#layoff

I ’ve read your posts, and I see a lot of pain, anger, and smart people struggling to land. Yes, the market is tough, and yes, offshore/H1B is a factor, but let's talk about the biggest hurdle: Your Wells Fargo Leadership Narrative.

You were trained and rewarded in a toxic, high-fear environment. Now, you’re inadvertently carrying that "WF ethos" into your interviews, and recruiters are seeing it as a massive risk.

Here is the truth: Your next employer doesn't just need your technical skills; they need assurance you aren't bringing the "poison" of an abusive, command-and-control culture with you.

1. The Red Flags Recruiters See
   When you talk about why Agile failed, or how you led a team, we listen for these immediate flags:

"I monitored their tickets..." 🚩 (Translation: I micro-managed, I didn't trust my people.)

"We couldn't innovate because it was too risky..." 🚩 (Translation: I was risk-averse, I didn't create a safe learning environment.)

"Agile failed because management we-ponized the metrics..." 🚩 (While true, it signals: You don't know how to protect your team from bad leadership.)

"I had to stack rank them..." 🚩 (Translation: You were an enforcer of a toxic system.)

1. Your New Leadership Narrative: From Enforcer to Enabler
   You need to shift your identity from a manager who enforced toxic metrics to a Servant Leader who protected and enabled their team despite the toxicity. You must demonstrate that you were a student of the anti-patterns, not an advocate.

This shift is rooted in Psychological Safety (PS)—the belief that your team can speak up without fear of punishment. When PS is high, Agile works, Innovation works, teams work. When it's low (like at WF), everything fails.

Your Goal: Convince the interviewer that you know how to build a safe and empowered team that drives innovation and takes ownership.

1. The AI Chat Practice Prompt
   Use a tool like this (Gemini, ChatGPT, etc.) to practice your new answers. Paste the following prompt into your chat, and then answer the questions the AI poses. This forces you to recondition your answers and solidify your narrative:

[Copy and paste this into an AI Chat]

"I was a manager who was recently laid off from a large financial institution that suffered a failed Agile transformation due to a deeply toxic, high-fear culture. In my interviews, I am struggling to demonstrate that I have moved past that toxic environment. I need to establish a new leadership narrative based on Psychological Safety (PS) and Servant Leadership. Assume I am in an interview for a leadership role at a healthy organization.

Please ask me the following questions and critique my answers, looking for red flags that show I am still operating from a 'command-and-control' mindset:

How do you get others to trust in your leadership?

How did you approach performance reviews and development in that high-pressure environment?

How do you foster innovation and manage technical risk on your team?"

1. What the AI Will Teach You to Say
   When you practice, your answers should evolve to focus on systems, coaching, and protection, not control. For example:

Instead of: "I monitored their work."

Say: "I shifted my focus from monitoring tasks to coaching autonomy. I established clear, measurable team goals and ensured my team felt safe enough to immediately raise impediments, knowing I would remove them."

Use the AI to refine your story until you sound like a leader who learned from the fire and is now ready to build a healthy culture. Good luck—you are capable of this shift!

David Zaslav, CEO of Warner Bros Discovery, reassured employees in a company town hall that the upcoming merger with Netflix is expected to bring only minimal layoffs. He said Netflix wants to retain most WBD staff since the streamer needs added personnel to support its operations. Zaslav acknowledged that mergers naturally create anxiety, but he emphasized that this pairing feels like a good match for both sides. The information comes from internal remarks reported by TheWrap, based on what staff were told in the meeting.

https://www.thewrap.com/david-zaslav-layoffs-minimal-warner-bros-discovery-netflix-deal/

"Laid off employees will receive the severance package as in the last cycle in calendar year 2025. Legally within the same calendar year terms of severance cannot be changed.

I also heard that after 5 December 2025, every employee who is laid off notices are given will receive a fixed 12 week severance regardless of seniority (meaning those notices going into effect in 2026). "

Has anyone else has insider information to verify or contradict this?

When are next layoffs ?

Just hoping to hear someone else’s “light at the end of the tunnel”.

and soliciting tips on what worked for them.

Hearing rumors internally about layoffs and major restructuring. Anyone has any intel?

Which BUs? Sales/SE roles? Support/TAC/GFEP?

Nothing like going into the week before Christmas and being laid off! What a CR-P company! Looks like it is the Corporate support teams but who knows what areas will all be hit! Has this always been a thing for this company? If so, why do people stay or even start here? Is the severance worth the anxiety? Not sure if I should wait and see or try jumping ship now!

Anyone know when vacation will get calculated for severance.

Ignore the BS. Restructuring is underway.
AI is king. Underperforming BUs will make up the majority of Layoffs.
If you are in a BU that doesn’t directly generate Revenue, you will be hit extremely hard

I was recently made aware that IT is also having a layoff this quarter at the same time as the fabs. I was wondering if anyone knows how substantial it is?

No dedicated employee deserves to have their job threatened on a consistent basis for a year or longer. Leave them, they have no loyalty to you. There are better jobs. I went back to an old employer and I'm so happy again. I was miserable worrying over job security. Start looking at other companies and jump ship. Your mental and physical health will benefit. They don't care about you anymore and we all know they don't care about the customers. They are just focused on lining their pockets. Best of luck to you. You are worthy of an employer who values you.

The quarterly earnings release is a good place to check for numbers. You can find it online. Q4 is obviously not available yet; these are from the Q3 report:

• Compensation, benefits, and related costs in Q3 2025 of $632.5 million decreased […] $16.3 million from Q2 2025. The decrease compared to Q2 2025 was primarily driven by lower salaries and benefits, reflecting a decrease in average headcount of 1.9%. Long-term incentive compensation expense also declined due to higher forfeitures. These impacts were partially offset by a higher bonus accrual. The firm employed 7,830 associates at September 30, 2025, a decrease of […] 2.9% from 8,063 associates at June 30, 2025.
• The restructuring charge in Q3 2025 of $28.5 million reflects compensation costs, primarily severance, incurred in connection with the July workforce action.

I was part of the layoff in October, and I noticed today my position along with a couple others laid off on my team have been posted on Target’s career page. They made some slight adjustments but it is almost exactly the job I was laid off from. Has anyone else seen this or have any advice? It’s a little hurtful to be backfilled less than 2 months after being laid off…

I see nothing has changed at the Great Blue Monster. Check in here occasionally to find out how many lives they are wrecking this year.

Was caught up in 2022 layoff at PEP after 15 years when my department was offshored.

The last 3.5 years are the best I've had since before I started at PEP.

Feel for those still stuck at that soul crushing company. Much better companies out there to work for.

Wishing you all health, wealth, and happiness.

Managers found out late last week. RIF coming early the week of Xmas. Atlanta HQ and remote/non-compliant RTO employees impacted among others.

just love seeing all the Linkedin posting of the various groups getting together for "end of year" celebrations , congratulating each other on such a great year, in the midst of continual layoffs. Still see Kate talking about "shaking" up industry..... hard to do that when you continue to lose money. Also good to see KJ, Stansbury, Tzetiel and some of the other higher ups reflect on a "job well done" and talking about all in, while the "no more" Lumen humans that were cut loose wonder how they will get through the holidays .... only real winner in all this is Brene' Brown, who continues to get rich off the company.

Another round effective today.

Layoffs happening around the organization. Merry Christmas, you are out of a job in the worst economy, but our CEOs bonuses are going to be ah-mazing.

Me and some peers I talked to in wealth got no pay raises because of the pending changes and role clarification. I feel like they’re signaling a lay off by giving no raises. Got decent bonuses and shares though

Maybe it would be a good idea to go find a new job now before the lay-offs. The longer we wait, the less likely we will find another job with all the competition. Especially if you only get the little management severance package. Why wait ?

Why didn’t VH have Q&A at her townhall. Seems like something is brewing. Surely she knew people would ask about the VSP and layoffs.

To my Spain and US colleagues how are we feeling after the recent Spain reduction? Gartner always thinking about their people especially before the holidays ha

Departments across the University may soon need to downsize or lay off employees to meet reduced budget targets as Yale cuts costs in preparation for the endowment tax hike set to take effect in July, administrators announced in a Wednesday message addressed to faculty and staff.

https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2025/12/04/layoffs-may-come-as-yale-seeks-to-shrink-staff-amid-budget-cuts/

I didn't do this, I don't think a person could win, but if someone thought it was their race, age or whatever you can think of, and gets riffed -- yet people are left working and they didn't get cut. just in general thinking they are targeted or whatever.
I thought about it, but I needed that money.

Bill

This LHH service seems to be a little value. It seems that the voice mode of one of these LLM‘s commercially provided as better. And what’s up with this $20 million fund has anyone actually heard anything about that about what it is and how to enroll it? I’m tempted just to ask for the cash.

For those that are hanging out here after going through it, do you find these outplacement services to actually be a value or is it just a way for corporations to make themselves feel better?

Also really happy to be doing migrations of applications all the way up to 15th. Really happy to have everyone reaching out for things to be documented when it wasn’t a priority year prior. This is wonderful. What is it almost there we’re almost fricking there good fricking riddance.

This is the only real job I’ve ever held since graduating from college. I’ve never held a permanent position. Do I even have a chance in the current job market if I were to be let go?

Told you cuts were coming!!!

Is Dan's way of saying "We don't need you anymore."

Outsourced and Ai is doing the work, while we all meet.

“Laid” off as part of a small wave of layoffs has n 2025.
Usual pattern:
layoff 20 +/- employees to avoid WARN notice requirements.
80% of employees “laid off” are over 40
Require employees to sign Separation and Release agreement to receive pay for accrued vacation and a not so generous severance of 2 weeks thus avoiding EEOC reporting.
Wait for review period of separation and release to expire.
Advertise same position and hire a younger employee to fill position.
Rinse and repeat.

Will not specify what departments but Sr. Managers have the picks and HR has been notified. Also for next year we have operational changes and more business consolidation, a plan to cut 5% of the workforce for cost savings is in discussion. I hate this part of my job and this is how I vent. Im sorry

I didn’t get that much sleep . I felt sick this morning

But now I feel relieved . No longer having to worry is this the day ?

I’m almost 100% sure more RA’s in February

I was really Angry at Alvind and his Pipmunks but I really don’t care about them now

They have no concern about us.

But back to us whose last day was today I hope you are all well and that there are better opportunities out there

You deserve better

Does anyone feel like they are getting laid off? It's been so weird around here.

After years of foisting your su-kage onto SH&A, you are taking the golden parachute in a testament to the clear lack of leadership ability and lack of qualifications you brought to a once mighty division, leaving the group wallowing in debt to the tune of almost $800,000,000 to Blackstone, no clear goals and a culture of pettiness and obsequiousness.

Thanks for the memories and the sh---y raises.

Has anyone who was forced out due to RTO found an attorney willing to pursue severance claims against BNY? If so, could you share their name?

Thoughts?

Every time the cuts hit, it feels like they're pulling names out of a hat because skills and performance and dedication never seem to matter in the final call. It turns the whole thing into a layoff lottery, and after watching that play out over and over, it's hard to feel motivated to give everything you've got when it clearly doesn't affect who stays or who gets pushed out.

I was laid off on October 28 and I was wondering when they pay out the unused PTO. Thank you in advance for your response.

I got let go last month and it still feels unreal. All the mistakes are made at the top, but it’s us who always get hit. Meanwhile, senior management keeps doing their thing and takes zero responsibility. Hard work counts for nothing until they need someone else to blame.