The bank has become sluggish because it hired too many people. too many people equals bureaucracy and that equals slow moving. And it is now hurting the company. Look at our competitors, like JPMC, they have a global employment of under 200k. They had their own share of layoffs because of technology. Especially in this digital age, many of the jobs at Wells Fargo have become redundant because of technology. If you think your job can be done by some computer, your job is in danger, if there are too many people doing one job, your job is in danger, if you job requires human attention, your job is safe. Wells Fargo is moving towards a fast paced, efficient and less bureaucratic environment. This is the reality, and every major financial firm/bank/company will achieve this one way another.
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How about either displacing those team members who have been out on quarantine leave since March or asking for them to return to work (the bank has gone out of it’s way to safeguard the workplace) or asking they do work force share? These team members are getting their full salaries, earning PTO and in some cases earning incentive pay. There is something wrong with this picture.
Come on, these people need to be back helping a company struggling to be successful! HR is very sensitive to the needs of these employees where the remaining employees risk COVID exposure daily to earn a living!
Well, get ready for more team member displacements in early 2021. Displacements packages are going down from 2 weeks salary for every year you have worked for the company (Maximum of 12 months) to a max of 6 months during 2021. This will be a huge savings enabling more cuts! We have way, way too many project teams, operational inspection teams and District Managers for a successful financial business. Let’ s trim the fat from this group and keep customer facing team members!
Wells Fargo has paid out $4 billion in fines and penalties since 2016. Plus lord knows how much to the lawyers.
That is why we are cutting staff.
“The bank has become sluggish because it hired too many people. too many people equals bureaucracy and that equals slow moving.”
So, you’re not aware that it takes more people to do their work with circa 1985 technology than 2020 tech? Here is a hint... it takes a lot of smart people a heck of a lot of time to move technology 35 years over a few years. You should meet the people who do 80 hour weeks my friend, if only to understand the reality of different jobs.
Lots of jobs that require "human attention" are seeing cuts. Ever heard of outsourcing and/or 'contingent resources'?
Post ID: @zxm+18pJ7GRf
Hmmm picking up on your wording that you encourage Wells Fargo to go after “perceived bloat”aggressively, not caring if it’s actual bloat.
So employees could be highly productive and hard working, but reporting to a manager who is willing to sacrifice them to move up the corporate ladder himself. Cut those employees because they could be painted as “perceived bloat “ bloat by their self-serving manager. Or experienced employees who work for a boss who doesn’t like being challenged regarding his/her potentially high-risk practices. Their narcissistic manager could paint those high-integrity employees as “perceived bloat” because they pose a risk to his/her career. Cut those employees for sure. Something with you doesn’t add up.
@zxm+18pJ7GRf, I agree, I say increase it to 100k; wonder what is taking so long? Ill take my chances too, if get affected will land on my feet
Post ID: @zxm+18pJ7GRf
Well that is mighty generous of you to put the financial health of a large and scandal-plagued publicly held corporation above your own financial health.
I don’t understand your loyalty to a corporation that has done nothing but stick it to their employees, customers and shareholders while the senior execs are all walking away or getting hired on with bloated salaries, bonuses and stock options. Not sure what that says about you, but thankfully it’s not my problem. Perhaps you would have supported John Stumpf and Carrie Tolstedt too? Your good vs evil radar seems way off. But it takes all kinds, so have fun.
Put it this way, I highly encourage Wells to go after every area of perceived bloat and cut it aggressively. If that means I get caught up in it then so be it. I’ll take my chances.
Post ID: @cot+18pJ7GRf Can we assume that you don’t think your job is part of the bloat?
I agree 100% with the OP.
Everyone who works here can immediately think of at least 2 or 3 processes that are ridiculously inefficient because useless teams trying to justify their existence inserted themselves into it.
The layers and layers of pointless bureaucracy are absolutely k–ling wells.
Spans and layers is the best thing I have seen in a long time to cut through all that bloat
The best idea posted so far is the one about cutting all employees that have been in the same position for 10+ years.
By the time it gets to that point, the job is all about the employee. The scales of balance are 90% employee, 10% company.
Replacing the dinosaur with someone new will be less expensive and will come with outside ideas and perspective that simply can't exist with someone in the same job for a decade or more.
Post ID: @lnc+18pJ7GRf
Well I aim to communicate without insulting people, so that puts me way ahead of you. It is not a terrible and pointless analogy. It was meant to point out that the question asked of me is an oversimplification of highly complicated and layered institutional issues that exist at Wells Fargo.
“That’s like saying America’s problems are because we have too many people, so the solution is to kick out 25% of the population.”
That’s an absolute terrible and completely pointless analogy. You really have no clue what you are talking about.
Sounds like the direct manager has been here for many years and is likely the source of the issues, so cut that one. Get rid of 30% of the staff as they don’t seem to be getting the hint that ‘no overtime’ doesn’t mean don’t work extra hours - it means you don’t put those on your timesheet.
Most people agree with WFC employees being cut, as long as it’s not themselves. Everyone points their finger elsewhere as being “the problem.”
We have some employees on our floor who are not what you would call “star performers”. But they aren’t being paid well or treated with any respect. And they are part of an entry-level group who were hired to be interchangeable, so they keep getting moved from job to job and never get to master any one job. And they are part of a department that has been split between 2 US cities and India. And the technology is terrible so they are backed up with manual work-arounds. And they’ve been told no overtime, so they have to leave whether the work is done or not. And they work for a manager who has been burned too many times for speaking out about bad decisions coming from upstairs, yet he works 60-70 hours per week. (All the problems this manager warned about have come to fruition.) And that same manager can’t get technology fixed because it’s not in the budget. And that good manager reports to a more senior level manager who doesn’t know a thing about what we do, but has the right pedigree and has been able to glad-hand his way in to his position. And the pedigreed senior manager reports to a Senior Managing Director who only cares about D&I, cost-cutting, annual giving campaigns (all the buzz worthy issues ) and doesn’t want to hear about the problems.
So! Who do you lay-off in that chain of complicated bs?
they need to leave some of these locations, and cut eveyone there who has been in same job over 10 years there. Get fresh minds and new ideas.
Right now the company is really in last place.
Post ID: @kvs+18pJ7GRf I don’t think it’s that simple. That’s like saying America’s problems are because we have too many people, so the solution is to kick out 25% of the population.
We have a lot of employees due to all the manual work-arounds required to shore up the outdated ineffective technology. I don’t think you can start laying off the people who are doing the work before you fix the technology. Wells Fargo is already a house with structural flaws built on a shaky foundation. I don’t think you should weaken the foundation further until you fix the structural flaws.
Why do id–ts keep parroting this garbage?
A simple Google search shows JPM and with 257k employees.
“A fish rots from the head down.” I agree that it all starts from the top. None of the bank’s major issues started because we have too many employees.
The “Eight is Great” scandal didn’t occur because we have too many employees: It started and continued because we had greedy and arrogant leaders trying to jack the stock price up in order to personally benefit from their stock options. Wells Fargo executives knew of the illicit sales practices and allowed it to go on for years.
Our regulatory problems aren’t because we have too many employees. They are because of insufficient technology, and leaders “looking the other way” to keep the money machine profitable. It is still occurring today.
Our current cost cutting goal is $10 billlion. Tim Sloan spent $42 billion in company stock buybacks in one year. Did having too many employees lead to that corporate waste of resources?
Nor did Wells Fargo having too many employees lead to the $1 billion spent to settle auto-loan issues and mortgage practices. I could keep going for hours. It all flowed down from the top. And the top stalled and glazed over and passed off responsibility at every turn.
They are throwing out the essential to retain the superfluous. And anyone who doesn’t understand that doesn’t understand Wells Fargo. Or they are the superfluous.
Simple question, do you believe then that wells employs an optimal amount of people? That no-one should be let go?
@bnx brings up an interesting point I never thought about. I never met my regional RSA before but I do know they exist. Funny thing is, I checked emails and found their monthly “newsletter” that I always ignore. Thinking really hard, I do remember one RSA from over year ago I thought quit but she’s apparently still around. Maybe will be an RSA because they have it easy, it beats waking up at 5:30am to get to the bank by 8:30am to only have like 3 minutes to down my coffee.
Roles, like the regional service advisors, (RSA) need to get chopped. This role is the an “Office Space” role where the RSA takes in corporate objectives and “hands” it to branch management. In this instance, their role could be substituted with an email or a video. To add more salt in this wound, the 4 RSA’s I know in my region rarely show up at my branch and, when they do, they immediately leave in a 2-hr coffee run or a 5-hr lunch, and they NEVER show up in the office before 11am, if they even who you at all. The shocker in all of this, the RSA’s end up using email to deliver corporate messaging and ends their emails with a call to action requesting feedback.
While the focus is on middle management and “spans and layers” optimization, there are roles or people here that are drags on work efficiency and taking advantage of WF’s disorganization.
Start at both level and above cut 60% of them now. Do it publically and proudly. Then you will get peoples attention
yea they should cut most of tech dept, most are secretaries only
yea they need to cut 100k, not 80k; not sure why the ceo is taking so long. Most jobs here dont do anything
Eliminations are being made and not the right jobs being eliminated. There are still layers and layers of management and “special project” people with absolutely nothing to do for the past 10 months (and quite honestly longer). Staff reductions are being made in branch personnel with an already lean number to open the doors. But daily conference calls are being conducted by district managers and other “partners” discussing the same topics as each other so they feel they have a purpose. The only purpose these activities serve is to keep more overworked branch employees who have been risking their health and lives helping customers from doing precisely that... helping customers! Wells Fargo... wake up and start cutting the higher paid non essential jobs and you will truly make an impact on the company! District managers with only 10 branches??? An effective DM should be capable of covering 25 branches easily. Think of the money that would save!!
Don’t believe this OP for a second. OP has bought “the company line”, and doesn’t know or understand the inner workings of the company. Leadership is the root cause of the organization’s failure. And this leadership team appears to be just as bloated, self-interested, overcompensated and out-of-touch as in the past. Maybe worse.
Wells Fargo will be just as inefficient, ineffective and sluggish with 200,000 employees as they are today. The bureaucracy starts at the top with faulty priorities, shifting priorities, pet projects, arrogance, and no executive wanting to invest the big money on technology during their watch.
Wells Fargo is smoke and mirrors, more interested in disguising or drawing attention away from its problems than actually digging in and fixing them at their core.
The problems will not be solved by cutting your job. Wells Fargo will happily misspend your previous salary by paying the senior execs more, falsely elevating the stock price through company stock buyback programs, fake PR and commercials, poorly planned failed projects, overpaying ineffective vendors, and paying off all future lawsuits and regulatory fines.
You don’t have any say one way or the other, but don’t believe those who hope to mislead you for their own benefit.