A brilliant world of promises like Willy Wonka, with the reality of finding out that ain't a river of chocolate you're paddling through. The good thingsMacquarie will offer you a fantastic foot in the door for learning and development in a specialised role.
They offer free breakfast foods in every office, including fancy roasted nuts, all types of cereals and breads as well as unlimited free coffee and tea, the usual office fare.
Macquarie also have a high standard for most people in order for them to achieve their goals, though even if you fall short of the standard, they mostly just offer warnings or coaching.
The salary is narrowly above standard, though that is because of 'Buffer Hours'.
The culture is super inclusive, allowing you to announce your pronouns in your profile if you are inclined to, and offer benefits for those who wish to transition, generous maternity/paternity/parental perks and bog-standard annual and sick leave entitlements.
Macquarie offers courses and other perks which, while a great offering, you will not be able to take advantage of other than the free flu shot and sometimes a skin check.
Macquarie's 'Family Day' allows you to enjoy a beautiful non-workday out with your family at a paid attraction with complimentary all you can eat and drink vouchers (seriously, nearly $150+ a person offered, too much to finish for most but you can take stuff home). The only downside is this is only for people based in Sydney, so it's redundant for everyone else outside of there. The other downside is you will be waiting in line with over a few hundred people, so you will need to be early, or, spend half your day off waiting in line. A few people were waiting for 2-3 hours to get into Luna Park.
The challengesMacquarie prides itself on being 'agile', which means you will be running on skeleton staff and working 'Buffer Hours'.
Buffer hours are a 'confidential' amount of hours you are expected to stay back after work to complete additional tasks as needed by the company (on average about 30-50 hours a month, depending on your role) and is apparently 'included in your salary'. You will be expected and at times demanded to work those hours, which does add up when you think about adding an additional 2-3 hours every day unpaid without additional breaks included as it is part of your salary package.
Senior Management and ExCo leave everyone below Director level in the dark about significant changes. Redundancy announcements are provided without warning, luckily my output was high enough to avoid it, but I had many able and skilled co-workers made redundant.
Nepotism is clear and widespread in this company. Some of the most incompetent people with the highest errors and lowest knowledge who gave great lip service and took advantage of 'in-office networking' (aka chatting all day) were given a pay-rise and promotion. This happened to no less than 5-6 people well known as lazy and with a backstabbing attitude.
Work from home changes were announced with only 3 days notice, where people were told to work a mandatory additional day in office. Many people who had kids were under significant stress, and others who had medical issues also had to go through a lot of discussions and stresses providing medical evidence to support their claims (yes, senior management will expect a lot of medicals to support your need to work from home, and they will often go near a breach of privacy to obtain this information, but stay just shy of it for legal and HR reasons of course).
Macquarie provides complimentary courses and education modules - though you will not be able to take advantage of any of them outside of your training period as you will be far too busy and only able to use these outside of your working/buffer hours (You will be working buffer hours, do not take this lightly). Many of these courses are technical courses on data and IT knowledge to support a digital culture.
Decisions from ExCo and Senior Management backflip on a dime. Many decisions are horrible for both the clients of the bank and for those who do business. I would never bank with Macquarie now.
