Informed today that financial planning group of 70-80 tenured professionals or so is going to get cut. When pretty Ricky tells you they won’t cut advice jobs due to AI , do. Not. Listen.
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They haven’t been cut
@dp Wealth Advisors are next. They have already cut an entire team they were supposed to hire in WAVE and chose not to fill a handful of open spots.
Wait until the custody business drops and the lawsuits start over poaching with the “unannounced” SWA branches strategically placed to go after clients of RIA’s who custody at Schwab.
Rick and the EC will cut bonuses, slash 20%+ of the workforce, double goals of FC’s, and eliminate health insurance in lieu of a stipend to buy an Obama Care plan. After all Rick is a supporter of the Democratic Party.
AI is just an excuse to get rid of people rather than admit implosion and management failures. A heavily regulated firm relying so much on AI will have a hard time passing their audits. When management tells you there will be no job cuts due to AI - that is exactly what they are planning to do. Any time they mention "no job cuts" - that is exactly what is in the works.
So what’s happening to the department? How will clients get financial plans?
@ef post of the year right here! Unfortunately it has been going downhill since 2021 at a accelerating pace.
People do not realize that the CSF of CS was focus. Focus on being cost-efficient and provide the masses with trading services. That advantage is now chewed up by fast moving competitors. The revenues from UHNW customers can never make up for that. You need to decide what market segment you want to cater two. Trying to focus on both will fail long-term. Always has, in all industries.
@dp you are either not paying attention or don’t work in that department. They are shifting that role to develop future wealth advisors because yes, a lot of service stuff can be pushed off to service centric teams. If anything, they are trying to figure out how to grow that department as much as possible because it is a huge source of revenue and it makes a lot of sense to grow talent to fill future Wealth Advisor roles vs. spending a lot of time and resources to recruit people from the outside.
You deserve to be laid off if you are this simple.
@ef OK boomer. Welcome to the new reality. Things are not what they were 20 years ago, Schwab is behind in the AI race, and it is cutting into the margins. The UHNW segment is small compared to the rest of the market, where the competitors are swarming.
@ef Keep on dreaming. AAI is taking over!
Project Managers are next. The plan is about 45 left by YE. If you are not willing to become a PO or an RTE and take a career pay cut, LEAVE now.
Financial and/or estate planning isn't about numbers. It's understanding a family's situation and putting together a plan that meets that family's goals - most families are concerned more about how to educate the next generation about finances, how to best prioritize their goals, not just how to mitigate estate or income taxes. If Schwab is looking to attract UHNW folks? They will not be happy with AI "financial planning" especially if they are paying a fee. They want relationships. That will never change. When Chuck stated in that Town Hall when his documentary was released that his biggest regret in business was not utilizing the Amazon model? All respect and trust gone in an instant. This was a different place a decade or 2 ago. Layoffs rare and Chuck had a cash amount put away to weather financial storms to avoid layoffs. AI is not the answer for a relationship business. And they will need fees from wealth management to offset losses due to agentic cash sorting. They need to up their wealth management game and not cheapen it with "AI financial planning".
I have a feeling Associate Wealth Advisors will be next, they have been forcing more and more of their responsibilities to overworked and underpaid service reps. Ultimately, it will end with wealth advisors being more overworked than they already are and clients being more frustrated, as service reps cannot handhold things or fix the many, many issues that come from our internal teams trying to do anything. (This is only conjecture based on what I am seeing)
Offshore programming of AI or third-party analytics presented by cheap retail representation. And the Street loves it (down 15%).