Thread regarding Wells Fargo & Co. layoffs

I think Wells owns the St. Louis office monstrosity - it’s a nightmarishly large complex in a very unsafe area of town. Not sure how they’ll be able to sell it or rent parts of it out.

@2oxc+1ilBzT5n

That’s not a sound business principle though, that’s an example of the sunk cost fallacy at work, something you’d think upper management at a bank would be smart enough not to fall into. Even if you’re already locked in to spending money on a lease, spending even more money to force utilization of those facilities is a bad call if it’s not creating a net benefit when all the factors of productivity/retention/revenue are compared to the additional cost.

Does WF rent the office in which you work? If so, as sure as Charlie loves walking the streets in silk pa----s, WF will do anything to get everyone back to office M-F. They will not want to poor rent money down the drain. Simple business, really.

RTO + Hotel Seating = CHAOS

@1hxs+1ilBzT5n

You're not thinking like a NYC banking executive. If you layoff large numbers of people and replace some of them with contractors and others with people in other countries, there will be plenty of room for what's left in the domestic offices in the short term. Longer term, you sell some of those domestic offices and layoff even more.

That's basically the plan of those in the ivory tower in NYC.

For what it's worth, I have Covid right now. No way I could come into the office. But I am able to get my work done from home.

Seems to me that RTO is more than simply "returning to an office". There's an angle of "you are a worthless peon and we are your superiors so you have to do what we say because we say so, whether it makes any sense or not".

@1hxs+1ilBzT5n Re the (very good) seating question, I apologize, I don’t know.

I look forward to RTO
cause I won't...
And when I am finally let go...
All the information they don't know...
Cause it is old information not in the 3 year databases...that get deleted...
It will take at least 2 + years to learn or know 10% of what I do that is lost ..
Good luck

@bgu+1ilBzT5n

How would 5 days in the office work, given the unassigned seating, there is not enough seats to accommodate all employees in the office at the same time.

@tqr+1ilBzT5n

I’m not sure I buy the whole “RTO is for forced attrition” angle anymore. Because other banks that presumably are already at the revenue/payroll ratio we’re supposedly trying to get to are largely in 3 days a week as well. I think it’s more the “save the commercial real estate industry” angle people have discussed, with a smattering of group-think among all the banking C-Suites that are largely old-fashioned and have a tendency to constantly follow each-other’s lead.

As a whole, upper management is seriously considering full 5 days/week RTO. There’s a small faction that favors the status quo and a tiny but vocal minority advocating more flexibility to work remote (the latter mostly in lower rungs of upper management and citing serious concerns about attrition). Nothing is set in stone yet, but you can expect a decision within the next 5 weeks or so. That decision will most likely be full RTO. I cannot elaborate further, but I’m privy to information from far above my pay grade due to a very specific task I perform for the company.

There were a bunch of lob's that did not have to rto like everyone else did back in March and April, 3 days a week. Thery got extensions until September, so after Labor Day you will see an increase in traffic at most buildings. I go to the office 3 days a week, do I love it, no. But I like getting out of the house, and I work on a floor where there are very few people. I would not want to rto if I had to deal with neighborhood seating. Lots of people came back and found that they no longer have a desk and many were pi---d. Most of those people wfh now, coming in maybe 2 days a weel max

I work in another banking institution, and we are required to be in the office at least three days a week. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard an employee being out because they had Covid. I agree with lla+1ilBzT5n, that it should be an option to either wfo or the office. I'm not comfortable being forced in under the circumstances.

COVID breakouts are still happening in a few of the largee sites, even with them basically being ghost towns, (imagine a 25% or more occupancy in the stuffy Minneapolis site?). So it's definitely a factor. They really just want RTO to drive attrition without layoffs/severance and to punish groups performing poorly that they cannot quite completely replace EGS with.

I’m a Director in one of the business groups. I can tell you that 5 days in the office is in play, although I don’t think a formal decision one way or the other has been made yet. You’ll note that other posters have also mentioned it, with even one saying a mock-up email welcoming employees back to the office has been created. The number of people leaving the company is now an op risk, so should be interesting to see how sr leaders deal with a potential 5 days back in. Personally, it should be up to each employee where he/she wants to work. Office, fine, WFH, fine - people are adults and as long as the work is getting done, who cares

its about many things including the commercial RE Market where giant banks have a lot at stake if we all RTO.. Empty office buildings are seen as a huge loss not only to WF, but also the cities that rely on the 8-5 commerce that supports a vibrant downtown.

Since Wells is, by and large, making their workforce take a pay cut in real dollar terms, the least they could do is provide a RTO option where it makes sense. Employees could at least partially offset their pay cut with reduced commuter costs.

"Someone commented in another post that there is no longer a Covid danger" Lol if it was posted on an anonymous forum in broken English, it has to be true

Working in the office has opened my eyes to the slave farm in which we exist. At least allow us to be slaves from home dear WF overlords.