. It is a toxic environment run by people who should never have been put in charge of other human beings.

1.0
5 July 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

• Good bonus scheme • Flexible working • Free fruit

Cons

• Losing it’s identity and culture • Pretends to care but not anymore • No proper approach to Ways of Working

Viewing 1 - 3 of 422 Reviews

Glassdoor has 439 Coventry Building Society reviews submitted anonymously by Coventry Building Society employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Coventry Building Society is right for you.