Thread regarding Charles Schwab Corp. layoffs

I agree with most of these posts. I also agree that there seems to be more critical thinking in this post versus our EC over the last year or two. I am also a Schwab veteran and it really was a good company while Chuck ran it. When Walt took over it went downhill fast and he is driven by greed and tyranny. Chuck actually cared about the employees. I do miss those days.

I have heard from several different orgs that morale is at an all time low and leadership could care less. Don’t fool yourselves however this is all planned and intentional. The EC needs attrition as they want to avoid another layoff. The best way to get attrition? Exactly how they are treating people now. Next stop 5 days a week RTO.

To respond to the OP:
There are a couple people who have posted here that have better critical thinking skills than the EC. Seriously. The EC repeatedly demonstrates that they employ knee-jerk reactions to everything presented to them. Otherwise, the only other logical conclusion is that the internal destruction is deliberate. There is no gray area or nuance.
As others have eloquently stated: Schwab was never perfect, but it WAS a great place to work and filled with genuine, caring people. Individually, most of the people still care, but collectively and up into senior leadership, it’s a toxic, indifferent and selfish cesspool of illogical thinkers and grandstanders.
One additional point:

• RTO = FAIL
• Layoffs = FAIL
• What gets overlooked: Reorg = FAIL

As if RTO and layoffs weren’t enough to destroy morale, the reorg was the ‘icing on the cake’. I refer to it as The Trinity of Failure.

just remember you work for a large manufacturing plant where benefits of good performance are reaped by those at the top. Schwab is a place for a kid to go for a year or two and then should leave. It is very sad to see people that started at a very good company languish in the current structure. Raises that do not even closely keep up with inflation, a CEO and executive committee that continues to reward themselves handsomely for an incredibly bad performance, they damaged a lot of lives while you have chance you should consider a better place of employment

I read somewhere that Walt Bettinger’s salary is 300 times that of the average schwab employee. It brings a biblical phrase to my mind about a camel trying to get through the eye of a needle.

Chuck Schwab should be embarrassed but he’s too old to really even care I’m sure his firm is a cesspool

I saw a picture of some of their senior executives walking around office floors with wagons filled with candy what a silly attempt to pacify a very unhappy group of people.
they will all put on fake smiles, and pretend that they are happy when these clowns walk by but I’m sure they know the truth. They are not respected in the least bit

Walt should take zero bonus, zero salary raise and pay it to his people. He is worth probably over $100 million but as we know from the old saying “Greed is a bottomless pit“. someday when he passes, he will certainly find out what the bottom of that pit is filled with fire and brimstone.

He and his executive team have hurt a lot of really good people by actions, customers employeesand their families shareholders it’s a disgrace.

I think you misunderstand. This is understandable as confusion is deliberate.

The layoffs covered four objectives. Show the street we were embarrassed by poor bond management, remove high cost labor including older workers and those with medical issues as we self insure, reduce headcount as we over hired and provide an opportunity for managers to prune anyone they didn’t like. This isn’t new or news. We did it before. We will do it again. You can substitute bonds for inter rates or bad M&A or whatever.

The layoffs and RTO also serve to measure control over labor. It’s buy-in. No different from a church. If you are afraid for your job you will fall in line. If we demand you come in and you do we have evidence that you’re whipped. Willing to share a cubicle? Better. Willing to accept a small raise? Bullying? Meager bonus?

The stock price isn’t as important as showing TD was a good deal. And paying off surprise debt. We won’t see layoff savings for quarters and even then the drag on productivity makes it a loser. Attrition is better. But we are still humoring ourselves and bleeding out on capital IT and delayed projects. Remember when we were going to be all cloud? Or have branches driving advice? Or see robo dominate?

The su-kiness is systemic and deliberate. It isn’t financial. We could hit $200 and people would still be miserable. And that’s the goal. It’s an abusive marriage.

Breathe. Realize that you think the goal is a strong growing company. It isn’t.

Near term it is pay debt, automate, get rid of more labor, go to five day RTO and start tackling years of deferred work. Beyond that I believe the company has no solid plan. They’ll fall further into too big to fail and scramble for boomer assets with everyone else. It will take a major change to get to healthy. Rick is the opposite.

@1iit+1rF9njtG - lolololol — "Not sure what’s so difficult to understand. Walt and Peter did explain it clearly on at least a couple occasions. And it was covered in the press." LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

Seriously — "it's all fed's fault" is what you are hanging your hat on? Because they "clearly" explained that (shhhh without mentioning the bond debacle )— why pray tell are other firms not f'd by the fed as much as Schwab per Walt and Peter? "Win-win monetization" or some other sh*t line? "Let's confuse with a bunch of weird fuzzy corporate lingo that means nothing." LOLOL. The press is owned by the companies that own Schwab and other financial firms so yeah, there's that too. They are not journalists, they are marketeers.

Just my observation - all of the cuts are offset by the huge expense of RTO and severance payouts so they are not feeling the benefits of the stated expense reduction. It will be interesting to find out what the EC's proposal is for their comp this year and if the Board approves.

This firm has been on a supposed "expense freeze" for over 2 years — can't afford professional development for employees that isn't on MyLXP, but oh well…. "Pro Day" is not new - they started it a few years ago — but they trot it out like a new benefit - it offers little to nothing outside of what you can get on MyLXP — that is not what employees are asking for, but again, performative. They don't care.

Increase engagement and you will increase productivity - listen to the employees b/c they will tell you how to do this, but IMO Schwab does not want to increase engagement to achieve the short term "cost savings" so that will not happen.

All management does is rehash the horrific engagement decline and that's it - a few performative "committees" to discuss, but nothing will be done because I do still believe they want to get down to the magic 28 - 30K number.

Does it matter that top talent are leaving? No. IMO Schwab's product is customers and the shareholders that matter are the institutional and insider investors (EC and Board). Retail investors make up less than 8% of Schwab's shareholders. Layoffs and buybacks artificially raise stock price short term to do what? Increase the profits of the institutional and insider shareholders for the most part. Particularly those who will be retiring soon. Walt is like a little kid waiting in line for the roller coaster at Disney to be able to do buy backs.

I've been at Schwab for over 10 years in different roles but I was always happy and was fortunate to have been managed by really great people. Ideas I shared were encouraged, engagement was high, and I actually did feel that I was valued as an employee.

Today? I feel that my immediate manager values me and my effort/talent, but there is not that feeling from senior leadership toward its employees - feels more like we are an annoyance to them. The job insecurity weighs on me daily — the regularity of layoffs and messaging of "oh, well, since some of you are not following the rules everyone suffers" and the managers who are there purely because they wanted an office vs. cubicle and extra comp, but didn't want to (nor have the ability) to really manage people. So, those who didn't follow the rules skate and the rest of us suffer (all you had to do is put in for fully remote at the time, but they didn't want to lose their precious f'n office). I know folks will say that was just an excuse - they planned to do this all along, but I don't know - it was pretty emotional/reactive at the time from EC. So….

Sorry for the length, just angry because I know how it used to be and believe that how bad it is right now is intentional and that is what angers me. IMO, this used to be a great place to work.

Gurufocus.com

At Td things were streamlined and smaller. It was easier to identify what was going on and why. And leadership was very upfront imo