TD Waterhouse

Too reliant on temporary workers. As a result, there are constantly time periods in which the department is significantly understaffed. Temporary workers in particular are pressured to do daily overtime (including the weekends) to make up for these lapses in personnel.

You would think the solution is to hire more permanent staff and re-distribute the workload. However, management just increases scrutiny and implements more and more methods of monitoring workers' performance and work volumes. (Essentially implying "There is nothing wrong with how we manage the department. Therefore, the problem must be the workers' performance") To that I say, "Wake up Management!" Just because the department is reaching the target on certain days, does not mean that workers are not struggling to make that happen. It is not uncommon to see workers who are constantly stressed and sacrificing their break times just to catch up. Pro activeness, although recognized, will just end up with workers being assigned more work and management having even higher expectations. 

Since temporary workers are continuously coming and going (and considering the high work load), there is no time for formal training. Rules and procedures are never directly communicated to you. Workers are essentially thrown into the thick of it; at times learning from mistakes and being scolded. In this particular environment, one has to tread carefully, as some managers/workers are not afraid to use you as a scapegoat. On the other hand, there are also workers who can empathize with your confusion/stress and are glad to answer your questions.  

The work itself is mundane and repetitive. However, considering other jobs, it is a decent data-entry position. By reviewing documents, you get to learn a fair amount of bank procedures and terminology. At times, communicating with other departments and partners is required. This can both be rewarding and frustrating (as you can come across some nice or arrogant people).

As suggested earlier, the department is your typical traditional top-down organization structure. As a result, it is not surprising to see a decent amount of brown-nosing occurring throughout the department. Consequently, biases are prominent and like I said before, one has to tread carefully. 

One of the few pros is the department has a decent amount of celebrations, in which there will be free food or goodies. However, unfortunately, being showered with food or goodies does not cover up the core problem with the department.

There is a large learning curve with this job, and some may not be able to handle it, so if you do get hired, do some preparation by getting certified before getting the job, or setting aside some time to study during the first three months. The first three months for me was a probation period, and I had a lot going, such as 2 university courses, and an investment certification course. 
They will try to make adjustments if you let them know about your commitments, but the main concern is meeting the job demands, and performing well. That includes being there every shift, early by at least 15 minutes to set up or ask questions. About 40 to 60 phone calls per day, which are sorted based on your experience level. Have to be pleasant on the phone, but firm in respecting the rules regarding client communication. Able to spot an opportunity to promote a seminar to increase investor knowledge, and don't spend too much time on the phone trying to teach everyone how to use the website. Should spend a bit of time researching commonly asked questions, and put a lot of commonly used webpages in favourites toolbar in order to be more efficient. Keep tabs with other staff. 
If its busy the company will buy lunch for everyone, so that they can maybe take an extra phone call. Why not play a game of pool on break.

Typical day would consist of preparing daily reports and prepping meeting material for advisor/client. Other duties included mail merges, clerical/filing work and arranging/scheduling meetings for advisors.

Constant learning experience throughout term here. Organizational, communication and time management skills were sharpened.

Management was typical structure of larger corporation. Were very supportive in your training and wanted you to learn and listened to any and all questions which was a great comfort when entering such a fast paced and demanding industry.

Coworkers were excellent, were very friendly and would stop by to ask if you were handling things well and offered any assistance. 

Hardest part was memorizing all systems in place as everything had a strict sequence to be followed with lots of room for error. As it was difficult at times it was a great way to be more meticulous and analytical. This also made for better problem solving skills.

Most enjoyable part of the job was the relaxed atmosphere of working in an office of 6 indivuduals, 3 advisors and 3 support staff including myself.

TD is a great place to work. It is a place wherein training is given and update on new information is provided as it becomes available. TD is client focus and is driven by such passion to ensure that all customer needs are met.
The training provided online and in-house enables one to obtain a strong knowledge of the financial industry and solid working ethics that last a lifetime. Co-workers work together as a team to meet deadlines and resolve issues. Thus reducing the stress levels, and create a comfortable environment to work in. The hardest part is being able to create a balance on RSP deadline with extremely high volumes. The most enjoyable part is when everything is prioritize first thing in the mornings and although being sidetrack due to small emergencies or adjustments in assisting other team members, at the end of the day there's a satisfaction of accomplishing all that is set out in the beginning. This gives a real feeling of contentment. It is a place where one is constantly learning.

This is a call centre that they try to disguise as some sort of discount brokerage "you're a trader" thing.

Upper management spend there time trying to find a way to cut operational costs and increase efficiency as they leave a scar/mark on the company so they can keep moving around and up. Performance metrics will constantly be changing and you're expected to deliever more and more for no increase in pay. Even though more accounts and more trades are completed every quarter and record profits, the company is always 6 months to a year behind on staffing levels NEEDED. The lines are always short staffed and be ready to work on a skeleton crew all the time, you are back to back calls all day. Expect High Employee Turnover, Most wont make it pass 6 months, 90% employee turnover every 2 years. Don't expect career advancement but expect your manager to pressure you to deliever results to "get" the job you will never land. Do your two years, get all your stock options paid out, update your resume and move on. 

I worked as a file clerk at TD, helping with the mail team in the transfers out department. I helped open and sort incoming cheques from other financial institutions (OFI). Additionally, I helped initiate sell-requests for client's accounts to be transferred out to OFIs.

I also printed sell-request backups and issued balance of account cheques to send to OFIs to complete a transfer out. Management in the organization was good, and very flexible and treated me nicely. My co-workers were fun and easy to get along with. My job was fairly easy and wasn't hard, and it was fairly enjoyable. But the pay was too low for my liking and job security was non-existant as I was laid off due to low work volumes.

At TD Waterhouse, i have learn much more than going to my university classes. Everything is a real life scenario. Not only my job allowed me to deeper my understand in the finance world, but i also developed a particular interest in pursuing in this industry. The real challenged i had was my first year at work. It was a huge learning curve as i had no previous experience or knowledge of the field. I am also very thankful TD Waterhouse gave me the opportunity to work for them. My job actually helped me a lot during my university studies. 

I enjoyed every day at work, as i was learning new things, but more importantly, i was surround with great people. My co-workers and I were like a big family. They provide help and support at all time, real coach.

TD has a large community footprint and they encouraged all employees to give back.  They even allowed us to volunteer during business hours with pay.    

TD also fostered a continuous learning environment.   They provided courses within the company but also agreed to pay for outside courses if they related to the business.

The  most enjoyable part of the job was working with professional colleagues learning and teaching them.  There was a lot of responsibility and variety in the job as well as new challenging projects.

My experience at TD has been good so far. However I find that the department I am in is not interested in assisting me with moving into another part of the bank. I am looking to get involved with Risk Management and my department is mostly service and support with little risk exposure, so there is no opportunity for what I would like to do. I am looking for a career change and have been requesting assistance in moving into another department but am finding little support. If I wanted to stay with in the department I feel the support would be much greater.

•	Demonstrated strong analytical & project management skills to work in a challenging and cross functional environment
•	Analyzed financial statements and performed account maintenance with accuracy and high level of attention to details
•	Responsible for auditing and tracking fiscal budgets and internal budgets while complying with AML requirements
•	Experience in implementation, maintenance and support of electronic document management solutions
•	Created dashboards for Process Heads and Stakeholders for high level visibility of the project status
•	Liaised with Operations, Business Development and Customer Experience Center to resolve customer complaints


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