[illdave]

Sorry if this is slightly off-topic (as it doesn't really necessarily improve "culture"), but it sounds like your bank could do with something like a password protected version of My Starbucks Idea: http://mystarbucksidea.force.com/apex/idealist?lsi=0&cat... (but for employees, instead - or maybe just your tech team).

I mention it because of the fact that you have people coming up with ideas that then get ignored. Having somewhere were ideas can go, and get voted up could be a small shift towards making those ideas actually happen.

Incidentally, Does anyone know if there's a commercially available version of that that isn't outrageously expensive? Starbucks' seems to be custom-built with Salesforce, I could be wrong.

To answer your question about working for non-corporates - I've spent a lot of time working at marketing agencies, the jobs I enjoyed the most didn't have a dress code and allowed me the time & freedom to actually implement the ideas I came up with.