All remaining FRAs will either be laid off or pushed into commissioned roles with an immediate 50% salary reduction starting July 1.
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The FRA program is good in concept, but difficult to execute. The purpose was to service accounts that the FAs ignored or those WFA wanted FAs to ignore to focus on bigger clients. The tricky part was where does an FRA progress to. Also the FRAs were meant for those that couldn't necessarily prospect, but were great client relationship people. One of the big issues too was that DK went hog wild and wanted to hire 1,000 of them, when that just wasn't realistic.
Good, the FRA was a failed, contrived venture initiated by clueless id--ts who had not enough sense to get out of a rain shower. Many of these id--ts were in St. Louis. Now many of them are being shown the door. They would have done better selling Tupperware or MaryK.
And we wonder why Charlie is systematically dismantling our failed institution…..
FRA here. The program being canceled is a blessing in disguise for all involved.
The FRA “program” was always a joke with no end game. We all saw the writing on the wall when they laid off 40% of us last year and gave those clients to the remaining 60%. Almost double the work with no branch/CA support. It became a service role with a dash of “financial advice” based on the firm’s flavor of the month (advisory, credit lines, etc).
They made it near impossible to move up in the company because we were all branded as trainees that were literally discouraged from prospecting. They got rid of “sales goals” but showed us quarterly sales rankings that were used to decide our bonuses.
They wouldn’t allow us to buy books from senior advisors. We were paid hourly so they made us attend nonsense meetings so they could say they were well attended. The list goes on and on.
They should have never misled us to believe that this program could result in a career if we worked hard.
The FRA program seemed like a poor idea from the beginning. WFC started losing FAs after the 2016 scandals and was watching their FA numbers drop like a rock. Recruiting from other firms proved difficult with our damaged reputation. WFC never wanted to come out and say our FA’s were leaving in droves, so they looked at ways to beef up the numbers.
The FRA is a salaried-based FA, who is given emerging affluent ($75k-250k) relationships from other FAs in the branch. The FRAs were bright and dedicated, but new. Customers, who had relationships with their original FA, didn’t like the idea of being handed over (passed off) to someone who was inexperienced. And many FA’s were not happy about being forced to give up accounts they had good relationships with.
It doesn’t hurt to try something new, but it shows how out of touch WFC is with their customers and their FAs. And the FRAs ended up getting burned in the end.
Most likely is like new FAs. For a short period of time they work with a base salary and commission then that base salary goes away when it is sink or swim time.
Which is it, a 50% pay cut or a commission gig? Can't really be both because you could make a lot of $ on commissions. Are you saying their base pay will be reduced but they'll be able to earn commissions now? For good sales people that could wind up being a pay increase...
No moral hazard. Everyone has to take UUDP training this quarter. Everyone will do the right thing for their clients after seeing their income slashed in half.
It would seem like pushing FRAs into a commissioned role would be providing more of an incentive to sell stuff people don’t need, sort of a moral hazard of getting back into the situation that got us into the mess we’re in today. Am I missing something?
Not kind of, they are salaried FA’s.
FRA = Financial Relationship Advisor
From what I understand, they are kind of like salaried FAs
What is FRA?