software engineer

customer service representative

senior software engineer

senior manager

relationship manager

BankWest

To be clear I worked at Bankwest before Covid-19, however I have never been as sick as I was working at their head office.  4 rounds of colds and flu within the first 3 months, one after the other, prior to that over a year without even a sniffle.  This is what hotdesking does, and Covid-19 would love it.

At the time there were zero boxes of tissues.  A number of times I wandered the floors looking for the supply closets to find tissues only to come away empty handed.  No paper towels in the toilets either, so blow your nose in the kitchen?  So you bring in your own tissues, and because of the scarcity you're all of a sudden the most popular person in the office but now without any tissues.  No bins either, so while you're sniffing and blowing every 2 to 5 minutes there is nowhere to put your growing pile of disease except the bins in the, again, kitchen.  It can take 1 to 2 minutes to walk to the kitchen, then 1 to 2 minutes back, unlock computer, oh gotta blow again, lock computer, rinse and repeat and zero work done.  Your desk is now a disease filled petri dish ready for whoever sits there tomorrow because, odds are, someone will get there before you.

The first time I got sick I decided that I was well enough to work but for the sake of my colleagues it would be better if I worked from home.  After calling my manager who was, lets face it, a self involved office psychopath (every tale of mirth that spewed from his mouth was at the expense of some unfortunate individual.  Self deprecation is an alien concept to him, and if observed by him considered a weakness.) I was told he would 'allow it this once' and that 'we don't do that at Bankwest', which I took to mean 'we don't work from home when mildly sick' - this is in stark contrast to the advice from HR but, you know, team harmony and all that.  As a result I didn't take any more sick days unless I actually couldn't get out of bed.  I don't like being a disease vector but who am I to argue with my manager?

Now HR will wax lyrical about how wonderful their working environment is, that hotdesking was done "all for you", its "our new way of working", "mix it up", "get out of a rut", "move around", "find YOUR place to work", "we did it all for you", when in actual fact it's a cost saving measure.  It means that Bankwest can have fewer desks than there are employees, that saves them money and puts the onus on you to find a suitable place to work according to your job responsibilities and your assigned team.

So you'll find your place, everyone naturally settles in and your team sits together and is productive.  Then its Wednesday and the remote call centre workers come in for their 'day together', sit next to your quiet team, move into your team's workspaces and proceed to shout across the office.  Fine, that's only Wednesday.  Then the hotdesking lovers strike and 'mix it up' right into your serenity, throwing out the whole dynamic.

There's also no co-ordination.  Besides the Wednesday shout fest your quiet team could well be placed next to one of the multitudes of call centre teams.  Think of that annoying woman in 'Office Space' who answers the calls, but multiply it by 30 to 40.  To get your quiet, thought intensive work done you don headphones to try to block out the cacophony, there goes your team dynamic and you may as well be working in a closet. 

Forget about workstation ergonomics.  If you have your own assigned desk you can set up the layout your way and, more importantly, set up your chair.  You can do the same in a hot desking environment but it can take upwards of 10 minutes every day and, oh, today's chair is completely different so how does this one work?  So who pays for this setup time?  You?  Bankwest?  Invariably because of work pressures you stay late so, guess what, that daily setup time is now coming out of your personal time, lets say that's 40 hours a year.  What's your pay rate?  There's a real money value that you can calculate and the BANK (repeat BANK) isn't paying for it, you are.

Now I'm fine with office flexibility.  I can work in a plain white basement as long as I get my own desk that I can set up for my comfort and productivity.  I've worked in places where I've worked many hours a day more than I've been paid, but I enjoyed those environments and those colleagues.   We worked to get stuff done, whereas Bankwest trots out this endless plethora of distractions, meetings, online tests, compulsory courses, standups, and they just seem to be used as mechanisms to dodge responsibility, put your teams value over others and ultimately avoid getting stuff done.  I've personally seen months of time lost due to office politics, backstabbing and wheel spinning.

All I can say is thankfully I'm not there during this Covid-19 pandemic because, odds are, I'd be dead now.  Hopefully the new safe working requirements will make hotdesking illegal, then maybe Bankwest could be an OK place to work, but a lot would need to change before I would work there again.

Bankwest is a very fast paced environment, no day was ever the same and this is what I enjoyed about the role. As the operations co-ordinator and the EA to the NSW State Manager of retail Stores & Lending I was privileged to be involved with every aspect of the retail side of the business. This included but limited to financial management, sales management, organising events ranging from informal meetings to full national conferences, budgets, analysing reports, preparing reports for senior leaders, risk & human resourcing. Due to the culture that Bankwest had adopted my colleagues were happy to come to work therefore making it a very pleasurable environment. I was able to build a very sound and professional relationship with the colleagues ranging from Chief Executive Officer to concierge in store. The hardest part of the job was travelling interstate being away from my family. It is very hard to pin point the best part of the job as I enjoyed my role very much however I would have to say organising the kids Christmas party annually and seeing their faces when Santa  Clause arrived.

Working for Bankwest is rewarding. I was able to learn whilst on the job. I have achieved confidence and excellent rapport building skills and customers view me with full confidence. As our job requires us to be knowledgeable in all areas, I do not feel bored.Extremely rewarding and satisfying to be able to help customer's reduce their debts and build wealth. The workplace culture is more relaxed and team work is impeccable. A typical day at work is organising the day, serving customers over the counter, assisting with problem solving. Each and every customer is different hence there may be challenges, this is what makes it enjoyable - being able to adapt to resolve a customer's problem by cob. I have learnt to multitask and time manage. The hardest part is when I see my colleagues not bothered with taking that extra time to better assist a customer or judge a person by their appearance.

I loved working for Bankwest and if I still lived in WA I would still be working for them!
The part I loved the most about working there was they seemed to genuinely care about their employees and how they were treated. My colleagues were a lot of fun to hang out with inside and outside of working hours and the building I worked in is very vibrant and elegant. I often reminisce about my Bankwest days and wish I could still be working for them. They also encourage you to push yourself to up skill, their belief and encouragement gave me alot of confidence in myself which was something I used to lack. I would not have any hesitation in recommending Bankwest as a fantastic place to work!

One of the worst experienced in my working career. Procurement team was a mess due to the manager only hiring specific "yes sir" people. The experienced contract managers carried the whole team. The managers and senior managers were shocking no values or people culture. They may advertise it internally but it isn't enforced with management. There is encouragement of backstabbing and throwing others under the bus. Senior management ignores any issues. Worse experience ever. And not sure who they survey for employer of choice but it isn't the employees.

The environment is quite relaxed and friendly depending on the area. There is opportunity to gain experience on secondments and also joining the wider financial services group. Lots of morning tea's, arvo tea's snacks and team side chats. Meetings can be overrated at times as the outcomes are sometimes not fully understood. People seem quite akin to establishing good code of ethics and generally like any other corporate environment.

It is a phone based job. The team was asked to arrive work early and leave work late to ensure the full 8 hours phone time. 

Team leader didn't care a lot about her work, didn't have the ability to deal with any incident coming from the customers and the team. Used dating app during working hours and micromanaging. 

The good thing about the job was that Bankwest does really care about the customers and people working on the phone speaking to the customers directly always try to help the customers.

I started this role as an Assistant Sales Manager in attempting to generate work for BankWest as they were a new player in the financial sector.  Unfortunately as a result of the Global Financial Crisis their parent bank, Halifax Bank of Scotland was forced to retrench staff and onsell BankWest to the Commonwealth Bank of Australia which resulted in my area being shut down and consequently I was retrenched.

I really loved working at Bankwest. They  have a great culture which recognises individuals and their skills, while helping them develop new skills and feel part of a team.

Bankwest have now moved into working in an Agile way and it was interesting to be part of that transformation. 

Like many organisations, things are constantly changing and instead of being afraid, Bankwest tends to embrace it.

Don't do it. 

Retail banking - it's all about pointless sales & KPIs that are always just out of reach, not customer service. 

Corporate & IT - stopped me from returning from maternty leave by transferring my partner to the bush and leaving me in Perth with a newborn. Pathetic. 

Then they went on to feature prominently at the BRC.
Staff still can't be bothered helping customers and many branch  enquirires are handballed around from one dept. to another. 
Old habits die hard.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Software engineer 3 salaries reported	$122,167 per year
Customer service representative 6 salaries reported	$67,383 per year
Senior software engineer 4 salaries reported	$137,625 per year
Senior manager 3 salaries reported	$137,667 per year
Relationship manager 4 salaries reported	$108,750 per year

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