Does anyone know the long term plans for Tailored Branch Support? Will it also be outsourced at some point or will it be a long-term position at EJ?
9 replies (most recent on top)
@gb You're thinking about this as someone close to the work and the services, who sees mistakes, flaws, issues, inefficiencies, and cares about them. It's unlikely that even your direct leader truly understands these the on the same level you do; let alone a leader above above, two above, all the way to the MP. It's like a game of telephone, where every step up is a step further away from reality.
At the end of the day, it doesn't matter if it actually saves money... only that it's their goal. Those who make the decisions are being sold solutions based on their priorities: profits, then metrics. In one ear is a trained salesman playing the game, saying what they know their mark wants to hear, with a little sweet talk, and ultimately selling their solutions. In the other ear is the quieter voice of directors, GPs, DLs, and others far disconnected from the work. Not to mention, everyone knows personal success stems far more from making everyone above you happy than actual improvement. Sometimes by coincidence, actual improvement is a way to make them happy, at least.
The people at the top will never speak to you, me, or anyone in the positions we think "matter". We're one of the thousands of nameless, faceless, low-level employees. If you're not just a step or two beneath them, you do not matter. Who are we, to them? Why does our opinion matter? How could we possibly know what's going to make them the most profit?
Truth be told, we don't know what's going to make them the most profit - even if we think we do, we really don't. We are in fact, too low to truly understand the position they're in, and we focus way too much on things that don't matter to them - service, quality, our fellow associates? That's not maximum profit thinking. That doesn't help me and my bottom line. Our voices don't matter because they know that. The salesmens voices are far, far louder than ours or even our leaders.
Of course, whether or not all of this actually saves money and increases profits will matter eventually... But to who? ELT just has to get their bag and get out, it becomes someone else's problem. The lies and promises of the salesmen will eventually be realized, but how long until that happens? Long after you, me, and everyone else they'd sold replacements for have already been let go, my friend.
@gb Agree. I think F2 is correct in the "mindset" that ELT has and the flawed playbook they are using. Essentially, this is a band-aid solution to an artery cut though. While on one hand they may save money and give the illusion that everything is "fine" they are still bleeding out as a company because now the culture is completely shot. All our good talent that wants to be paid is going to walk away. We can only keep this house of cards going for so long where quality takes a back seat to cheap quantity. All while we pretend the higher ups deserve 20-30 million a year and our business model is failing to bring in new AUM. So, it's one of.2 reasons why they are doing this. 1.) They are stupid as he-l and have no long term plan, and will continue to bleed this place dry until they jump ship. Or 2.) We have to slash and burn our costs down in order to go public or merge.
f2 I hear what a you’re saying, but is anyone considering how many mistakes are being made by the offshore people? The branch teams have to call in because something was not done right the first time, a service associate has to answer the call, research what happened, send a form message to ops team to research it further, ops needs to correct it. Not sure how much the company is saving doing this. I’m in Service and deal with this all the time, everyday.
Let's look at this with high level facts here, spoken generally with no specific information, and use it as a basis of whether or not you are "at risk":
The firm is not just considering, but already offshoring.
The firm is looking for opportunities to increase profits; the methods to achieve this goal is irrelevant at the upper levels.
The most expensive resource in almost any operation is labor.
The Service division is, by nature, internal services which do not directly generate income.
If you can't generate more revenue, you can increase profits by reducing expenses.
Support, Service, Operation, and QA roles absolutely can be considered "skilled labor", but only if they are designed this way, and this only matters if those who make decisions see this way, and that only matters if the focus is quality over quantity.
The firm has repeatedly proven its value of quantity over quality.
These divisions reliance and focus on documentation even if not comprehensive builds an image that "anyone" can be onboarded and brought to "standard" quickly.
If onboarding to "standard" level is quick, tenure is irrelevant, and high turnover becomes much more acceptable.
When all labor is considered "equal" in short time, high turnover is acceptable, and the focus is quantity over quality; you look for the cheapest labor.
Direct hires cost the most money due to benefits, and are the least disposable due to rules, regulations, and appearances, even in an at-will state.
Contractors cost less and are much more disposable. As well, you are offloading much of the hiring duties to the contracting agency reducing your labor costs even more.
Support, Service, Operation, and QA roles, are ALL perfectly achievable remotely.
Overseas contractors are the most disposable, and considerably cheaper - so much so, you can hire multiple in place of a single direct-hire. Even a 3:1 ratio is still generally cheaper (estimates are around 25-40% over a single direct-hire). Even more hiring duties are offloaded to the agency. More people means turnover matters even less. Less-skilled work also means turnover matters less.
At a 3:1 ratio you can increase coverage for the cost from 8 hours to 24 hours, or have 3x as many resources during those 8 hours, both of which address the quantity focus. You can tune this ratio to achieve a perceived balance of quality vs. quantity, even if said "quality" is achieved via reduced wait times, ticket response times, and not the quality of the service itself - something I'm sure we all understand will be worse, but worthwhile to achieve those profits. Assume high-level leadership does not recognize it will be worse and this point is even stronger.
Leadership in all departments, the higher up you go, care more and more about metrics; in many cases, almost exclusively. The only metric that applies to quality are "revew-score" types. Every other metric focuses on quantity; Number of calls, number of tickets, number of stories, call wait times, ticket response times, mean time to resolve, story lifecycle, etc. You may have noticed offshores tend to close tickets much faster than on-shore, or are much faster to open a ticket and get you off the phone; this is playing the metrics even further.
Put it all together, in the context of how a higher-up making a decision would see it:
Your goal is increase profits, not necessarily revenue.
Service/Operation/Support/QA jobs are low-skill, quick-to-learn, and are only expenses.
These divisions make metrics priority #1, focusing almost exclusively on quantity-based metrics.
You can get 3 offshore contractors for less than 1 direct hire and all labor is equal.
3x the people means 3x the speed and quantity; the metrics will be better.
End result:
Expenses are reduced, therefore profits go up.
Metrics are improved, therefore service is "better".
If you believe your role can be offshored to save money, look at it with the above details in mind - what argument can you make in favor of keeping someone such as yourself when the primary goal is and always will be profits first and foremost?
All of this said I absolutely hate that this is how it is.
TBS will be unwound by 2030 with resources going to EJC. The BOA role will transition to RBA. CST cuts are baked in the ‘26-‘28 plan.
@ba Why would outsource service to us based contractor? Are we that effing cheap to where we cant just hire quality service peeps and pay them? Oh wait, we are all about cheap labor costs now to afford pennys 30 million salary
@OP Yes, a portion of Tailored Branch support (short term support only, which is CCS and TBSO) will be outsourced to a US based contractor firm this year.
@OP , I thought I read on Amplify recently about TBS. I do know the pay grade is horrible for what the position entails.
@OP Not in that area but would be surprised if that area is impacted. No clear direction or transparency.