UK Legal……You don’t get paid for hard work here; unequal pay is rife - Recensione dipendente - Lawyer presso BNP Paribas

- if you don’t speak French, don’t expect to get anywhere in this company. - every year there is a new and wild reason why pay rises aren’t coming and why bonuses are flat. In some years. I never saw a pay rise above 2% and in most years it was none. Don’t expect to move far from the salary that you are employed at. The March 2023 excuse for no pay rise and flat bonuses was “next year is going to be a hard year”, and this is at a time when they receive record profits. I know a couple of lawyers claimed they had other job offers and that resulted in immediately more money (out of pay review time). Note only does the person threatening to resign gets a rise and not the other members of the team that remain hard working and loyal. When you complain about the compensation and hours, you get gaslit - saying what a great culture it is and how good the benefits are. - too many of the senior bankers retired, moved to higher paying jobs at other banks/Pe firms or moved back to France. As a result, legal are expected , and put in a place where they have to, pick up the slack, but get paid a back office salary. You are expected to support the business evenings and weekends - at certain times of the year, it’s Goldmans hours, but not the pay! - Management has created a remuneration system that is inherently unequal and opaque. I found out from a colleagues (former and currently employed) that I had been grossly underpaid compared to the men (who had less years of qualification) during my 8 years there. Expect to get paid more if you have an Oxbridge degree or you are male. . It’s no surprise that the tribunal ordered report from the Stacey Macken report hasn’t surfaced as yet. If you are reading this and you work at BNPP, I implore you to ask HR for an equal pay audit. Your fears of being underpaid and undervalued will be proven to be correct, unfortunately. -the legal team is full of shirkers that avoid work, but spend their time joining an infinite number committees, platforms and working groups; seeking to impress management, rather than do what they are employed to do. The rest of the team was expected to just do more to make up for the missing team members. Hard work is not rewarded here. Buttering up to the right people in management is. - Most of the legal team still work from home, but will be absent for 3 hours during the day. Of if they do come into the office, they turn up and leave whenever. - junior lawyers with 3-5pqe that come in from private practice are getting paid more than those that are 10 year plus qualified. - there is no loyalty for employees that have been there for many years and I saw a couple of senior colleagues thrown under a bus, and shafted by those who they themselves had employed and had supported and mentored in previous years.