Thread regarding Wells Fargo & Co. layoffs

I'm a 16+ year veteran of Wells Fargo and can attest to this as an employee that has seen this company go down hill year after year. It's horrible enough that I will be ending my career with them in a couple weeks for a better opportunity outside of WF. It's sad that they continue to foster a toxic culture all while telling everyone that they're a bank of doing all they can to make the employee and customer experience better. If they were doing that, they would start with clawing back their management bonuses! It's sad they have management in place crying to their front line workers that they can only give them a 1-3% annual raise all while giving their lazy incompetent managers a 15-30% annual bonus on top of their already grossly inflated salaries that they don't deserve! Can only hope others that work for them see through their bullsh-t and move on to better their own financial well being and mental health because WF does not care about their employees.

I've worked here too long, have easily seen the error of my ways multiple times. My gut literally gave me critical feedback over 15 years ago that WF was not right for me. I stayed because of a reliable paycheck, a few co-workers that were friends and the ability to work remotely (ha!).

If I were smarter about things as a new job applicant, I would treat WF as a short term job (<= 2 yrs). In that time I would advocate for myself and build confidence. Even if hosting only a couple meetings where you are attempting to be an agent of change, the skill of reaching out and cutting through the noise says something about you. This cannot be underestimated.

The best part is that whatever you are trying to change doesn't even have to be successful. At WF you shouldn't get upset or sensitive about not reaching past the finish line. Remember the strategy is short-term, not expecting to paint a masterpiece. You take these experiences and write a narrative about the challenges (the people, the systems, the culture, etc) and where you saw opportunity and took action. This isn't salesmanship, this is revealing to your ideal employer where your mind is at when you approach your work.

Most workers hide behind or don't have the capacity to lead anything, so it is too easy to use WF job as a way to plant the seeds for your future potential. Takes some of the pressure off and suppresses workplace drama greatly.

If you are a long-timer like me, well, either you get laid off or you are screwed staying put. Quitting is the best possible solution but all the hard work is on us to put us back into that short-term mindset. Very tough be can be done!

The other part is because you do work you won't get past a certain level because who then would get stuff done? Others do fail up. Still some of the old relationship, no skills people moving around. We don't want to lay him off they are good person. But they s_ck... Then they show up a level higher in another org while you are back still, most likely, doing that person's job.

Yeah, on top of it, the slackers are jealous of the high performers and sabotage them. Can't win here.

A few of my high-performing colleagues in Commercial Banking were forced out through performance reviews. As a result, Wells Fargo did not have to pay the company severance package. By the way, the new management received bonuses this year.

@2rym, @2cyb here. That's good advice and makes sense. It's a little challenging because our manager holds the people who are doing the work accountable for all the work on the team. When the work doesn't get done right, they come looking for us. Or when the work is assigned to one of the slackers and it doesn't get done at all, our manager reassigns it to someone else on the team.

It's good advice and worth a conversation with my manager though. I do think I'm going to stop doing their work automatically. It's worth a shot and will help show my manager how much the slackers really aren't doing - because they will have to assign the work vs it just getting done.

@2cyb....those teammates you describe survive because you all have sidelined them. If they were given work and screwed up something that made your manager's work life harder then something would be done. But, if everything is getting done and management is not inconvenienced then those folks get to earn a paycheck for nothing. This is the Wells Fargo way. Nothing changes unless management feels pain.

I miss the days when lay-offs came and the people who did nothing got let go. Now it's seemingly random. It's de-motivating to know that I could get let go as easily as them - even though I'm doing their work and my work.

Some of the people on my team should have been gone a long time ago. They're not only doing no work, but their sc--w-ups cause more work for the people who are actually contributing. We've started just not giving them anything to do. No sense in doing our work, their work and the additional work they create.

The sad thing is if you asked anyone on the broader team, which people were doing no work, they'd all give the same list of names. Everyone knows it's a problem, but yet nothing is done about it. Or rather HR doesn't let us do anything about it. And the slackers know they are untouchable.

What's especially bad are the managers who "pass" these people off to other unsuspecting managers during a re-org. That's the lowest of low but unfortunately happens often.

How do you know they are claiming to be sick?

and uses up all their vacation time

And you are mad because someone uses their PTO time. And I suppose you don't? Who is the id#*t now.

If you are the right demographic you can break the rules for years here and not get fired. In between taking loads of personal leave.

I worked with a very nice person for years. Thing is this individual did little to no work for YEARS. It was actually surprising to me they never were in trouble....but were not getting promoted either. Anyway, the person was finally laid off this year....and was VERY surprised. Thinking people have different versions of what hard work is....that being said, based on how things are now - maybe they had the right idea.

How many rewards did you get?

I work with someone who constantly takes sick days and sick leave and uses up all their vacation time. While I sympathize with this person, it also sucks for the rest of us who are always having to fill in…

Absolutely. That is why it has so many problems and poor morale. Lots of losers. Little productivity. It's almost like a government organization.

@xfy+1lNB1QRk The only problem I see is that it's not relegated to your own team any more. I suppose if you don't need outside collaboration or assistance then you're good. I'm on a support team, all I hit now a days are road blocks and re--rds when trying to route or engage the appropriate ancillary teams.

Now THAT was poetry.

I used to not think this was true. But this current calendar year has opened my eyes. I won't necessarily agree with the entire post but the core construct of slackers getting by and people who put in effort simply getting more work is a managerial mantra.

Between increased workload in general and due to layoffs the layers of the onion are peeling back and, while we're all just a bunch of turds in a bowl, the ones sinking to the bottom are skidding all the way down and turning sideways, avoiding being flushed. But no-one breaks out the plunger to get rid of them.

@OP your experience mirrors mine until I finally job-hopped and networked my way onto a team where everyone is capable and performs. I still say this after the NYC exec team has done everything to make our lives miserable and destroyed motivation. We're a husk of what we used to be, but it's still better than the first couple of jobs I had to claw my way through to get here.

Amen!