Thread regarding Wells Fargo & Co. layoffs

@fen - if WF was concerned with a class action lawsuit for ageism there would be some sort of voluntary early retirement program. That’s well managed corporations do to mitigate that risk. Your claim of ageism goes to the trash when the company demonstrates that an was alternative provided and you chose not to take it. Because there is no talk about early retirement, you can conclude that either (1) WF does not care about being sued or (2) the old crew will survive.

Hey @mfk,

Sometimes, not always, the more senior people know more about the job than the younger folks, so they keep them on.

Sometimes, I said.

And if Wells just let go of all the long time folks, they'd probably get a class action for ageism.

There's no good way to reduce headcount, but based on my experience for the last ten years, they'll mess it up royally.

: @mfk+16tb2r2f - you are good person and a great long term employee. Most of your compatriots are not that sincere . Like the other poster above said, I personally believe that the same people who have survived for 20 - 30 years at Wells Fargo will have the last laugh. As you just explained what they did in Brokerage (to eliminate the newcomers and the ones without a god father), will happen on a large scale . I am someone with six years so neither here nor there but dread the thought of two of my friends who joined only in 2018 and 2019 from Citibank and BOA. These people are very good but that does not matter in the grand scheme of things . My boss and his boss are veterans of the company ..15 and 18 I think. These guys have no incentive to remove the duddest of them all. I am worried for myself now too.

@vnn, thanks for the information; do you have to do the 30 days working? Just 60 days non working?

OP Thank you for taking the time to put out this post. It is excellent. Well-written. You should start a blog. Much appreciated.

Just adding a little something regarding laying off the junior employees/new hires first. It seems counterintuitive right? Wouldn’t it make more sense, financially, to eliminate those employees with higher salaries who have been at the company for many years? (FYI I am a long -term employee and am speaking here purely from a dollar and cents perspective. From a well- run company perspective: I am for a healthy mix of old and new. Different conversation.)

Well - we had lay-offs in the brokerage unit this time last year and, all other things being equal: they across-the-board eliminated the employees with the least tenure and kept the longer- term employees. The answer to this most baffling decision-making was: less years at the company + smaller salaries = smaller severance packages. I’m not complaining but I still don’t get it.

@gvo the packages so far and from I see are warning notice then 60 days till last day ( 30 working and 30 not) then 2 weeks per year plus your accrued vacation days. That’s it.

@OP, do you know how the packages will look? Do they have any value?

Honestly if i ever got layed of i would not be back.

Pay too low, company unsuccessful,, so you will likely get cut again. Better companies to work for out there and that are having a lot of success even during a pandemic.

@bzy - I agree with your point. The process as described does a good job in creating a perception of fairness, but in reality it is disproportionately biased toward old school SVPs and EVPs who will take care of themselves and their favorites first. That’s too obvious to miss. The ones impacted initially will be the more junior and/or newer hires who tend to be less expensive too. That’s why I suspect there is an additional step, not yet disclosed, where the OC member (possibly an ex-JPMC white guy) will pick the EVP/SVP that needs to go, to be replaced with another ex- JPMC that will carry the orders without the bias towards self-preservation.

This is an excellent post highlighting the process if it worked as advertised. As much as this process seems somewhat fair , I do not expect it to play out very well. Again , I go back to the ground realities:

1. If you entrust the decision making to an SVP or an EVP, who may have spent , donkey years in the org, he or she probably has a core team . This old boys network or ok girls network probably has flourished too.

If I am asked to give two or three names to cut, I will immediately throw some new and junior staff under the bus citing all kinds of justifications . The old guard just survived from the cut!

2. If I have to cut two people in my team of 10, and I have 5 WFH (long termers) and 5 who come to an office (mainly new ) , I may be able to get the office folks out since they are ‘costly’. Again ol guard survives.

Since the cuts are based mainly on savings, the people who have long survived will survive another round or two unless they cross out an entire group. The approach to cut in bit and prices won’t work. We need a regime change . Not the ministers being shuffled.

@unz what you are explaining is what will happen across the entire enterprise and you did a better job than me. It’s like Lord of the flies. The higher ups will worry about themselves first and then push down. Eventually though it will get some of them. You did a better job of explaining it than I did. Again further confirmation that things are in movement. While I’m still not sure of a D-Day scenario across and all at once we do know that things are happening so we can all be ready when our phase comes.

This board can be good for a good cause and help looking for ways they can protect their own careers and be prepared for what can come down to them.

We’ve been told my LOB will be heavily impacted by layoffs. Either we will be direct placed or displaced. A reliable source says this will happen within the next 2 weeks. Across the enterprise, a few of my peers and peers of my DRs have already been direct placed and will assume their new roles effective tomorrow. Given we’re less than 2 weeks from “the announcement”, is it safe to assume those of us who have not been direct placed by now will be eliminated?

As an IC in Saul’s world we have been going through this already and here is how it has shaken out with us. None of the IC’s have been affected, yet. I was 12 down from CEO at this time about 12-15 months ago. Currently i am 6 levels below CEO. My manager has stayed the same, my 2-up has stayed the same, and my 3-up is now the same as it was before. In the last year or so, i have been shuffled under 3-4 different exec reporting chains. Each time moving a rung closer to chainsaw. How we are aligned now, I believe to be our final resting place and now is when i expect the IC cuts to start happening, if they do.

@ukr location is considered only because when two candidates for RIF are being considered, California saves more money. So they will feel it more.

@Njb this is the confusing part for me as well. What I assume is that this maybe when the EVPs and SVPs simply meet and make announcements. I know there is a 60 day ( 30 working 30 not) part of the notice that goes along with the severance.

@toi this is when the calls go out to each impacted person in my org. Then a general notification to all org later explaining the re orgs and sentiments towards departing members who in reality have 30 days to wrap things up. Let us be serious when we say , “ How focused will that group really be for the next 30? “

In my negotiating only cost have been considered but I’m sure not written, is the talk of who is more diverse when cuts are made. So as cost matters most, then more expensive locations will be more favorable to cuts than lower cost of the same job family.

@giv it has to do with how things shake out. In my case one of my managers will be an IC. One will make the cut and two will be gone. It should be pointed out in my negotiating so far not one time was the mid year rating a factor. I can see if it’s a decision between two of the same and one is “needs improvement”, we see how that ends.

Again, I think I much of what my org will look like was predicated at the EVP level long before making it to me. Also, we are silly if we think that if your manager or or even two up from you, does not like you and they see an opportunity to have you exit their org, it’s going to happen.

Although the cuts are badly needed I can see in the negotiations that some teams are not fairly represented. As an example of in a large org LOB, there are some areas that negotiate only a five percent cut then the difference comes out of another part of the org. So one part gives five percent and another 30% to offset and still hit the number. So don’t expect cuts to come evenly across orgs. I have seen effective managers argue and win, while less effective ones lose for themselves and their team. This will introduce many other after problems but the stage coach will move on.

I am in the 8th level of managers, so I know that I am gone. There are 12 managers in my group at my level, so we all will be the sacrificial lambs. The overpaid svps above us will take our direct reports, so I expect they will survive for now. I have asked if there is any chance to be turned into an individual contributor. The icy radio silence response last week confirmed my hunch. Also, my SVP has taken all my work away and has been going directly to my direct reports since May, so that tells me the SVP knows what is coming.

@giv in my group it made it to the manager that is probably the one with the last set of managers under them (my guess is the first SVP under an EVP). I think it probably depends but I am going to guess is the first level of manager of mangers is where the buck ends.

In my group that means that 4 (oh yes FOUR with about 40 people under them) level of management will probably go down to 2. That will impact a bunch of people as there are about 12 managers in 40 people. Good times.

This fits in with the narrative that I have heard (I am a bottom level manager).In my group we have high performing teams (mine) sitting next to lazy out of shape people hanging on to their glory days. What WF has done is not managed people correctly. It was impossible to get rid of people so they left via promotion and then were someone else's issue.

Then because we had a bunch of bottom feeders we hire over priced consultants so the people who should be doing the job and were incapable could do tasks for a child or do nothing.

Chop Chop

OP, thanks for providing the logic on this. Does geographical location play a apart in the decision on who stays and who goes? I have a manager title but only 4 directs. My 1 up has 6 and my 2 up has 5 so I am guessing the math isn't in my favor. I am located in Des Moines so I am cheaper than my peers in SF. I've been here 19 years but offer no diversity boxes to check off. Should I assume that a phone call from my manager on the 25th won't be to see how my day is going?

Op, how are they determining which managers become cost savings and which ones become individual contributors? Also, who is making these decisions? Thanks

Hey @OP thanks for the info. I’ve been at Wells 15 years in November. Been laid off 3 times and have found new positions back in. I work in SF which is really going to be hit hard. Anyway why are people saying the 25th? Wells has never laid off on a Tuesday before. It’s always the last day of the ending pay period like Friday the 21st. Part of my job is severance packages and we can’t allocate those three hanging days of (wed-Friday) if it was the 25th. It very well may be with the work from home now in place that may have changed things. I have team members everywhere but, Iowa... St. Louis is one of my favorite hubs. Hope it works out well for us all.

@OP: Thanks for sharing this info. Any insight on how location/ telecommuting status is being used to make these decisions?