director

software engineer

customer service representative

case manager

actuary

Manulife

Started working there, was pretty excited for a start in a career with Manulife Bank/Financial and it seemed alright but noticed a lot of people coming and going... and I mean a lot. Kind of made me wonder what was the issue there but I soon came to find out. (Which is why you constantly see adds from Manulife themselves and recruitment agencies on here for the Customer Service Roles 265 days a year). They pick and choose favourites and backstab their less favourite employees. Employees will wake up in the morning, come to work thinking they’re doing great at work and have a casual every day conversation with their manager then next thing you know you never see them again because they get blindsided by their managers and get a call once they’re home from their job that day saying to NOT return the following day without any explanation whatsoever. I will never understand why they can’t sit them down and speak to them at work but most stories I hear are from employees getting home from a good day and receiving calls telling them not to return. 

All they care about is their “numbers” when it comes to their calls per hour/day etc and do not consider ANY illness or anything whatsoever as a proper reason to miss a day of work even with doctor notes. Also a very clicky atmosphere, managers talk behind most employees back to the supervisors and other of their favourite employees on lunch breaks.  Very unprofessional and miserable place to work.

You have to get used to customers calling in every single day screaming at you because the company messed something up or another employee didn’t do what they were supposed to do. Many employees also choose to leave from feeling too stressed and underpaid for what they have to deal with on a daily basis.

Overall TERRIBLE job. Would not recommend if you want to keep your mental health at a good standing. If you are mentally strong and don’t mind playing a bit of Russian roulette when it comes to a job, give it a try. Personally I got out of there as soon as I could.

Honestly, not the best company to work at when it comes to being the bank teller. Manulife customers are so racist in an obvious way on the phone. I’ve had lots of clients hanging up on me just because of my name or saying slowly “do you understand what I’m saying?” just because I have an accent. I have studied in Canada my university life for 5 years and then a Manulife customer comes and disrespects me like that as if I just came to be a bank teller from the steers without getting any sort of training. Also, when you hesitate a little bit on the phone customers will be rude to you as if you just rolled out of your mom’s uterus knowing how to do banking. 
The whole experience was just feeling like a slave to be honest. You get lectured if you are over your break even for 2 min or leaving work 5 min early. Whoever on a contract is not treated with respect from agency, Manulife or customers. Disregard all of the good comments about Manulife, I’m telling you here the ugly truth that you will see once you’re inside the company. 
They’ve got a white board that reads “Share your humanity” that they don’t even share with their employees in any way. 
I feel free and happy after leaving this job, it was a nightmare to me and I left by choice. I was honest to my supervisor the day I left, it’s the customers that make people leave this job. Manulife customers don’t have respect to client representatives in any way unlike other banks. The other banks such as TD or RBC and so on are given respect because they are huge corporations and they already have their reputation that’s why their callers give respect and appreciation to their employees.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not about me being bad at my job and venting here. I used to get lots of good reviews since I started as I said before I left by choice cause this was affecting my mental health.

This company has great benefits, great management great coworkers. It's overall a pretty good gig. However the direction they're moving in is disastrous. They no longer care about their employees. They give you 10,000 per year for mental health services instead of making the job less stressful overall. They know people won't have time to actually use those services but they get to show off how much they care. They would rather stretch out the energy of their current workers as much as possible until they quit or move somewhere else, rather than just hire more people and create a better environment for the costing employees.

If you stay in the call centre you can expect to get trained on advanced contracts within a year or two, and you'll only get the standard inflation based raise even though you now have to take more calls than before. They are stats focused, although it is only an issue if you're really struggling hard. Management seems like they're only there to get sat on by the higher ups. Upper management just makes decisions without any care in the world and then forces the supervisors and managers below to take the flak for it. They pretend to care without actually caring.

They are moving toward a more traditional call centre environment eith contract workers instead of permanent employees. They don't want people sticking around because you're only valuable for the first year or two. After that you realise that "peak" season is actually just the entire year and you get super burnt out with no end in sight. Your only hope of enjoying Manulife is to get out of the call centre before they replace you with a contract worker or a Phillipines worker.

Great place to start your career in various areas of finances. However, if you’re mid-career you’ll probably end up taking pay-cuts and seeking advancement elsewhere in the end. The company takes great strides to foster inclusion, organizes team culture and educational events. They have many internal resources available on regulations and specifics of the industry. They’re very well set up to respond to changing circumstances (e.g., start of the pandemic) & remote work. They are quick with their hiring process. On the down-side, the high employee turnover leaves those who remain with unsustainable workloads, overtime you won’t be compensated for, becoming almost impossible to take vacation if you require specific dates, with previously approved vacations being re-negged due to staff shortages. Yet, the company takes no meaningful steps to mitigate the exit of employees. Many knowledgeable, seasoned staff left for the competitors because they now also offer remote work options. Career advancement and internal learning opportunities are few, depending on your interests, not all departments offer remote work, when the area’s financials are on the decline, they start cutting jobs, which further exacerbates the workload issue.

In summary, if you’re looking to get your feet wet in the industry, this is a great place to start at. If you are looking to grow, have diverse responsibilities, learn new areas and tech, move on.

Be used to interruptions, OT “isn’t” mandatory at busy times…but it IS so don’t be surprised if you’re working through your family dinner and I hope you don’t have children because you’ll be missing putting your kids to bed during those times; if you’re offline on teams a micromanaging manager is sure to jump at ya to ask you where you are. No bathroom breaks without letting the chat know either. It’s truly the worst environment at this point. I’ve been trying to leave for a while but the way of the world is you can’t leave one job without absolute certainty that you’re going to be ok somewhere else and that’s just not an option for anyone anymore. 

There’s no legitimate training it’s all peer training, so hopefully you’re not afraid of taking your own notes because documentation doesn’t exist unless you find the one person who’s made it themselves but it’s all personalized so you’re really on your own for resources and management makes it a real sink or swim environment. Not everyone survives, the clients are too bad it’s back end work so you’re not handling clients. Overall management has gone downhill the last few years, organizational restructuring every other month has just left everyone feeling uneasy and overwhelmed there’s no sense of security or comfort in what you’re doing. Keep your head down and say yes sir yes ma’am. I hope you sold your soul before you came because it’ll be gone by the time you get here 

The people are great but the higher it gets in management the less okay they become  or maybe they become distant from the day to day grind , the job itself is very tough, most of the days the call flow is literally non stop from start to finish.and of course as a CSR you'll always take the blame for things that you have no control over and for mistakes that you didn't make.
I'd say unless you can internally evolve and become a trainer or in a management position this job is not good for your mental health over time , even though the company cares a lot about the employees mental health, the pay is fair and the fact that you don't work weekends is a plus. The health and dental benefits are very good especially for mental health.
team leaders and people in workforce management are understanding and accomodating and I've seen team leaders and floor managers go the distance for their CSRs and fight for them, and i also seen hypocrisy amongst them .
In a nutshell , it's a decent living but very hard and demanding sometimes to an unreasonable point ,mentally, and physically when it comes to your ears, you spend a lot of the time taking heat for someone else not doing their job.  I've seen people being terminated in a manner that leaves a lot to be desired, they offer a descent severance pay but they make you feel so useless and expandable.
Don't make it a permanent job ,it's a business that doesn't care about those who make it successful , and it kinda makes you understand why the insurance industry has a notorious reputation .

I worked with an amazing group of people passionate about what they do.  We had an inspiring boss and I felt extremely proud of my career and my ability to share that enthusiasm with clients.  We were given a lot of responsibility and autonomy coupled with lots of support to achieve our goals.  Our boss made the day fun, gave lots of positive feedback and worked just as hard as we did, setting a great example.  We all had an extremely solid work ethic.  I often worked for several hours on my day off - sometimes just to be around the positive energy of a busy store during peak season!  I loved seeing jewelry the likes of which most people never are allowed to handle and see - pieces upwards of $500,000.  I learned a lot about jewelry which is my passion.  We received extensive training and I was fortunate to work with someone who is a gemologist happy to share his knowledge.  I learned that I love making people happy, am able to quickly build rapport with clients and am very good at seeing a sale through to the end complete with support documentation.  It was exciting to take part in special events which we often had: celebrity guests, special trunk shows of exquisite pieces of jewelry and timepieces.  It's difficult to find anything negative about working at Birks, Edmonton except, possibly, and the long hour standing, sometimes when it's very slow time does drag.

It seems the hardest part of my job was communicating with other departments. Making any modification to an insurance contract was always the worst, a very exhausting task that required considerable amounts of time from my day.
Working out of the Montreal office, most of our sales and in-force contracts are in French, therefore it is always easier for departments in other parts of the country to make mistakes when changing or correcting the wording of contractual clauses or proposals. Also, the fact that certain parts of the  process take place in countries of South-East Asia makes matters a bit more complicated at times. A great part of my time was spent proof-reading and re-submitting change requests.

At the same time, the most enjoyable part of my job was also dealing with my co-workers from all over the world. Company spirit was always at an all time high and dealing with so many motivated people made the hardest parts of my job a little more bearable. Every one at the company is keen on delivering the best product and providing above average service to each of our clients. Management provides the necessary tools to balance work and family life and new job opportunities inside the company are always near.

The Bank is a very satisfying place to work at.
My typical day started by reviewing my spread sheet to see the priorities I had organized. Followed by phone calls on routine issues. Next, I made calls to confirm appointments one or two days in advance. In the afternoon and early evening I attended client and/or prospect meetings.A part of the day was dedicated to marketing. I called on contacts in the hard market, endavoured to get leads in the soft market and did cold calling.
I learned organizing crowded days. I learned marketing. I took a number of books from the library and studied or updated myself on the subject. I enjoye dealing with people, the key is: listen, listen and listen!
Management was highly supportive, without being hard handed. The co-workers were without exception, helpful and many beacame friends.
The hardest part of the job was to deal with declines. At times I was able to find alternative solutions.
The most enjoyable part of my job, was the "thank you's" I received from satisfied clients in the form of many refrrals to their relatives, friends and co-workers. I even receive yearly birthday cards from a few clients.

What is the best part of working at the company?
Pay is ok and theres free coffee, discounted canteen. 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Lack of training. There is an encyclopedia of information that you basically skirt over. Then, when you go on the phone, you're expected to find this information. If you can't find it, you can sit waiting 10 to 15 mins for help, after you fill out a form explaining what you did to find it. Meanwhile every 2 mins you're expected to go back to the customer and thank them for their patience. Its all very badly planned our.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
It's OK. People are friendly enough but it's hard watching supervisors standing around chatting and joking in meetings all day while you're stuck on the phone with nobody to help if you need it.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Repetitive, boring, stressful. When I worked at previous call centres we would take our final call no later than 30 mins before our shift ended. You would be very unlucky to get a call at 4 30 pm and have it last over your quitting time at 5. At Manulife you cannot log off the phone until you're quitting time. That means your phone could ring 1 second before your time to go and if its a long call, and most are. you're expected to stay until its done, even if it takes an hour.

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