customer representative

customer service representative

member services representative

software engineer

business analyst

Nationwide Building Society

I was absolutely thrilled to start my new job as a customer service consultant at nationwide in Dunfermline at the contact center as although I had never worked in customer service before, Throughout the recruitment process I couldn't hear enough about how great of a place nationwide is to work for and the various progression opportunities. I was very wrong. Training was not too bad actually and my training group gel'd together fairly quickly however on the first week I only spoke to one of my soon to be team-mates and the training group were essentially left to complete a handbook about nationwide and banking in general by ourselves in the middle of the office on the call floor. This was not very good because we literally sat there the full week doing e-learning modules you would pass with your eyes closed. although the trainers at caley house were very genuine and nice people. Fast forward 5 weeks and you're now on your own excited to see what the future brought - first two months for me were not too bad as I felt as if I was just finding my feet however after that the management start to really care about stats and your adherence to your schedule. This was an enormous pressure on me as what every single employee in dunfermline will tell you - the systems are outdated and rubbish - allow 15 mins before work to log on and if you're lucky it may only crash once during the day. Nationwide is a great place to work if you love the following -
Terrible IT systems which are outdated
Pointless processes which seem as if they are there to make your life difficult
Constant pressure from management (Who you will 100% question their ability) to achieve unrealistic targets due to the IT systems
Long queues of 100+ on a regular basis - which means speaking to customer's for hours on end - one after the other who would frequently become abusive and leave your future colleagues in tears.
favoritism - which you will notice a lot of as it's the only reason the majority of senior staff are in their roles so you're essentially not getting anywhere if your face does not fit- which you will see loads of people stuck in customer service consultant roles for years
and finally expect the majority of your training group to not be there for long.
You will be punished for not sticking to your schedule and taking calls when your computer freezes! (which it will)
Lunch 3 hours into shifts and very often at different times to people in your team - leaving you alone at lunch
and loads of shifts where you'll work thursday, off friday, work saturday and off sunday and then working mon-fri/sat.
Subtle re-assurance that you are replaceable due to people leaving new people appearing every week - not knowing what they have got themselves into! 

Unfortunately in my case I had it really bad as the management in caley house had enough time to allocate a day off to help the community such as painting fences at fordell firs which i did - but could not find the time to actually let me have my 6 month probation meeting to get a pay rise from over 2 months ago. (This was me personally so cannot speak for everyone however they are completely out of order).

Ranting aside you will meet some genuine people and will make a few friends for life - you have all got the task of working there and all the pressures but together it makes it just a bit easier.

Overall I had to quit my job due to the stress and mental health issues it was causing me - expect a lot of people to quit due to this or be off sick for extended periods of time but I will miss 3 things, The cantene, the breaks and the people in my team. Nationwide especially at Caley house - is such a shame due to the wasted talent.

I joined in Feb and barely lasted until october.

Working at Nationwide offers a mixed experience. On the positive side, the organisation provides strong benefits, good working hours, and a supportive environment if you are fortunate to have a good manager and team. Long-serving colleagues and strong union backing create a sense of stability that is rare in the sector.

However, the culture can feel overly bureaucratic and disconnected from frontline realities. There is a clear gap between head office expectations and what actually happens in branches. Each location serves different communities, yet there is a consistent push to treat all branches and employees as if conditions are identical.

Although the company states it is committed to maintaining branches, in practice there has been a noticeable reduction in staffing levels. This often leads to longer queues and increased customer frustration, particularly among those who prefer in-person banking and are less comfortable with digital services. As a result, frontline staff frequently absorb that frustration, which can make the role emotionally demanding.

Performance is framed as being “on track with peers,” but this can feel like a target-driven approach without fully recognising regional differences in workload and customer needs. Expectations don’t always reflect the realities of working in busy or high-pressure locations.

The role also extends beyond traditional customer service. Staff are often expected to provide emotional support to customers while managing operational demands, which can be draining over time. While the organisation promotes wellbeing, support for staff mental health does not always match the expectations placed on employees.

Scheduling can further impact work-life balance. Weekend working is common, and although time off in lieu is offered, staff shortages can make it difficult to take this time when desired, sometimes resulting in extended working periods with limited rest.

There are also concerns around progression and leadership experience. While internal promotion is encouraged, some management roles are filled by individuals with limited experience, which can affect confidence in leadership. That said, many of those promoted are capable and supportive, but the approach can feel inconsistent and, at times, rushed.

Ultimately, Nationwide offers stability, good benefits, and the chance to build strong working relationships. However, the disconnect between corporate expectations and branch realities, combined with staffing pressures, may lead to frustration and contribute to staff turnover over time.

I'll try and summarise my experience of Nationwide over 2.5 years in 3 different roles which were Member Rep, Mortgage Case owner, and customer consultant.

The good: 
USUALLY nice colleagues although managers are a gamble. 
Depending on your role good satisfaction ie helping someone with a difficult bereavement.
Training is usually top-notch however not always the case!
Usually good with reducing hours/flexible working. Would make a good part-time job.

The bad... Oh, the bad... 
Pay is awful compared to competitors. They try to justify it with better pension and some benefits but overall significantly lower pay. 

If you work within the branch you'll do a minimum of 4-5 hours of unpaid extra closing and opening the branch, balancing tills, etc.

Progression is almost non-existent. Your interviews are assessed by STAR it's not about your skills or experience it's how well you can blag your way through really awkward questions which they give you a score for. To add to this many people have been at Nationwide for DONKEYS YEARS. Forget about positions like advisors as they're trying to phase them out for online and too much competition. 

Corporate fluff and 'band wagon' awareness constantly such as mental health which is fine until you actually have something then you're given the cold shoulder. You'll hear things like 'We don't have targets' then at the end of the day if you haven't had a 'skillful conversation' trying to force a credit card onto a clearly unwanting person you'll get feedback for it. 

In any customer-facing environment, you will receive bad customers I understand. The problem with Nationwide is they let the bad 'members' treat you like garbage without any real comeback. These will also be the members giving bad feedback saying you didn't give good service. In addition when the investigation department investigates any complaint you the employee are treated like a criminal regardless of whether the complaint is legit or not. You will have to give a testimony and statement about a random encounter that happened weeks ago.



I joined in April 2020, and my interview consisted of two managers asking me some customer style questions and to add some sums up. Was pretty easy. I was invited about 2 weeks later, and had to pass some background checks which took about 3 weeks. 

The job training was alright, although you are unfamiliar with the systems so you don’t really know what you’re learning. Ideally you’d be doing transactions with someone from the first week, instead of solid online learning 

After you get up to speed, you will do transactions on the counter, mainly cash withdrawals, transfers, changing people’s info (address etc), although you can deal with complicated things like bereavements, power of attorneys, complex address changes for vulnerable people… it can someone’s feel like some processes are more complicated than they need to be. 

If you are going for a front facing role in branch, you will be assessed every 90 days (or about 3 times a year) by your manager, they will observe you and assess your competency. This would be okay but my manager is quite overbearing and micromanages us, so I never look forward to it as he expects us to sell our products, do the transaction, be friendly and chatty, while working with a queue of people looking at you. Might not sound a lot but it’s a lot when you are doing it

There is quite a lot of emphasis on ‘skilful conversations’, where through a chat with a member you can tell them about nationwide savings products, home insurance, credit card, digital banking etc. You are expected to do this even when you know the person is not interested, and management is quite firm on this so sometimes you are under pressure 

Even when branch is busy, we get complex queries and were also expected to manage the telephone ringing (this is scored based on how many we answer), encourage ATM transactions, work quickly but accurately and handle everything. Sometimes I have no time to read emails, and my manager will lecture us how it’s important we see updates. 

So overall, you need to be prepared to have a lot on your plate, genuinely sell the products and be invested in the role. It’s not easy and you aren’t expected to just sit still

Also the pay isn’t great, a Tesco shelf stacker gets paid the same wage. 

A typical day at Nationwide is on the phones as a telephony consultant is dealing with a mixture of people. Being on the phones you learn the good and bad about the general public and members of staff as people have no real filter as they believe they are on top of the world due to them being in the comfort of their home or office. When people are nice they are really nice and when they are in a foul mood or things are not going their way then they turn for the worse. Management can be really difficult too deal with exceptions of course. The managers look after them selves mainly with the false impression that they are their for you until you ask them for help or assistance which they are never to be seen or they are too busy. Nationwide do care for people and they do give a lot for charity but they are a push over as companies go. As a consultant I am told their are strict policy and processes however as soon as a member mentions a complaint they drop their policy and process following compensation and feed back to the consultant for following that policy and process which then goes against your yearly bonus. The companies targets are too harsh and you can't go to the toilet without someone questioning your where about's. The hardest part of my job is dealing with some of the other departments who are unwilling to help and the constant changes that they put in place not because it's for the business but because they would like to mess people around. I have noticed that one skill set is really busy so instead of getting more people they move consultants from one skill to the other with weeks of training meaning that the skill they came from has been affected but the other one gets worse due to no cover. The technology at Nationwide is the worst I have ever dealt with. The system are out dated and always breaking. There is no sense in investing in more systems but instead keep fixing the broken ones not only this the company waste its money on silly systems that have no relevance to the job or business at hand and then make it mandatory which means the job just become harder for no reason. The enjoyable thing about my job is the people I work with. Everyone is hard working and wasted talent who get taken advantage of by management.

So when joining NW i was already off to a bad start because they kept mucking me around and last minute tried to say i didn't have the job after me handing my notice in from my last job and them sending my contract. This all happened on the Friday and i was due to start the Monday so without a job you could imagine how stressed i was. Not 1 person i had on my interview was with me on my first day of actual work. So anyhow the training was rushed to learn all the different systems and you were basically chucked on the phones to get on with it. First 2 weeks were kind of supported but usually only 1 person running around trying to help everyone. I seen my manager a handful of times in the very little time I was with NW and when asking around who i speak to if shes not there it was just the case of "speak to anyone you can find" nobody seemed to be able to give me an exact answer. Had to leave my house more than an hour before i was due to start because the parking is terrible especially if you are a 12 o'clock start you have no chance. Also loading up your computer takes a little while and is a nightmare cause it constantly crashes so be prepared to have to re start it a few times and have managers questioning you as to why you aren't taking calls . Also they say in training it doesn't matter if you go into not ready after a call whilst wrapping up before a new call and sending emails but it does and managers constantly monitor the time your in not ready and try and make out your sitting doing nothing as they expect you to be writing emails whilst on calls.  Me and my training team spent most of our day running around trying to find someone to help us and by the time we found someone the member had hung up or was that annoyed you ended up writing a complaint about yourself. Managers are reluctant to take calls over in which i was advised they have to as it is part of there job if someone requests it. In the end i was gutted because i had to leave cause it became too much for me the constant lack of support and not knowing got too much and i quickly realised it wasn't going to change. NW seem to be all for their members but never once ask the staff if there okay and if theirs anything we can do for help.

The people employed there are great and make the working environment a lot better as often the job can feel repetitive. Easy job to learn and gives good communication skills. Can be faced with challenges but good support from management overall. Easy to progress but more easy for some than others. Bonuses are now quite difficult to achieve than when I first started, can often feel like achievements go unrecognised for some but overall, celebrated throughout. They pay is okay (for my age) however we are expected to go above and beyond which I'd personally say could deserve a wage increase as people just starting are on the same as the more experienced. Overall, it's a good company who look after their employees with vouchers, discounts, etc... and they have a good employee union which are very much there to support its members. Hardest part of the job could be keeping morale on good days but also dealing with the variety of customers, for example; the customers looking to complain. Most enjoyable part of the job is the rewarding feeling you get after a call knowing you have helped somebody out, being thanked for the service given. Some managers are better than others, overall, most are friendly and there to help but there are the odd few who refuse or point you to someone else - majority of the managers also don't have the basic knowledge of what it is we actually do over the phone which can prove difficult when situations arise that we are unable to deal with. Shifts are not ideal, working three out of four weekends a month can often interfere with your social life, however not working past 10pm is okay aside from the fact they don't offer unsociable hour pay from 8pm - 10pm. Shifts throughout the week are very varied, especially on late week where you could finish at 6:30pm one night and 10pm the next, can often muck up sleeping patterns, etc and if you're travelling by public transport can be difficult. A typical day at work is just signing on and getting on with it, usually looking forward to the end of the day!

What is the best part of working at the company?
I have been working at Nationwide for the past two years. Unfortunately, I’ve experienced managers who often treat employees as if they don’t know anything, attempting to exert control even outside of work. The SBM and managers are excessively watchful, which creates an atmosphere of constant surveillance, making me feel incredibly anxious. Despite voicing my concerns, they don’t seem to care. They frequently interrupt, insult, and behave rudely at their convenience.

Colleagues who have been with Nationwide for many years, from 20 years to as few as 6, often undermine newer staff, and management tends to support this behavior. Instances of being mocked for language or accent are common. Favoritism is prevalent; those who try to please the managers often get promoted to roles like deputy manager, regardless of their performance. Sarcasm, eye-rolling, and favoritism seem ingrained in the workplace culture.

I have raised complaints with HR, but the process has been frustratingly slow. HR often claims there is insufficient evidence to address mistreatment or discrimination, and the concerns are eventually dismissed. Overall, I wouldn’t recommend this workplace, especially to those with disabilities, as it doesn’t seem like they genuinely care.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
The most stressful part about working at the company is being watched constantly, with no support available. Undermining colleagues and the lack of flexible hours are significant issues. You cannot speak to anyone, as all the managers support each other, regardless of their behavior.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Undermining, Sarcasm, eye-rolling, and favoritism seem ingrained in the workplace culture.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Customers are nice and understanding. It's busy, but manageable.

The environment itself is great, I know I'll always have support from either my teammates or a manager when I go into work. I've also had a lot of support through ongoing health problems, which I couldn't be more grateful for - Nationwide do offer a lot of help in that regard where so many companies don't. 

However, the pay itself is just not good enough for the sheer volume of work we do. Customer consultants start on £16.5k, with a percentage pay increase each year if you meet your targets - the percentage of the increase determined by how well Nationwide does financially that year. Fair enough. 

But a starting salary of 16.5k is not enough for the work that is done, especially if you work in Digital Services. We are trained to take members through the authentication process on WebChat, three at a time, and expected not to make a single mistake. By and large our members find the WebChat process much more efficient than calling or sending a secure message in, but the strain is a lot on us, and the pay is not reflective of the work that we do. We also receive a yearly bonus, again calculated based on your personal performance and the performance of Nationwide as a whole, but this isn't enough to mitigate the poor salary we have to live with day to day. 

We've been calling attention to this for years and recently were promised a pay review, but this has has now been postponed, and we don't know how long for. 

A lot of areas are now downsizing due cost-cutting measures, making it harder and harder to develop your career within Nationwide. Once you're a customer consultant it's easy to feel stuck in this entry-level job, because there's nowhere else to go within the company, and you just have to wait until your bonus and pay rise to keep being able to make ends meet. It's an entry-level job, but life doesn't have entry-level bills.

So the atmosphere and together-ness of Nationwide can't be faulted, but they're still stingy with pay.

I've worked at Nationwide for over 20 years. I am well paid, and live locally to the Head Office where I work. Clearly I like working here otherwise wouldn't have stayed this long, but this is without doubt the worst period of my employment. I've seen NBS through 4 CEO's. The culture has worsened over the last 5 years. We seem to be in the middle of a perfect storm right now which is beginning to bite. Years of spending ridiculous amounts on under-performing suppliers and strategic partners, who in most cases have no loyalty or long term interest in NBS. Add to this the removal of many long term permanent employees (through various redundancy rounds), which led to various legacy systems having one and two key experts. Next came the recruitment of various individuals from supplier functions, usually at highly inflated salaries to the long term permanent employees. Throw in a low interest rate environment, which puts pressure on profits (although the most Senior Execs still enjoy annual rewards greater than most will earn in a lifetime) and the cost cutting begins to bite, in all the wrong places. NBS has just decided to hit its long term employees the hardest with a significant hit on their pensions which will see those hardest hit seeing a roughly 50% cut in their pension. Management routinely use the word 'opportunity' to refer to giving their responsibilities down to lower paid staff, who will never see a benefit for doing it, and then wrap it up as their own contribution. I remain here purely because I run a small team myself and pride myself on behaving differently, supporting my team, and having enough integrity to say 'No' when appropriate, and challenging people when they feel a senior title gives them a excuse card for stupidity, usually in planning.

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