Thread regarding Edward Jones layoffs

I was an FA at Jones for 20+ years. Loved the firm. However, Penny ran the firm off the proverbial cliff. But I don’t blame her, I blame the GP’s who surrounded her who didn’t have the guts to stand up to her. Really good FA’s are leaving in droves and are being replaced by lazy, unmotivated people who only work 3 days a week. If you don’t believe me, try popping in a local Jones office on a Friday . They won’t be there. Greed has ki-led better companies, Jones is simply, next. SAD.

If our competitors are rolling out products faster than we are, over time this will be detrimental to us. Similar to compounding interest at 5% annually vs. 3%. Initially, the gap isn’t significant, but overtime it will be substantial. So I understand why we are doing Enterprise Reimagined. However, I think mastering the fundamentals are just as important if not more important than structural changes. Meaning we sharpen our thinking when it comes to defining the opportunity (“project scope”). What’s our thesis or hypothesis? What are the underlying assumptions, explicit vs. implicit? Have we validated them with facts/evidence or through prototyping? How do we know the project/product execution was successful? What metrics are we measuring? Where are they today? Where do we expect them to be in the future after project completion/product rollout? And then measure real numbers against our expectations so we can capture and share our learnings. I’ve been at the firm for several years, and I’ve never met anyone who’s not hardworking, intelligent and well-intentioned. But I think associates are juggling too many initiatives, and many of them lack the specificity needed to achieve excellence.

@de+1jvrv1hxy

Great news! You’ll be supported by an offshore team that will experience attrition so bad the average tenure will be 4 minutes. You matter.

Because the firm believes that agile is an wisdom so ancient that it can only be understood by someone born after 2002, the institutional knowledge and top talent are running for the doors before they get involuntarily separated in favor of a Deloitte team taking shelter from Pakistani bombs. #transformation

What happens to my local office and my relationship with a face to face relationship about my money?

@d5+1jvrv1hxy

That is the correct take.

It's about decision making and increasing efficiency, but it's also at least partially about cost savings...

Leadership simply over hired from 2020-2022. As a result, bonuses plummeted due to how our variable compensation is structured (for non GPs). Associate frustration rightly ensued and was only accelerated due to inflation skyrocketing without annual raises keeping up and while only seeing GP profits and distributions increase every year.

Without changing the ancient compensation structure, they have to reduce headcount to get people's bonuses back to where they were. It is unfortunately just the way structure is set up. We'll see if they actually find a way to make the "we share in the success of the firm" math better for the rest of us, so that it is more fair across the entire population of contributors vs. a small population of GPs... but assuming they don't materially change it, layoffs are their lever to get bonuses back up while also "improving decision making layers and the other talking points".

In short, we never should have hired so many, so quickly, and as a result many of us have and will continue to feel the pain due to their oversight. In a perfect world, those at the helm would actually be held accountable versus just saying they are accountable... and they'd make it right without causing more pain to us all.

I assume it's written by chatgpt bc the partners are so obsessed with it

During these recordings, does Penny ever turn to her handlers and ask, who is writing this sh!t?

@c4+1jvrv1hxy I appreciate your perspective, but I don’t agree with many of the conclusions you’ve drawn. You’ve been here for four years and have only experienced the firm under its current leadership, so it’s understandable that your view may be shaped by what’s happening now. But some of us have been here longer and have seen a broader arc, both the successes and the setbacks, that tell a different story.

The idea that letting go of long-tenured, loyal employees is some sort of bold, necessary move for survival assumes that those employees are universally resistant to change or lack modern skills, which simply isn’t true. Many of those individuals have not only adapted to change but have driven it, often under far more pressure and with fewer resources than newer hires enjoy today. Reducing headcount isn’t inherently strategic, it can also be a sign of leadership struggling to align vision with execution.

You mention this isn’t about greed, but survival. Fair enough. But if the strategy for survival includes dismissing institutional knowledge and creating instability within teams, then we have to ask survival for whom, and at what cost?

Ultimately, I think we all want the firm to succeed. But that doesn’t mean we should accept every decision as necessary or above criticism. Sometimes, the most loyal thing we can do is challenge the narrative and demand better! not just faster....progress.

I’m sure this will be downvoted because no one wants to hear it. People are assuming that eliminating 3000 positions is just about money and leaders are letting “talent” walk out the door. It would make no sense to do that. Saving money in the short term doesn’t help the firm catch up to competitors in technology and products. Those deficiencies are key reasons experienced advisors are leaving. So what would help? Perhaps allowing long time employees who, although well meaning and loyal, may not have next gen skills and openness to change, to leave with a very generous severance package. Many of those employees were likely contemplating retirement anyway and this gives them the opportunity to do it sooner. 2030 is only 5 years away. I’ve been here 4 and haven’t seen the firm making the kind of progress needed to get where they’re looking to be in 5 years. Lots of activity (Agile anyone?) but not a lot of progress. When several firms in the industry released annual numbers recently I compared the numbers Jones reported vs one of my old employers. Their new assets were up 20% Jones was down 4%. A double digit increase in assets seemed to be a fairly consistent result for the big firms in fiscal year 2024-2025. Jones being down in the same period is concerning. I will likely be laid off later this year if I don’t find a new job first. However, I still don’t see the changes Jones is making driven by greed but survival. And fwiw, I think Ted would be in favor of that.

Correct Penny should go and probably will go soon. Doesn’t change the fact that many people will follow her as she led the firm off the cliff.

If the firm has "30% more people and GPs than needed for another decade", then the person/people who allowed that to happen should be fired. Penny Pennington should be gone.

Bottom line is that we have about 30% more people and GPs than needed for another decade to come so how does your plan address that? Once you skrew up like this (which many firms did) there’s only one way to fix it unfortunately.

Well stated. Bottom line is that it is always about money. It’s ok to admit that. It becomes disingenuous when they want to do word gymnastic to say it isn’t. Is this how our comms folks advise our leaders?