Pros
1. Decent place to get some banking experience but not a great place for a career- especially if you're in the SC region. If you're apart of a store in SC you're not a priority. You are essentially a teller and a loan officer as a Relationship Specialist, so you're going to be juggling a lot of duties and tasks, including Grow marketing events on weekends. They also force you to field call center calls when that is not in your job description even if the customer service representatives aren't slammed with calls. 2. You can go from $32k-$40k in a year but after that good luck making more.
Cons
1. The company culture is very fake and poor. The executives, especially Thomas Feindt, does not practice what he preaches when it comes to company culture and inclusion. Thomas Feindt has made it very clear employees are expendable if they think differently than him. They had an unconscious bias speaker speak to the whole company and preached if you are white you are inherently racist. After taking a survey about Grow and the meeting (which Grow said was confidential), Thomas and friends at the top called those who spoke up about their disapproval with the speaker, people with "hearts full of hate." 2. You can only work there if you are vaccinated from COVID-19, even if you work from home. They fired everybody who wasn't vaccinated- no matter how long they were there or what they contributed to the company. Again, Thomas Feindt's actions speak very loudly, "agree with me, or leave!" 3. As previously mentioned, I have heard of instances of retaliation as a result of someone speaking openly on surveys within the company. 4. Grow has some of the most archaic and out of date systems and software they use to "assist" their members. Members complain it is very hard to do simple things in their accounts and with their loans and I don't blame them. The employees are shackled by dated software and are unable to assist the members quickly and efficiently. Grow has also made no move or mention of moving away from these systems and software. My guess is because they want to save money, which is ironic because Grow constantly preaches they are for people and not for profit. I once had a member tell me, "I've never had so much trouble giving my money to a company," when this specific member wanted to pay off his auto loan. Grow has made a lot of members feel they are not there for their members, and you can believe they will cause you to feel they are not there for their employees. 5. Upper management plays favorites whether you're in SC or in FL. It's hard to move up or gain recognition if you are not in their circle or if they don't like you. Cliques and circles are in full swing at Grow Financial. The last time I saw this trait was in high school. If you're an adult who acts like an adult and wants to work with other adults who also act like adults, this may not be the place for you. 6. Grow Financial is not a very competitive company, again ironic considering they say they're for people and not profit. Their rates are not the best when it comes to any product other than credit cards, and as a loan officer you are still expected to meet your sales goals each month. If you don't, they have a talk with you like something is wrong with you and "what you can do better" as opposed to making things better for the members. Remember, Grow says they're for people and not profit. Are you beginning to see how they continuously miss that mark? 7. Grow is constantly producing new tasks and duties for the relationship specialists to accomplish, while not understanding other tasks and duties will now suffer as a result. Again, it's a what can you do better and not what can they do better mentality. 8. If you're a conservative, you're best to keep your views to yourself. This sounds like normal procedure in not bringing politics into the workplace, however Thomas Feindt has absolutely demolished this commonly viewed aspect and has created division in the company. I know of a lot of employees who chose to keep their beliefs to themselves in order to not get on anyone's bad side. 9. I was a victim of sexual harassment, and management did nothing to hold the parties accountable. 10. Other employees are constantly struggling to keep up with information. I can't tell you how many times I've received a question from a member and when I went to call the appropriate department to get said answer, was kicked around between several different people for over an hour because nobody seemed to know the answer. A lot of times when you need help, it can feel like you're on your own at Grow Financial. 11. Grow wastes a lot of time and money with meetings that actually hold you back from accomplishing tasks and doing work. They waste a lot of time with personality strength meetings as well monthly coaching sessions/ performance reviews. You have to basically write a performance review of your past month every single month, and then every six months write another six month performance review basically rewriting everything you did for the past six months. This can take hours and the members needs can suffer as a result of you now having to accomplish yet another task. In these performance reviews, you're basically made to feel you are defending your job so you aren't coached out or fired.