Increasingly Toxic Workplace with Out-of-Touch Management - Marketing Director Fiserv Employee Review

Perhaps because the company has grown primarily through acquisitions, it is incredibly siloed. True cross-company collaboration is practically impossible as each individual group fights mainly to protect their own turf and workload. The simplest requests for help or information will almost always be rebuffed, making innovation and progress challenging. Also, the threat of mass layoffs have hung over the heads of employees since the First Data and Fiserv merger in 2019, making individuals and groups even less likely to be open about their processes and workload and more likely to be change resistant and push back on new ideas. The worst aspect of this culture it fear and siloing is that the blame game is hugely prevalent here: it’s very common to throw peers under the bus when a project fails or goals aren’t attained. Employees spend as much time building cases against each other as they do working. One of the most negative aspects of working at Fiserv is its aging, old school executive group that puts employee satisfaction as a non-priority and takes the attitude that people should consider themselves lucky to work there and that they can easily replace anyone who doesn’t drink the company Kool Aid, even those that are proven high performers. The company has shown repeatedly that they have no interest in following current trends and remaining competitive when it comes to things like WFH, employee development/education programs, etc. The executive group continues to enforce outdated policies (mostly originated by the CEO, who was notoriously rude and dismissive regarding employees’ work-life-balance while leading First Data and has only cleaned up his public persona—not his personal beliefs—since becoming CEO of the combined company). The return to workplace policy is especially egregious as it’s being applied unfairly and the company spends more time and money tracking and reporting on employee work locations than they do providing employee benefits or education programs, both of which would have more upside for the company. Nepotism reigns supreme at Fiserv. Your only shot at growth or advancement is contingent on whether you have a familial relationship with an exec or if you worked with one at their firmer company. If neither of those applies to you, expect to stay in your first role for the entirety of your stay with Fiserv, regardless of the level of your work. This goes double if you are a woman or minority. The company loves to tout its diversity and the industry honors received, while making sure its leadership remains almost entirely white and male. It has the usual employee resource groups to promote diversity but the company’s commitment to them is purely verbal, not financial. Finally, the biggest strike against Fiserv is their compensation package. They currently pay below average for most roles, especially those that are not fintech industry specific. For example, marketing, digital and creative jobs within the company make significantly less than they would elsewhere and with less possibility for growth or advancement. Merit increases are well below the rate of inflation (even pre-recession inflation rates). A high achieving employee should be aware that they can only expect .7-1% merit increase in any given year. And bonuses are laden with restrictions. Most of your bonus will be in the form of stock equity, the first third of which won’t even be granted until a year later (meaning you not only need to do stellar work to earn the bonus but then prove your loyalty by sticking around three more full years before you can claim it all). They’ve recently taken the same approach in regards to the cash portion of the bonus, making employees sign a document stating that if they leave within a year of receiving the bonus, they will be required to pay back a prorated amount. They’re trying to use bonuses to force employees to stay put, instead of creating a culture and workplace that’s more attractive to high performing workers. The worst part of these policies is that they don’t disclose them in job postings or even in the interview/hiring process. The salary you’ll see listed for any Fiserv role is guaranteed to be inflated by bonus amounts that you may never earn, making it look up to $20k higher than the actual base pay.