Columbia Bank (WA, OR & ID) Reviews

Cons

What they are asking employees to do in preparation for the merger is crazy for the pay. Not only do you do your job (which is why you were hired ), but then they add on multiple tasks , like calling every business client who banks with you, or scan every document in the branch. Most of our employees are also floating now, so you aren’t even working at the branch you want. Staffing is abysmal, every branch is stretched thin. More people keep leaving , so now some branches have 1-2 employees . Everything is really old, particularly systems. You have to fill out EVERYTHING with paper. Paper for new accounts, paper for signer changes, paper for online banking …. And finally. Training is solid to start, but there is no support past that. You take a training on how to open an account , then you’re sat across from a business with 7 owners and expected to know what to do. You could call your support line, but they track that now so better hope you don’t call too much.

Cons

Pay is less than market, especially considering the stressful nature of the job. Consistently understaffed for how busy the department was. Morale was up and down but usually pretty bad. There wasn’t a lot of back office opportunity here. Most of Columbia’s back office departments are based out of Washington, including half of our department, so we’d frequently see our coworkers in Washington getting new positions in other departments but in Eugene you’re really just stuck there. There is a complete disconnect between the senior management of the bank and the employees who actually do the work. There are managers who have no actual technical experience with the work that we do and only have their positions because they have previous management experience. Human Resources and upper management do nothing about unethical behavior of managers. They’re so desperate for employees they’ve recently offered $2000 referral incentives to their existing employees. Not even just on my former department - I know of another department where 90% of their employees left in a span of 2 weeks!

Cons

Heavy workload, no opportunity to grow, no room for improvement,

Cons

The process’s are VERY inefficient with an unnecessary and unexplainable amount of locks on everything needing 30+ signatures from management on a daily basis. In my experience management example a large amount of distrust for tellers and personal bankers and would keep to themselves causing a separation within the team. They will also have you cold calling clients amongst many other job duties for unequivocal pay.

Cons

Overall I loved my branch however I ended up quitting due to our ABM being very covertly abusive and I was pregnant so I couldnt stay any longer for health reasons. Then the company that I thought had great benefits and integrity then asked me to repay vacation time that I had used because it technically wasn't accurred yet within the year, funny thing about that was I was forced to take it because of their strict covid policies. I got covid in the beginning of the year and instead of unpaid they used my vacation time. Columbia doesn't give you an unpaid option if you have vacation time. So I technically had the vacation but because I quit I was required to "reimburse them" for this benefit. Pretty tacky if you ask me especially since I was forced to quit over severe harassment not because I wanted to. Zero empathy.

Cons

- Extremely toxic work environment. Many gossipers on the team. - No option for remote work.

Cons

- Very good Ole boys club - A lot of stab in the backs- - No communication - Poor management- - only offer 2 percent raises - Slowly turning into Umpqua employees -Terrible pay and benefits

Cons

Not enough branches but that’s changing

Cons

Better salary, better technology, more efficient processes

Cons

Antiquated systems, low pay, poor incentive pay