Saul's Folly: If he sticks to his Location Strategy, he will go down in the history books and business case studies of fiascos and greatest all-time blunders as the guy who forced employees to not only relocate but go back into the office to risk their health for the greater "Agile good."
File Saul's resume under "lack of empathy, zero emotional intelligence,"
"His smartest move to date was to get rid of his technology risk exec but needs to get rid of Dimi’s merry band of hires as well."
True, this. The Dimwit and his useless bunch of unqualified bozos. Most of them hadn't even worked in risk before they were given their roles.
Phase One for US Workers cancelled and "off the table for now." Stay tuned for the next crazy idea. Some common-sense or at least self-survival instincts must have kicked in as Leadership forced to face reality of worst pandemic in 100 years.
Many on here are missing the big picture and focused on one thing...location strategy. Remember Dillion started this hair brain plan. Many of his leaders and two downs were reluctantanly executing on it. Saul is just doubling down on it. The location strategy was never about effective collaboration or Agile, it was solely a cover for layoffs in technology to keep people from panicking...insider knowledge there. Saul does not have an original idea and is not the leader for a technology organization that has been under siege for a while. Hi s smartest move to date was to get rid of his technology risk exec but needs to get rid of Dimi’s merry band of hires as well. The hiring of Bates is not much better, it’s a friend hiring a friend. The hiring of Kerrins who is just a cheerleader is another questionable move. She is making up for Sauls lack of empathy but she has embellished her qualifications....again more insider knowledge, just ask most at BofA and her last company....Imposter Syndrome. So what is the big picture, Lay-off, cost reduction, a leader with no original thoughts, no new way of engineering just moving seats, hiring of ill qualified people by an executive in over their heads......what does anyone expect the results to be? A bunch of senior tech leaders who are protecting a paycheck from the best paying job any of them will ever get.
What will be next for "Location Strategy"? Maybe Phase Two adds Juice bars and yoga mats? Company sing-alongs around the water cooler? Or something equally ridiculous from the Saul vision of workplace nirvana. Get ready for more Snake Oil and bait-and-switch. Serious ideas have no chance.
I don't think that Saul has thought this through. The expense that Well's will incur by paying for relocating numerous employees or the amount of severance that will be paid out for those who leave. The additional cost for unemployment for those who are laid off will increase the companies unemployment rate per state. The additional dollars paid for all these employees coming into the data center they now have to add them to their worker's compensation plan. Additional heat, cooling, water and electricity that will be used by ever employee going into the data centers. I haven't even touched the cost of equipment. This list can go on and on and it all adds up to a lot of money that has no ROI. I see that Saul's days will be numbered once someone over him realizes what he is costing the bank. BTW, will he be moving? It's only fair that he does!
Saul is not following IT best practices, and COVID-19 is exposing this.
We do not have all our datacenters on a fault line in California, because a catastrophic earthquake would take the bank down.
We use different locations because they have different challenges and the odds of a earthquake/tornado/hurricane/attack by some bad guys taking all of our DC's offline at the same time are very high.
COVID-19 is here for the next year or more. If we put all our developers into one location, and that location has an outbreak, then we have no development happening.
Same for every other line of business. Saul is adding risk.
Saul is an odd man, he preaches Agile, but in a situation that clearly calls for a change in direction, he's stuck in the mud.
Be Agile, Saul.
Everyone stay safe and healthy.
Nothing has changed work wise since all of my Wells Fargo team mates and business partners are now working remotely. Business as usual. No impacts from everyone, or almost everyone, working remotely now. That is good news for Wells Fargo that it has absorbed the fact that many employees are now working remotely and the company has expanded it's network to enable that to occur. Team members still reach out to those in need of training, in need of assistance, etc., but now all remotely as it actually has been mostly since team members all work in many different locations in the USA.
"Location Strategy" will fail because no one respects it as sincere or effective, and many actively resent it. Saul could use the pandemic as cover to let it go, or he could keep wasting energy and goodwill by continuing to fight for it. There is an easy solution for him already in place by grandfathering existing remote staff, and just hiring new staff into his favorite cities - if he were interested in the long term, that is.
Think it through, folks... Wells tech is ten years behind everyone elses, why wouldn't our workplace strategy be 10 years behind as well?
I'd be happy going back to Windows 7 myself, and I was thinner and had more hair back then.
It is truly amusing in a cosmic sense that the covid-19 virus scenario opposes nearly every tenet of the location/co-location/paired programming/agile strategy.
Coming from a dev who generally prefers working in an office 2-3/5ths of the work week.
Do not expect this gets resolved anytime soon— Technology division is too busy trying to support remote work.
Seems logical that the "new normal" will require large degree of remote work and/or flexibiity — i.e., a new strategy far different than the current "Location Strategy."
https://www.zdnet.com/article/will-the-open-office-die-following-covid-19-pandemic/
https://www.zdnet.com/article/cfos-looking-to-make-remote-work-telecommuting-more-permanent-following-covid-19-says-gartner-survey/
https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-remote-work-is-changing-cio-priorities-amid-the-covid-19-pandemic/
"Location Strategy" has always been a fiction, a pretense, a sneaky tactic for stealth layoffs – a way to boost the number of staff who voluntarily quit.
The pandemic makes the location strategy not just obsolete, but delusional. It is a grandiose delusion of a narcissist.
Faced with evidence to the contrary, narcissist will re-invent themselves — so here's to hope the Narcissist(s) who came up with this delusional "Location Strategy" will face the facts and cancel this before it becomes yet another Wells Fargo foul-up and self-inflicted error.
Hey Saul – time for you to be "agile" and re-consider your location strategy. It's not just obsolete - it is pure madness. Not too late to stick to this id–tic plan.