Thread regarding Truist Bank layoffs

So let me get this straight. EL is so out of touch and incapable of self-reflection of their role in the embarrassingly low scores, so they are going to push blame downhill through forced action plans AND pay what one can assume to be an ungodly sum of money to McKinsey to analyze results???

So we really expect a consulting firm to come back with the the only correct answer of a new BOD and EL team needed to save this sinking ship? The performative nature of pretending to care is the exact reason for the lack of trust, fear of providing effective challenge to questionable strategy and not actually listening to the "gift" teammates gave you.

When you start with caring about your teammates, you get a different kind of bank. We are seing firsthand what doing the opposite of caring for your teammates does. [Insert toilet flushing sound effect here.]

I’m pretty sure the damage is complete. It’s both deep and extensive. Our leadership has lost its right to govern our organization. We have developed a serious lack of trust in our EL team. Our connection to our mid level management is shaken because they have not done their job and pushed back on these terrible decisions and protected our workers. It will take years to fix this mess they have created. We are now SunTrust with a new name and Bill has accomplished this in 2 short years. Amazing job—we applaud you sir.
If the BOD wants a starting point the EL team is a good place. Then move on down about 2-3 levels. You might crawl back to some of the extremely excellent talent you left in the wake of this ship and beg them to come back. But I forgot that most of you already oversaw the failure of hSTI before you sold that POS to Kelly. Maybe you all should regroup and learn how a board should function.
Regardless, we’re holding a a whole new fresh off the press failure of an organization and you all are the biggest players. Ask us in the branches, we will tell you. We’re not the yes men you’re used to talking to in middle management. We’re tired of all the BS coming out of the C Suite, we’re sick of the downsizing so Bill can pass out bonuses buying loyalty, and the money being spent on all these pet charities/golf tournaments. All of this mind you at our expense.
You owe us now for putting up with your lame a** stupid leadership. And blindly following your weird vision of what a bank should be. Gathering regional deposits for corporate lending and trying to force our clients into our vision of electronic banking. Absolutely ridiculous.
You’ve lost so much money it is incomprehensible. You’re propping up our stock price with the buyback and not investing in our business. Change now or at least have the decency to resign.
Most of the people you tossed out of the bank would have done a much better job than any one of you.

So many good comments here. Too bad at most your could provide 250 characters in the text box in the survey. Really says we want to hear you - but please limit your opinions to 5-6 sentences. Despite that, I lit up that box with all 250 characters of my opinions. Like others, I’m very curious as to the ‘next step’ EL is going to take on the surveys. Interesting read is the leader page around facilitating a session with your teammates to gather more feedback and come up with an ‘action plan.’ (Anyone else tired of spending >1 hour time looking for ‘ideas?’) A section of the leader page essentially calls out your might get no action items and crickets from your team. Which at this point sounds like a great idea.

Just watch: Bill will say the EL scores are low because of how the questions are worded and therefore teammates do not understand how to accurately answer the questions. He has used this strategy in prior years to deflect the poor scores for EL and to shift blame…

Maybe teammates should send anonymous letters to each Board Member if this deflection tactic is used again. The low scores aren’t necessarily driven by the decisions made by EL. The decisions to make teammates return to office, to outsource, and to pay retention bonuses to key leaders isn’t unique to Truist. What seems to be unique is the inability of EL to message these decisions in an authentic and inspiring manner. Dear Board of Directors: Please find a CEO that most of us can get behind and follow. The very low teammate engagement and very low EL scores are correlated. It suggests Bill’s playbook isn’t working for teammates, and it’ll soon catch up to the shareholders.

It’s time for new leadership beginning with the BOD, Bill, Mike and Donta. Perhaps they should extend an apology to the 20,000+ employees they have let go to feather their own nests. I have no confidence in these people to lead us another step. 20,000 families disrupted—folks who were doing a good job with the t*rd sandwich these “leaders” handed them. Time for change!

Stock price is back up they don’t care about you. Mission accomplished

You said you value our voice. So I will tell you what you need to hear, but may try to tune out.

Low engagement scores are not EL minus two or EL minus one. It is EL minus zero. You.

This will be confirmed as you see low scores for EL but higher scores for individual teams.

Hint: it is not a lack of town halls or jetting around to different cities for you to tell us how much you care and are driven by purpose.

Care is not zero-day notice of 3 days a week in the office. Back then Truist championed the benefits of 3 days a week and the benefits of maintaining some work-life balance and flexibility.

And then you mandated 4 days a week in the office. Now with Big Brother access badge swipes tied to performance. So the whole 3-day a week work life balance was a lie. That's not Trust, Care, or Happiness.

Some companies admitted the return to office was part of a stealth layoff - forcing people to leave to avoid paying out severance. Many of us think that was Truist's goal as well, and 'collaboration' was just another lie. Not Trust. Not Care. Not Happiness. Not One Team. And all of that means not Success. Good people left as a result.

But this is more than return to office. Though it is worth mentioning that there was no in office mandate at SunTrust or BBT because managers were trusted to manage their teammates and what worked best for both the employee and the bank.

Why did Donta and Mike need a RETENTION BONUS? If they were planning to leave - as so many at Truist have already done by choice or layoff - why not let them go? And what exactly did they do personally to sell TIH? Seems most of hard work was by TIH and TFC teammates - some of whom got laid off as their reward for all of their hard work.

Was their bonus also a 'bonus' for their role in the $6B 'good will impairment' that was never really explained, or the $6B loss in the sale of securities? No teammate below EL minus 1 was responsible for either of those - a $12B+ hit, though all of us did get less of a bonus.

Trust, Care, and Success - a cyber breach that you chose to try to hide from teammates and customers, only to acknowledge after the media found out. If consultants told you to do that, you should fire them.

Where is the concern about deposits and customers leaving? Lack of staffing at branches?

Do you hear our voice and truly understand what we are saying? Or will you choose to ignore us again?

We can't trust your ability to lead Truist when we don't know what your strategic plan really is. Drive success? Pretend we are a top 5 bank with a golf sponsorship? Lower costs at all costs, even if it loses customers and deposits in the process? Sell TFC??

How can you expect TFC teammates to recommend a job in the face of this, the constant threat of layoffs, offshoring, increased workload, budget cuts, low morale, low work/life balance. We are not attracting top talent this way.

We are not chronic complainers. We actually live Trust, Care, One Team, Success, and Happiness every day - or at least try to in the environment you have created. We like our jobs and want Truist and our fellow teammates to succeed. We have decades of dedicated service to SunTrust/BBT and now Truist.

Tell us you finally hear us and understand us. Admit you made mistakes. Admit you did not live up to PVM as you should have. Choose to change. Commit to fixing the problems you created. Rebuild Trust. Share your vision. Build a solid foundation for the future. Show you are recommitted to PVM. Get people the resources people need to do their jobs well. Stop the offshore push until it is ready, actually makes sense, and truly adds value. Trust employees to solve problems rather than spending millions on consultants. Trust managers to know what is best for their teammates.

But some folks think you may have already chosen to take the easy way out and are working to sell TFC. That would be out of failure and defeat, meaning PVM was just a scam you sold us and shareholders. I hope they are wrong. I hope you truly believe in PVM and see this as a huge opportunity to work to fix things.

Trust flows both ways. Care requires both trust and empathy. A Team cannot function well without Trust and Care. Success requires Trust, Care, and a well functioning and properly resourced team. Happiness comes easy if you do the other 4.

A special September Purpose Corner would be the perfect time for you to tell us that you hear us, know that you made mistakes and need to do better, and will commit to doing better - not pushing it down the chain for others to fix because you think they are the problem and not you.

This is on Bill and the BOD. You’ve had more than enough time to get things right but you’ve failed. The Truist franchise should be one of the best in the industry. Instead, we lag most of our peers.

I had to waste over an hour of my time yesterday listening to my manager whine about his low TM engagement score. Rather than reflect on his management style and the way he comes across, he would rather put the direct blame on his reports.
This place has become a joke!

@2kjz+1ukhRSdj - Well said. Bill Rogers needs to be forced out. Forced to retire. Truist needs a new BOD with a chairman who is not part of EL. Truist now has the worst reputation of any bank to work at. Worse than BoA, Wells, Chase. Top Talent is aware and is reluctant to work at Truist

The plan worked great last time why wouldn’t they do the exact same thing?

Completely out of touch leadership. Passing out bonuses patting themselves on the back for completely destroying the worker population and selling out jobs to offshore workers. The culture has become toxic. The board a rubber stamp for Bill and his cronies. Mid level a** kissing leadership telling them what they want to hear and our branches in shambles. We can barely beg for new hires and the quality we see interviewing is horrific. Morale is in the toilet and our profitability is sinking like a stone. These leaders will cost us our livelihood if we don’t do something. hSTI was on the ropes when hBBT bought them and now we’re right back at the bottom of the pool. Yes, it’s time for leadership to change. I’m shocked we’re not being investigated for failing at our fiduciary responsibilities. The board needs to be replaced, Bill needs to find a job running some circus somewhere and our mid level managers need to be shown the door as well. We’ve lost a third of our employees and most of the ones let go were strong on talent and work ethic. Now the bank is flopping on the deck like a fish out of water and our leaders are sharpening the knives to clean the fish. They will ride this train off the cliff if it puts a nickel in their pocket. Wake up Truist.

Managers in the trenches are just as disgruntled as their employees over the sh-t sandwich being forced down everyone's throats. Keep chipping away benefits, upsetting work life balance, wtf did EL expect?

As a manager I have no plans on creating an “action plan” to try and fix the issues caused by SLT and ELT. Our leadership has put us in a position where teammates don’t trust our leadership or the strategic direction of the company. That’s not for my team to fix. The only way you’re going to get higher engagement scores is to start making changes at the top.

massive cope going on putting the blame on managers when the leaders are shafting them and ignoring request for improvement for their teams.

and they are going to be sneaky and take credit for the 82% manager relationship, huh?

Most of the clowns on the layoff are weaklings....wake up....covid is long gone free loaders....get to work and kick some butt....go out in your market....win some deals....win some new customers.....stop complaining fools.....

Another manager here. I can attest to what Post ID: @1zht+1ukhRSdj said.

EL is saying this is something the managers need to figure out with their teams with an action plan and senior management with theirs. EL is changing nothing, they see it as senior management and front line managements responsibility to change the sentiments by fostering the change. They want us to communicate it down and try to talk through how they can score EL better by holding a meeting around the results. Maybe I’m not sharing the purpose corner enough or giving enough purpose cards with no purpose points because the budget was slashed. Or maybe I should spend more personal money on my team because the company card isn’t approved. Lots of things managers can be doing more of as if it’s all our problem. But like the original poster said, our teammates aren’t that dull, they fully understand it’s EL and some senior leaders who are driving the bank down with poor leadership that’s why they scored it as such. There’s a reason it said 82% good for their managers and 30% not good for EL and if you go into the survey dashboard for leaders you can see how the 30% something percent is inflated for EL with the math and questions they used. If it was VOC, you’d get a 0 for an 8 because there’s no wow factor. Let that sink in, meanwhile the math is being inflated in the opposite direction for them.

The BOD needs to give Bill a shock to his system. They won’t and everyone knows it because they are spineless and are bought and paid for. Fiduciary duties my a**!

Hummm, I wonder what the % of SunTruist teammates are tele-commuters verses forced in office? My gut tells me it's somewhere around 62% (in office) to 38% (tele-commuter).

Are engagement scores included in any type of public filing?
Would be curious what it has been in the past and what it is for other banks.

As a manager, in the last round of survey results, with just bad EL scores, we were told that it was our job to carry their message to our teammates. And basically this was our fault. It was utterly obnoxious and tone deaf, and exactly why I also rated EL poorly. I can only do so much to "promote" EL and their directives. My team is filled with smart people that know stupid and BS when they see it.

EL will just blame the unpopular 4 Day RTO policy for the low engagement and call it day.

38% wow... just wow!!

To be fair I feel like I have to give credit for these being published given how seemingly bad they are. Sure they started with the positive high level results and glad to see people enjoy working for their direct manager. I would expect you to start with the good.

It seems as if both the Favorable Score and Engagement Score are really low. Do we have any idea what these metrics were whenever the last survey was done?

Would also be curious to hear some managers perspective on these. On the one hand the managers seemingly got high results which probably feels good, but more curious to hear the messaging around the poor Favorable and Engagement Scores.

Is Senior Leadership trying to gloss over these scores and blame it on something? Are they saying things will be so much better when everyone is being monitored in office as we all will be better together (had to put one sarcastic comment in here...that is the rule right). Or are they honestly saying things like this is not good and we really need to figure it out. I would not expect anyone to have the answer on how to fix this, but I personally would feel better if leadership did not try to ignore or justify why this is bad and admit to needing to fix it.

Mix in the factor that unhappy people don’t tend to fill in surveys anyway, and it’s even worse. Would love to be in the room when the survey consultants tell EL, “this is bad, but it’s not the truth. The truth is worse”. But they’ll cajole themselves into a false security of “transition woes” and blame a RIF hangover. Kevin Bacon in Animal House keeps running through my mind…. ALL IS WELL!!

Engagement results are awful. Only 38% of employees are considered engaged. As usual Truist puts their BS corporate spin on the results underscoring the high percentages for “Purpose” and “Care” (whatever the heck that means, like that is actually a quantitative metric).

This company su-ks!

They are horrible. We are being told to cherry pick Orwellian ideas from them that are actually ideas that they told us at certain levels to place in them so they can in turn say they got the ideas from “our” surveys. Then they are telling us to place a spotlight on “participation as counting as engagement among teammates” without giving any spotlight on the fact that teammates lit up the survey again this time.

In a surprise to no one, well more than half the company is disengaged.

Just under half the company questions the ability of senior management, and don’t believe the bank has a strategy.

I’m surprised they published them.

And I'm sure the results will be a fabricated so who cares.

Managers got their individual results around 4PM and there is now a story on The Source for the enterprise scores

If anything like other recent ones, they will be printed out and mounted as toilet paper in Bill's executive restroom.