- PTO for service > 10 years: lose 8 days a year in vacation. We gain 1 holiday making our net loss 7 days. We do gain 10 days of sick time but will be reprimanded if we use them all. Seriously, who uses 10 days of sick time a year. It will be a benefit if someone gets a serious illness but that is what short/long term disability is for. I'm guessing at most people are sick 2 days a year so that leaves us now with a net loss of 5 days a year or 25 days over a 5 year span. If we're lucky enough to make it 5 years then we do get back 20 of those days for sabbatical leaving us with a negative 5 days over that time. We will lose much more if we don't make it to the 5 year increments. Finally, sick days are not paid out at departure like PTO is.
- 401K. SCHW gets a 5% match vs TDA 3% match but we lose 3% profit sharing leaving a negative 1%. I assume many associates miss out on the 3% because like many they can't afford to contribute to their 401K
- PFP. We will not get our "mysterious" PFP payout until after the year, so if we leave 10 months into that year we lose our PFP payout which is 15 - 40% of our pay, that is huge.
- SCHW Stock purchase program is the only real gain for TDA. We get a 15% premium on SCHW stock but we can no longer afford to buy it because we no longer get a PFP bonus until the end of the year. Hopefully we make it that long.
- HSA contribution - TDA $1500, SCHW is $1500 if we jump through additional hoops to gain their blessing for the additional funds.
- Pay schedule - had to lose a week pay. I know we will get this back when we're laid off but its still an inconvenience.
- Had to wait 3+ months for our merit increase.
- SCHW was extremely quick on getting our 401K money moved under their supervision. That was probably the only thing they communicated and executed quickly, wonder why.
- Transparency - Still don't know what our job titles are or how our pay will be split out. We are suppose to take comfort in knowing that our mix will not go down, even though the bonus is a secret mystery each year. Transparency I feel is the biggest weakness, even though mgmt has the answers, they don't communicate them until just before they impact us. Super low moral and distrust in this new era. Like many of the Schwabbies have said on this board, "we bought you, get over it," trust me, that is exactly how we feel we are being treated. So you can tell us all to quit, but then your $20,000,000,000 investment is worth nothing if the clients can't be served.
- Layoffs - We get the privilege of waiting around each quarter to see which department will be let go since we know SCHW is the systems of choice. After October the layoff benefit is dramatically reduced, what an incentive to stay.
- No gym reimbursement, no idea on cell phones. Small but worth noting.
- SCHW Healthcare appears to only offer high deductible plans. Don't know a lot so this may or may not be an issue.
In short most of the changes negatively impact TDA, some might be temporary but negatively none the less. Pile that on with what we are fed on how much better everything is with SCHW you can get our frustration. We are told "who are you going to believe, your lying paycheck or the executives who will gain enormous wealth once this merger is complete." I am extremely proud to be a part of TDA, hopefully I can say the same thing with SCHW in 10 years.
If anyone has additional legitimate changes, positive or negative, please log them here.