#outsourcing

Remember that the top five Edward Jones executives in 2024 received over $100 million dollars. The time to unionize is now to ensure the front line employees don’t get robbed by the home office C-suites and GP’s. Ted Jones is spinning in his grave… something, something, something splitting work not profits lol.

1.  Penny Pennington – ~$29.06 M
2.  Kenneth Cella Jr. – ~$22.27 M
3.  Francis LaQuinta – ~$20 M
4.  Kristin Johnson – ~$20 M
5.  Andrew Miedler – ~$18.7 M

I'll be honest, i'm not feeling great about this announcement. Ive seen it before at previous companies and when this happens, majority of the opportunities dry up and most new positions open overseas. Wondering if anyone has an idea of what's going to go down. Are they planning layoffs? What areas are they planning on offshoring?

Have seen a rapid increase of Unisys dispatches in all field areas, US. Looks as if the plan going forward will be to outsource all field service work to partners. Anyone have confirmation on the ongoing progress and planning for this? Is March 2026 realistic?

Has anyone been successful in obtaining a severance package through the appeal process of the Severance Plan Administrator?

I have been mapped to a third party and received an offer letter. The description is vague however the responsibilities are objectively much greater than my position at Wells.

The handbook states if job is not comparable then severance package is warranted.

Oracle’s outsource of JLL to run REF|projects|EHS was a poor business move. The ones that are left, have to cleanup JLL’s mess. It’s been an exhausting road. It is actually costing Oracle more money as JLL up charges on everything. Our buildings are suffering. Upper Oracle management doesn’t want to hear the complaints. It’s work harder and be ok with no focal raise. My stomach hurts everyday, my boss rules with an iron fist and she has no idea what she is doing. My goal is to move on from Oracle. Stay healthy all.

IBM Server Group -sent all US Level 1 and Level 2 Jobs to Cairo Egypt.
IBM Finally got rid of the server hardware group in Atlanta.
All jobs L1 and L2 are farmed out to Egypt.

Our Journey these past 6 years…

For those who started in 2019 and after, the firm was not this way. It ranked highly on Best Places to Work, JD Power for both client and associate satisfaction, etc. It was a place where qualifications, education, experience, and success mattered. Not your makeup at birth. It was a place where our MP didn’t get lost in creating grandiose corporate speak or buzzwords where she thinks eloquence means leadership - it doesn’t. You may not be responsible for this situation, you are not to blame but without you knowing it - you helped create it. It was a firm who took pride in the strong workforce it created.

A timeline of a cultural crisis:

2019:
January 1 - Penny becomes the 6 managing partner.
T1 - Ambitious goal setting starts on corporate and field representation on various societal, political, and cultural ideology important to her agenda. The word smithing goes into hyperdrive. The field become disenchanted with her verbiage on “our clients”. This becomes a lightening rod of contention with those who create the revenue versus those who decide to split it.
T2 - Same as above
T3 - Same as above
Penny earned $11.5 million in 2018. Her first year in 2019 as MD she received a modest increase in pay to $11.67 million.

2020: COVID

March 14th - home office associates are sent home.
March 20th - STL Business Journal publishes an article on Penny’s pick as Chief of Human Resources, Kristin Johnson. Titled “Life in Balance: Kristin Johnson runs hard at work and play”. This article lauds her zero experience in HR and how Kristin feels being an entry level c-suite executive to a new role adds confidence with those she leads and builds trust around the policy of the firm. This is a watershed mark in Penny placing mandates on hiring quotas for people unqualified for roles. Across the firm hiring requisitions are left open longer than 365 days to hit certain quotas.
March/April - Penny takes a page from 2009 and freezes wages. Only to repeal her decision a few weeks later as her public pay increase is published. Her pay raise is 25.7% to $14.7 million.
April - we have 473 general partners.
T3 - Penny, sensing continued dissatisfaction with field leadership and in line with her belief that a merit based decision process is cumbersome, invites all RLs into the GP population ballooning the number to over 700.
October an associate sends the following to Penny’s Page:
“Never have I felt so disconnected from the firm and where it seems to be headed. It's not COVID and working remotely. That part doesn't help to be sure, but it's more a divergence in mindset and philosophy. I've grown up feeling extremely aligned with the firm. The business was relatively simple, leadership was transparent, trustworthy and directional. It's not any one thing that's changed. It's all of it. And I think it's as you have described it - slowly and then suddenly. I would guess that as someone reads this, they will probably take it as affirmation that the firm is making the needed changes and that losing someone like me along the way is a necessary by-product. Might be true. But it's also precisely what I mean by what is changing at the firm. The firm I knew would have cared and truly wanted to bring everyone along. I feel like now, this might merely be an afterthought and the unfortunate but necessary exhaust fumes of a firm accelerating away from who it was.”

2021:
March - field attrition is spiking. Divisive rhetoric and policies are challenging the FA ethos “We’ll leave you alone as long as you run a sound, profitable, and ethical office”
March - industry news shares her pay is now $22.6 million and that Penny will start the $1.5 billion tech spend and buy a RIA.
Mid Year - her plans to buy an industrial bank starts to unravel.
Mid Year - yearly home office local events like Six Flags and Grants Farm are cancelled since HBAs are unable to attend.
T3- in addition to increased field attrition, home office veteran departures start to increase. Trimester bonuses start to decrease across the home office. A trend that is present today.

2022:
Billions in assets are hemorrhaging. FAs dissatisfied at the slowness of adoption is preventing them from evolving leave for other firms.
The uptick in GP departures increases. The political and DEI measures creates the liability and discrimination lawsuits that snowballs into 2025.
July 2 - Jennifer Marcontell leaves for Ameriprise
Penny makes certain FAs a partner to prevent their exodus.
Since 2022 to present the outflow of level 10s has never been this high.
Former partners go into competition with Edward Jones in creating their own firm.
2022 is the year that Penny decides internal talent are not suitable to her agenda. She hires David Chubak and others from outside of the industry and a few BDs.
The amount of capital balloons which, in turn, su-ks profit and preventing further investment back into the business.

2023:
The home office hiring spree with bloated salaries and sign on bonuses creates an overspend of the hiring budget by $20 million.

November 29 - An email is sent to all home office associates titled, “The Home Office Colleague Experience”. A 9 minute video where Penny wanted to give “timely updates around our work to improve the home office’s colleague experience”. A Mea Culpa was issued regarding the past few years and that Jennifer Kingston will prioritize both Total Rewards and morale while combating the dark cloud that became the climate. An extra vacation day was provided to all associates as the first step. Penny states that since July 2020, the firm had hired 2,700 new associates due to the past few years of attrition and new leaders trying to restructure their teams and departments because they did not understand the model they inherited. The loss of years of a culture and the brain trust of experience has created a vacuum especially with new leaders and associates trying to understand the Edward Jones ecosystem.

2024:
T1 - Penny says her husband is “afraid we’re going to run out of money during retirement”. Her 2024 total earnings get a 15.7% bump to $29 million.
T2 - The SFA feedback on the ELT is the lowest ever recorded. Weather then address it, and realizing the need to build out the UHNW area and over capitalized with GP capital. The plan for Enterprise Reimagined is hatched.
T3 - Offsourcing increases rapidly to India. Roughly 400 associates in service and operations are let go with the first set of severance packages. This marks the first time for EJ to offer severances other than to GPs.

2025:
T1 - Enterprise Reimagined is formally announced.
Attrition in the field increased to 6.4 from 5.3 one year prior.
New households drop 55% when compared to a year prior.
New assets slipped by 10% year over year.
Retirement plans and aging clients to blame. The collapse of various training departments among other areas of the firm has led to a decrease in coaching on business outcomes. Asset flows to competitors increases not due to aging but increase in fees, subpar FA service, lack of cross generational planning, and FA losses.
T2 - Enterprise Reimagine is formally launched. The next timeline begins for 2026 in sourcing and shoring and 2027 will wrap up ER with AI and automation. In 2028 the next MP will not be a MP but a CEO.

Penny’s Yearly Earnings Recap:
2019 = $11.7 million.
2020 = $14.7 million.
2021 = $22.6 million.
2022 = $21.4 million.
2023 = $25 million.
2024 = $29 million.
Total = $124,400,000.

Large string of terminations to replace core support teams with outsourced.

Steve B is chasing low margin IT business rather than trying to be the market share leader in what is a high margin copier business. Although is a declining business it not disappearing and there should be a better balance of revenue and margin contribution. The deal with HCL has cost them a fortune in lost revenue and profit because HCL can’t bill timely and accurately. What shame for an iconic brand.

Seems this hack is being kept quite with all the uproar about Accenture suing L3Harris for $81 million and the Accenture I.T. contract ending with L3Harris on 12/15/2025. Karma? 450+ employees "sold" to Accenture without any severance options and then a year later the contract is terminated. This from a company that requires the employees to take yearly ethics classes.

https://www.cyberdaily.au/security/12488-exclusive-world-leaks-ransomware-gang-claims-hack-of-defence-contractor-l3harris-list

Just announced today. Last day for Accenture folks is December 15, 2025. Merry Christmas.

Both will cut costs. And AI will work around the clock with no complaints or recurring expenses. Loki knows the score.

Entire traffic department getting laid off, and jobs are being sold to Indian company Wipro.

I can confirm the rumors about outsourcing FED and PSONE are true , it slipped out in a meeting today.

And it gets worse: the entire IT service in the U.S. is set to be shut down.

Even more bad news : phase 3 will wipe out all Dell U.S. jobs in layered tech support, IM and SAM included.

For PSONE and FED, the target is August 2026. Phase 3 looks set for around January 2027. Phase 1 is already underway , they’ve started cutting jobs in the U.S., and the process is nowhere near over.

In short, it looks like Dell is shifting its workforce from the U.S. to lower-cost countries just to pinch pennies. The rumors about shutting down offices in OKC, Limerick, Cork, and elsewhere are probably true too.

Just got laid off this morning with no warning, completely shut out of all systems. I was at an oncologist appointment when the termination meeting started. Myself and my team also training a new team outside of the US on how to do our job the last 2 weeks. Been at the company for many years and now I'm gone.

Goodyear said it plans to move "175 roles supporting our Americas business and corporate functions to a new Goodyear location in Costa Rica."

https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/business/2024/07/19/goodyear-confirms-akron-layoffs-relocates-175-positions-to-costa-rica/74470630007/

They've been in training for over 6 months on just DMI's and they still don't get it. Senior manager and one of the supervisors headed to CR yesterday to further train. What a huge mistake to outsource to Costa Rica .

The employees are being told that they need to stay until March 31,2021 before they can receive the package. With the call center in Costa Rica and the support center moving to Mexico City, there will not be much left in the US except for some backend operations that will eventually be outsourced. This company is on life support and there is nothing to suggest a turnaround. Customers are very nervous doing business with this no vision company.

Good bye to almost 150 good solidly jobs - yep, we are yet another victim of #outsourcing

Word that several positions in animal nutrition credit dept being outsourced to Costa Rica. Anyone know qnything about this?

I came across this titled post from four years ago, which seems even more appropriate today. I trimmed it, for readability, but hopefully kept its integrity. I placed the Post ID number below should you wish to investigate It in more detail.

“How AT&T reduced the workforce without public lay-off notices and the implication for other former and current employees tell the same story about how AT&T avoided having to issue lay-off notices as required by the 1988 WARN Act. From one source:
“AT&T has done a number of #outsourcing actions since 2006-ish to different companies include #Accenture, #IBM and #Amdocs. Thousands of employee division in IT, which was outsourced, and continue to date for the most part.”
“No doubt AT&T plans to completely vacate many buildings across US, after their lease(s) expires and the number of employees will continue to dwindle.”

Post ID: @FB8FrWq

As I said, I trimmed the length of this post but this person was talking about outsourcing to other US companies like IBM, skirting the WARN Act (except California where regulations are tighter) and letting building leases expire in T’s attempt to downsize quietly.

We have discussed these topics many time, mostly as separate issues....this poster tied them all together in just a few paragraphs four years ago just around the time we were being told about the 2020 agenda!

So this happened on Wednesday, all people in a room, security guards all over the place, and then it all started, meeting one by one with everyone's manager to know if you will continue or not, we heard about 150-200, that is for sure more than 50% of cloud Costa Rica

In Sofia and Costa Rica all support staff will transfer to Tek Experts or be jobless, Seems like why have a wfr when you can just drop your staff into another company and get them to perform the same role, while externally still looking like Micro Focus employees. Similar seems to be happening with other teams, although end company is different, and the transfers are smaller in scope.

Thousands will be mercilessly kicked to the curb.

What's going on?, no posts about the layoffs going on in Penang and Costa Rica?, and most likely other sites too?

In the name of focussing investment in new areas of business, Akamai eliminated 120 positions primarily in US. The real motive of the layoff was to move the jobs to low cost countries like India, Costa Rica and Poland. Akamai is still hiring and retaining workers in US on immigrant visa to depress the wages and laying off American citizens. Akamai has struggled to grow like other internet companies for several years. Where are those Democrats and Republicans in Government protecting American jobs?

This week, Syniverse has internally announced laying off 15 % of its

employees, worldwide. That means 300 employees are affected. The

layoffs mainly happen in the US (Tampa, Florida) and India,

although other locations are affected, as well.

In related news, just a few months ago, Syniverse internally

announced to close down its mobile roaming data clearing house (DCH)

development center in Rüsselsheim, Germany until the end of 2018.

This amounts to laying off another ~ 65 employees.

This follows the previous layoff of ~ 40 Syniverse operations

engineers in 2016, also in Rüsselsheim, the 2017 shutdown of the

Syniverse A2P office in Würzburg, Germany (~ 60 employees), and

the constant layoffs in other Syniverse offices around the world

Syniverse is well known for since it's owned by the Carlyle Group

(a private equity corporation).

As always, Syniverse management plans to off-shore the work done

by the laid off engineers to remote locations like India and

Costa Rica. It's confident that this disruptive reorganization

doesn't impact the service-level agreements with existing

customers and magically leads to a path of ultra growth and rapid

innovation (executed by newly hired and inexperienced engineers).

Giving the history and current developments, it's likely that

Syniverse will also shutdown its last remaining office in

Germany, Bonn in the next 1 to 2 years. Followed by Europe

Headquarters in Luxembourg in 2 to 3 years.

While we avoid taxation by putting your jobs in Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, and India? Can HPE count on your support?

Stryker is outsourcing A/R department to Costa Rica. The whole process should be completed by the end of 2019.

Sales are falling off a cliff. What to do? I know, take an employee engagement survey. More than 1900 employees responded, and what do we learn?

Employees in India are happy. We're hiring lots of them and they get big raises at review time.

Employees in the US are miserable. While we're hiring more sales VPs every other group is getting laid off as their jobs get sent to India and Costa Rica. Raises at review time are less than half those in India.

Employees in Costa Rica? trick question, they're contractors and not part of the survey.

Huge numbers of US employees are what the survey calls "actively disengaged", ie their daily activities actually subvert the best interests of the company. Why would any new customer sign up for that?

The layoffs are still happening. They are just smaller in number so they fly under the radar. They actually have a blanket RIF for the year and they are bucketing everyone into it. There are at least 12 people laid off after every quarter end and they are even starting to lay off the offshore resources in Pune and Costa Rica. That might not sound like a lot but when you look at what used to be teams of 100 and they are now around 30 that tells you everything. They have cut so far they are now cutting bone. Essential people needed to get the jobs done are being let go to the point the remaining can't keep up. People know the CCC+ bond rating is a company killer and are now trying to get out before the hammer hits them.

Short sighted decisions by Citrix leadership are leading to terrible technical support.

I have had several unresolved tech support cases open for months.

One of the cases was initially being worked by a support tech who was fired in October. This support tech was one of the most experienced people in the company, and was actively working with the engineering team as the problem was pretty complex.

I don’t know for sure, but I have some indication that this person (who is US based) was fired in order to hire lower cost staff in India or Costa Rica.

Now I have no idea who is even working these cases any more. Whenever I ask I get no response on my tickets. No one cares.

Moving off of Citrix products in these scenarios is too costly as the customers have already spent too much on the implementations. But I will never recommend Citrix products to a new customer.

http://qcostarica.com/intel-downsizing-in-costa-rica-cutting-200-jobs/

http://www.nearshoreamericas.com/intel-downsize-operations-costa-rica-firing-200-employees/

https://www.thelayoff.com/t/S31dwxN

Is this rumor true ?

Intel has announced record revenues and profits. But IT is laying off employees! Announcement has been made of 200 job cuts in Costa Rica. I am sure there will be impacts at other sites as well. Get serious and please post any news or rumors so that anxious IT employees can get an idea of what's happening - Admin

Layoffs in finance across the board. Up to 30% and much of the work is moving to Costa Rica

Found this in another thread, anybody knows more about this? I am assuming this is not relating to rumors flying around due to expected Intel's quarterly results announcement.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/business/banking/article179747451.html

Now hiring — Wells Fargo seeks overseas call center workers as it slashes US jobs

Wells Fargo has been quietly bulking up its call-center operations in the Philippines, adding positions in the southeast Asian country where it has long kept offshore jobs.

The move by the third-largest U.S. bank by assets is occurring even as other companies have done the reverse in recent years – transferring call-center functions back to the U.S. It also comes as Wells Fargo continues to reel from a sales scandal that erupted in 2016.

Wells Fargo has had operations in the Philippines since at least 2011, including information technology and other roles, but had not received much attention in the U.S. for its more recent expansions in the island republic.

This spring, however, the bank said the operation had grown from less than 100 to more than 4,000 over six years. Wells also said it was building another location that could seat more than 7,000.

The issue came to light this month during a Senate hearing on the sales scandal, when Sen. Joe Donnelly questioned CEO Tim Sloan about cutting American call-center workers while beefing up operations in the Philippines.

“I’ve learned that Wells Fargo has eliminated several hundred jobs here in this country recently, and more in recent years,” Donnelly, an Indiana Democrat, told Sloan. “At the same time that you were letting these people go, you were adding on positions in the Philippines. How is that making it right by your people here that work for Wells Fargo?”

Sloan defended the practice. He said positioning employees worldwide helps the San Francisco-based company serve customers around the clock. The CEO also pointed out that, of Wells’ roughly 270,000 employees, more than 90 percent are in the U.S.

“The reason for that is it’s where most of our business is done,” said Sloan, noting Wells has 15,000 open U.S. positions. “We love doing business in this country.”

Wells declined to provide details on growth across its Filipino operations. But it said its call-center presence there is equivalent to the size of its U.S. call centers. In Charlotte, the bank has a call-center operation in the University area.

Decades-old practice

Offshoring call-center jobs is not new for American companies.

Decades ago, many firms flocked to set up such operations overseas, where labor costs tended to be cheaper. India, the Philippines and even Ireland became hot spots for those jobs.

But such moves have slowed since the Great Recession, when many industries ramped up efforts to hang on to their customers in a struggling economy, according to Paul Stockford, research director for the National Association of Call Centers. In the past, American callers have had frustrating experiences dealing with heavily accented foreigners in call centers.

Most U.S. airlines, for example, have brought their call-center operations back from overseas, Stockford said. In addition, rising wages in many foreign countries have made it costlier to offshore jobs.

“I think Wells Fargo is not the norm at this point,” Stockford said. “With Wells Fargo, it’s difficult to understand.”

Among big U.S. banks, Charlotte-based Bank of America has detailed its efforts to relocate call center and other roles to the U.S. that interact directly with American-based customers.

According to the bank, the relocating is complete. It brought to the U.S. about 5,000 jobs from places including the Philippines, Mexico and Costa Rica during CEO Brian Moynihan’s tenure. The bank continues to maintain other jobs like information technology outside the U.S., especially in India, to support global businesses and clients.

The Communications Workers of America union has criticized Wells Fargo since the Senate hearing, saying the bank’s recent call-center layoffs in the U.S. continue a trend from 2011 and 2012. At that time, Wells laid off hundreds of call-center workers in states like California, Florida and Pennsylvania, the union said.

Richard Honeycutt, vice president for the union’s Southeast region, told the Observer such layoffs are short-sighted and a major problem for communities.

“It hurts working people who lose good jobs, it hurts communities that need a solid tax base in order to provide important public services, and it hurts customers who are not getting the service they pay for,” Honeycutt said.

Wells Fargo said that, when staffing new positions globally, it follows a rigorous process to ensure it is acting in the best interests of its customers, employees and shareholders.

“As a company that currently operates in 42 countries and territories around the world, we take a thoughtful approach to adding team members to our global workforce as the company focuses on improving our service and operating efficiencies,” the bank said.

Also in the Philippines, Charlotte Observer parent McClatchy maintains call-center operations that handle customer calls for most of the company’s newspapers, including the Observer. A spokeswoman said the operations are constantly under review to provide a high standard of customer service.

Layoffs hit call centers

Across the U.S. this year, Wells Fargo announced a series of layoffs affecting call centers, including one just this week in Bethlehem, Pa. Wells will close that center, where about 460 people are employed.

In a separate announcement in September, the bank said 120 employees would be laid off through closing a reverse-mortgage operation affecting a Fort Mill, S.C., call center. The month before, Wells disclosed plans to close a Vancouver, Wash., call center in a move affecting 72 employees.

Wells Fargo said none of those jobs are being transferred outside the U.S.

The bank said the decision affecting Pennsylvania was made primarily because of a drop in call-center volume. The Fort Mill closure resulted from Wells exiting the servicing of reverse mortgages, while the Vancouver move was in response to fewer foreclosures, Wells said.

The layoffs come as Wells is in the midst of centralizing functions and cutting billions of dollars in costs in the wake of the sales scandal. The bank was fined $185 million to settle claims that employees opened millions of accounts without customer authorization.

In May, Wells’ chief financial officer mentioned the company was looking at moving some work offshore as part of centralization. The bank recently reported having 2,600 fewer employees at the end of the third quarter of this year compared with the second quarter. In Charlotte, Wells has about 24,000 workers, its largest employment hub.

During his exchange with Wells’ CEO, Donnelly pressed him on whether the company had laid off American call-center workers then added people in the same roles in the Philippines.

Sloan acknowledged that Wells had, but said that the bank’s track record is to rehire about 70 to 80 percent of the people affected by such layoffs.

“Why would you in the first place send these jobs to the Philippines if they were being done here?” Donnelly asked.

To best serve customers, Sloan said, “it makes sense to have folks around the world so we can continue to be working through a 24-hour day and not run a night shift, for example, somewhere.”

“Do you think Americans are not capable of working a night shift?” Donnelly asked. “I can show you a whole bunch of folks in my state who work night shifts.”

Still popular

Even though some U.S. firms have pulled back on overseas call centers, offshoring remains a popular option for many other American companies, according to experts.

“The reason that companies are offshoring is that they are continuing to seek ways of cutting labor costs,” said Rosemary Batt, a professor at Cornell University who has extensively studied call-center practices.

But offshoring can carry risks, especially if the work will be handled by a contractor, Batt said.

Concerns arise about what controls contractors have to ensure customer data is safe, she said. In addition, contractors can be prone to high employee turnover and insufficient worker training, all of which can hurt customer service, she said.

Wells Fargo said its call-center operations in the Philippines are not outsourced but instead manned by Wells employees.

New federal rules would target companies that offshore U.S. call-center jobs, under legislation before Congress. The bill would require, among other things, the Labor Department to disclose all employers that relocate a call center overseas.

Supposedly, the layoffs begin this week (of October 9). That's the buzz here in HQ, and morale is really low. A big portion of sales will be targeted. Sadly, they have nothing to really sell because the products are slow in development and unstable, so non-existent. Product development itself is struggling and will also be targeted. Meantime, Sungard AS can't attract top talent because it has no money and no stock options to offer as a private company. It's onwards anyway to filling roles in India and Costa Rica, which our customers don't like dealing with. So it's all a death spiral. This place is out of control. Good luck to all.

Anybody knows more about the supposed layoffs this week? It's already Wednesday, and I haven't heard anything.