Thread regarding USAA layoffs

First alot of executive management at USAA and they need to collapse the management tiers. Second sell the bank, yes it would hurt but this is where a lot of the problems are with compliance.

Eliminate RTE positions. "See? Nothing of value was lost." Then the scrum masters might be scared into doing something useful for a change.

@2rqa+1opC94oU
Great point, let’s hire no veterans from now on. Sure, being pro veteran and having them represented in the workforce worked great for the past 100 years, but let’s stop doing it because you think you have special skills from your liberal arts degree such that you can handle the call center.

Yes, people need to be qualified for the role and not all military experience transfers well to all USAA roles. But your sweeping statement of ignorance about the folks we outsource away is exactly the kind of mentality ki-ling this company. Some outsourcing is okay, use of H1B when you can’t find qualified candidates is also good, but balance is essential, and anti-military folks like you are trying to ruin the golden goose of this company. How can people be so blind? Or is it just greed?

Hire Dr Gleb Tsipursky to consult me on the new way of working before I run off my best employees.

Mandate that all Executives, if physically able, attend Zero Day PT at first opportunity.

Raise executive pay, and eliminate the ludicrous bonuses. I'm fine with an exec having a bonus of 20-30% of their salary, even if the salary is a half million dollars. We need an executive corps that makes decisions for the long term and not to meet some arbitrary scorecard number that will probably be different next year. And make employee satisfaction (not retention) part of the scoring for exec bonuses.

Abandon the RTO plan for something rational. If you were hired to be remote, you stay remote. If you were remote because of COVID, we'll see you 2 or 3 days a week. New jobs are listed as hybrid unless the person getting the job is already remote.

Close the regional offices. Bite the bullet and move employees to San Antonio or offer 100% remote work. They are probably doing most of their work on Zoom calls with remote employees and the Home Office anyway.

"I will start looking for another bank if USAA starts outsourcing to India in any capacity or if the new Chief Information Officer continues to hire H1-B over prior military or American talent."

Get over yourself.

There isn't enough qualified vets to fill the positions that H1B visa holders have at USAA. In general, the vet population is not a good fit for jobs at a bank, outside of MSR or a few customer service roles. Since my retirement a few years back I've been contacted by many senior NCOs and Officers looking to join USAA and very few have a skill set that I can match to anything at USAA.

Stop hiring more and more new executives that don’t seem necessary, IMO.
Walk the talk, as it pertains to mission and core values. (Mean it and live it, or you lose all credibility…And so do the execs, closer to the people, that mimic your behavior.)
In this case, I would actually hire consultants to mend morale, similar to the “Going Above,” program, an investment in culture, made by Joe Robles after the Bob Davis era.
Plan ahead for CATs and large storms. These have been the new norm for a long time now. C’mon.
Yes to innovation and new products!
Reduce expenses, not by seemingly random layoffs, but by swarming around process improvements that eliminates waste. Then, use these efficiency gains to handle the problems/needs required to improve member sat.
Management training with the rigor it once had.

If I had the money of a CEO I would retire. I’d take my golden parachute, and live the rest of my life with my family in some remote area away from all this. You only die once, but you live every day until that day. Make the most of it.

Outsourcing is good and saves money for all and it’s just unavoidable in the world
Economy. If other countries want to buy our F-16’s for billions of dollars we too end up outsourcing our services needs. Any reasonable business owner knows the benefits of “cost arbitrage “ from outsourcing and it will only increase, so stay braced for it and fighting it is of
No use.
Unlike what was posted previously, I do not think Members will leave because USAA is outsourcing its MSR services, they would in fact love it when their needs are responded in a low cost timely way. Bank of America has its call center in Philippines and the service we get is wonderful. American Express has call centers in India and the services are way superior to what we used to get from US call centers. Equating outsourcing to low quality is a dated concept and get over such prejudice.
As long as we keep creating more conflict around the world and have a good demand for our arms and ammunition we will have a great economy. The cost of our military will also be paid by foreign governments. Eventually our military stays employed and our businesses stay viable. That is the truth we cannot ignore.

WP is doing a good job firing executives who do not produce significant outcomes. The problem is the new executives who recruit their buddies from their ex-orgs at inflated levels ignoring the talent inside the org. As long as WP has an aggressive exec firing pattern he is doing a good job. He needs to fire more execs sooner and hold them accountable.
The real problem is the org structure where good first line people managers who are not needed and they try to spoil the work environment in the process of creating a reason for their existence. They could either take meaningful individual contribution roles in addition to people management or leave. The so called gearing ratio of people managed by each people manage to justify their presence is unaffordable and not necessary.

If there was competent leadership at the top, we could have a thoughtful approach to outsourcing. Specialized resources that are challenging to find at effective costs could be outsourced with guided vendor oversight. H1B is fine, but should similarly any call center may need training or hiring restrictions that ensure comprehension is strong and accents can be reduced so that our members don’t struggle to understand (not saying American English has no accent, but, for example , some regional Indian accents will be difficult for our Member base to understand. you have to make sure the communication with members is smooth).

For those complaining H1B are stealing your jobs, you know the employer has to prove there aren’t enough qualified citizen applicants, right? I’m not saying that perfectly implemented, but H1B folks from countries like china and India face a ton of adversity in hiring even though they work their as--s off. Save your anger for our broken immigration system’s acceptance of illegal migrants.

We have no pity for the folks who go through the system legally and are very intelligent, but then rush work visas for an unreasonably high wave of folks entering the country illegally with expensive smart phones?

I’m not an H1B worker, I just feel that folks have such a twisted view on good and bad immigration, which is part of why our country can’t create a system worth sh-t. This outsourcing logic is being implemented by moerons on either side who don’t have any more common sense than our politicians.

@1kaq+1opC94oU USAA has been outsourcing to India and Mexico for well over a decade or two for certain roles (usually technical, internal help desk for employees, etc.). The proportion of full time employees (FTE) to third party (3P) swings like a pendulum.

One leader notices that we can cut costs by increasing the number of 3P, which reduces expenses but causes issues like poor quality work. The next leader comes along and decides to cut 3P because they aren't performing well or for some other reason, thereby improving the quality of work but increasing expenses. Next leader comes along and notices that we can cut costs by increasing the number of 3P, and the cycle repeats itself.

My point in saying this: If you're going to leave if USAA outsources to India, you should have left a long, long time ago.

I highly doubt that USAA would ever outsource its member-facing call centers to other countries though. If they do, that will seal the deal for me that USAA is dead. There's no coming back from that in my opinion.

Just this week I spent over 4+ hours on the phone with different Chase reps in India because none of them could comprehend what my issue was due to their poor English skills. Even the supervisor could barely understand. As of now, I've just stopped using my USAA bank account/credit card, but if they ever outsourced to India, I would actively close every single account I have with them, my credit score be damned.

That behemoth of a main campus ain't going nowhere. It is too large to sell to anyone except maybe the U.S. government. So continue to trim the fat of employees that should have been let go a long time ago. Close the satellite offices (Phoenix, Tampa, Colorado Springs, etc.) and bring the best of the best of those employees back to San Antonio. There needs to be more centralization of work functions. The bank is a mess but a moneymaker. Swallow your pride and bring back David Bohne (former USAA bank president and current CEO of Broadway Bank).

He got a bigger bonus because of the stuff he is doing unfortunately. He is doing what the board is asking for. The company needs to cut costs and layoffs are needed. There is a lot more behind RTO than what is being shared. Everyone is doing it. Companies have so many tax incentives set up when taking on these big buildings and so on. The local economies are dependent upon it.

HOWEVER—his approach and dishonesty is a huge problem and based on that I agree, he should go. Morale isn’t going to get better until he is gone. I am guessing he will get the costs down where they need to be and then given a nice golden retirement.

I am a veteran and member of USAA for about 20 years. I will start looking for another bank if USAA starts outsourcing to India in any capacity or if the new Chief Information Officer continues to hire H1-B over prior military or American talent. I don't want my money wasted on foreigners that disrespectful the U.S. and the military community and I will point out USAA new hiring practice to my fellow vets

https://h1bgrader.com/h1b-sponsors/usaa-federal-savings-bank-em2mx8z401#employer-h1b-lcas

With the company on pace to lose more this year than last, change needs to happen now. When news broke that USAA suffered its first loss in company history, a true CEO would’ve declined their bonus and pay raise. Wayne giving himself a 157% pay raise, while accepting his bonus, took major stones, and was a big F U to everyone.

RTO: The bullshhh about improving morale by bringing everyone together and being there for the members, was just that, bull shhhh! Had he just come out and say, “we’re wasting money with having the buildings empty, and the San Antonio Mayor is pressuring me to get employees back in because it’s affecting businesses in the i-10 area (restaurants/bars/fast food, etc).” But no, we get fed with getting our culture back cr@p.

@1jhd+1opC94oU

Most insurance companies experienced losses in this period of inflation, and many were burned by over-investing in bonds without sufficient consideration/hedging for interest rate risk.

Finding the biggest losses and fixing them is good, especially if you do more than band-aid and actually drive at root causes. However, there will be more problems... it's a business. You need strong, ongoing leadership and a well-run business to achieve success, not just stopgap measures like layoffs (though obviously layoffs can be required when no other option is available, it's just bad because our losses seem avoidable if we had better leadership, USAA has weathered economic swings before).

Zero in on where the biggest losses are occurring and where the assets are invested. This is why insurance premiums were raised. It stinks but had to happen. Even Wayne’s undeserved bonus is chump change compared to the insurance losses they didn’t factor in

@smg+1opC94oU
Respectfully disagree with a lot of those points.

1. Cutting executive bonuses while keeping them in will just pi-s them off. we need better executives who can earn bonuses in exchange for saving the company.

2. Consultants are useless unless guided by someone with clear vision. "call the consultants" fails frequently.

3. If you want to keep the large bank, you'll have to keep the red tape. Make it more efficient and effective? for sure. but you will lose a political battle with the regulators. we have to evolve to operate in that environment and/or divest the bank like we did with investments.

4. You're not wrong, but the other problem here is that IT is WAY too decentralized, which also makes it very challenging to implement general IT controls. managers have too much power to sign technology system contracts, and technology divisions don't want to/aren't allowed to be given the authority to drive a vision of cost-effective systems that can, for example, be integrated into powerful, shared, and reliable databases that could drive actionable reporting across the business. this is a painful process, and it will fail if we just try to "update" all the software without a collective strategy. MANY businesses waste enormous amounts of money on these repeated cycles. Where's the change management?

5 & 6: Correct

7: I don't necessarily disagree, but hybrid isn't such a bad thing when everyone agrees to it. Also the commercial real estate market isn't that great, so I'm not sure whether selling should be a priority. Maybe you know more about the market than I do or are estimating a higher amount of WFH.

@ndi+1opC94oU
*proud cuts = products

Tough position to be in but here goes...

1. Suspend executive bonuses. Not permanently but until the company gets back on its feet again.

2. There is a ton of top heavy dead wood in this company. Start by offering early retirement. Then bring in impartial 3rd party consultants to review the current state. It can't be anyone they have existing business relationships with, otherwise nothing happens.

3. Thorough business process review. Tons of red tape from the consent order days. Even the simplest task takes months or years in this place. Cut where you can.

4. IT technology stack is ancient. Systems are constantly breaking. The architects have built a series of Rube Goldberg machines (overly complex systems to do ridiculously simple tasks). It seems there is this culture of make everything as complex as possible, as if it were some badge of honor. It isn't. When they implement new systems it is simply a copy of the old system that is broken, sitting on top of new technology. It's still broken. Fix it.

5. Peacock and Amala have to go. They have lost the confidence of the executives and the line level employees. They cannot lead. They were brought in to cut costs. They've done that. Now it's time to bring in leaders that have a true vision for where the company needs to go over the next 5, 10, 20 years.

6. Relax the RTO mandate. All it has done is drive away good talent towards competitors that have flexible work arrangements. The draconian approach has backfired in a huge way and morale is at an all time low.

7. Start getting rid of some of the real estate. Sell it or sub lease it but get out from under it. The future of office work is flexibility, not massive white elephant buildings that cost a fortune to build and maintain all the while sitting half empty. Get with the times.

1. Wayne should resign, he’s not the man for the job, regardless of what advice anyone gives. Likely some members of the Board

should also resign, and we need to find a way to get members more actively involved in Board selection, since many aren’t even aware that they have the most power, collectively, to save USAA.

2. Foregoing bonuses doesn’t do enough to fix any problem, though it does improve morale and creates a “we’re in this together” feel. Increasing revenue and maintaining long term members and their families, on the other hand, is key. And be very cautious about how quickly you raise prices or drop products and benefits that members care about.
3. Pamper anyone customer-facing who performs well by USAA member expectations, and hold any third parties heavily accountable for carefully monitored performance.
4. Spend to get extremely intelligent “boots on the ground” employees across the business to combat fraud losses and make sure the AML mess from last year is taken care of. Cross train them in other areas in advance so you don’t have to lay them off later.
5. Overhaul of metrics and incentives. They need to be carefully designed and monitored so leaders’ interests and bonuses are aligned by what’s best for members and employees. There should be an understanding of how leaders try to game the system and active involvement to punish or remove toxic leaders. This is again why Wayne and bad members of the Board need to be kicked out, they don’t have the morality or intelligence to guide this correctly.
6. Do a better job of closely tracking member satisfaction, loss of members from proud cuts, and complaints monitoring to ensure we aren’t losing good customers.

Obviously that’s pretty vague, but unlikely anyone will do this anytime soon, so who cares.

First off, i would have made changes a year in advance. Proactive vs being reactive! Secondly, at least be a little more compassionate when communicating business needs RTO, etc. honesty goes a long way opposed to being condescending! Thinking you’re employees aren’t intelligent enough to see through the lies doesnt create trust.

There is no short term fix. USAA is very top heavy. Thinning the executive levels would cut costs the quickest especially since most are not doing a good job. They are a big part of the problem. Rather than focusing on what matters and focusing on short, mid and long term the execs are only focused on short term and lining their pockets. The right things to do: get the right people in the right jobs who work smarter not harder, focus on a solid infrastructure including good solid systems that help people do their jobs not make it worse, management who know how to manage and care for their teams, reducing redundant work, if it’s not important work but put in to please the regulators remove or reduce that work (probably overdid what was needed or expected). Get back to the basics and what worked: focus on member, team members and providing a good yet profitable product. Customer service will work out if team members are treated well and have a good product to sell and systems to help them do that. All those execs brought in don’t care about the members, the employees or the company so they won’t do anything to fix it. Incentivize them only when they put those three things before themselves. Then you have a better chance to succeed. Needs to start and end at the top. So USAA needs to start by getting rid of the top layers and work their way down and fix all the problems along the way.

The first thing he should do is resign.