Thread regarding USAA layoffs

Which COSA's are forcing people to work 80 to 100 hours per week?

@OP
You realize that USAA has more than 1 EMG, lol! So, in your view, it’s perfectly ok that the company LIED to a ton of employees (myself included), when told working remotely was permanent. In June 2021 my department, we were given 2 options; staying WFH, or switching to 2 days in office, August 2021, we were told by HR, that those who picked WFH would remain permanent and not change unless WE asked for it to change. The ONLY person that is happy right now with Wayne, is Bob Davis! Because he now knows he’s no longer the worst CEO in company history, Wayne has him beat by a long mile and it only took 3 years to accomplish that. Let’s stop blaming the prior leadership group for Wayne’s failure as CEO! He had the chance to change things for the better when he took over in Feb 2020, but all he has done is steered the Titanic right into the path of the iceberg at full steam ahead. Unlike the rest of us, he’ll jump with his golden parachute right before the collision, then blame the look-outs and everyone under him for the fatal collision. He’ll take a page right from Stuart Parker who tried to pin the blame on frontline msr’s by saying “we’re not getting it done correctly on the frontline, our msr’s need to follow procedures and do it the USAA way.”

Another thing, if we F up in our job, we do not get a 157% raise!

OP here...yeah, USAA is far from perfect and far from the best at handling things, I'm just over the constant bashing and name calling from a handful of people. Overall it's still a good company for many people. I didn't mind going back 3 days a week and I wish they would leave it at 3 and not up it to 4. But many people in many industries have it way worse; I'm just trying to add some balance. And the pay and benefits compare favorably to many of our peer companies. I'm staying because it works for me.

Come on people. Give the OP a break. Do you think EC wants to be spending their time taking shifts to write posts like that?

@hme+1nW8l3M6 — re: “Many people are working 60,80, 100 hour weeks…” — I can name a half a dozen people right now who don’t have full time work. The work they do have to do is duplicative of work other teams are doing, and/or is the kind of work that is at a level well below what the team ought to be handling (we are each making around $200k). I do work that is different from theirs, but am still only working 43-44 hours a week. I’m 16 months from retirement age and volunteered to be laid off. Several times. My AVP wouldn’t even consider it, as she’d rather continue making me miserable in an effort to get me to quit. Plus, if she admits most of her team is doing minimal work, and the work they are doing is unnecessary, her team gets laid off and she has to leave EMG and go back to being a solo contributor. Since it took her so long to play politics, su-k up, and claw her way in to an EMG job, there’s no way she’ll do THAT. I’m sure I’m not the only one in this position.

@hme+1nW8l3M6 Without identifying yourself, would you mind providing some info about your team/area? At least the CoSA? That workload sounds absolutely insane. I just want to know what area to avoid lol.

In my area there’s a high pressure to perform, but it’s uncommon to even work 50 hours per week, let alone 60+. Not a single person is shedding tears on Sunday. It’s wild how we basically work at entirely different companies.

I didn’t even read the entire post bc I knew it was bull. My 2 cents is that people that are enforcing RTO are the ones that need to take medication.

Working from home is the least of the concerns. Many people are working 60,80, 100 hour weeks. The pressure is insane. There is nothing healthy about what most are enduring at this point. The member is used as a reason to abuse employees. People aren’t having kids, ending ip in the ER, anti anxiety/depression meds are rampant, and people can’t sleep without pills. I can’t tell you how many people on my team cry Sunday nights. Its not ok.

You grow up and hit the the gym!

I agree with the poster who states that over 24,000 employees are dissatisfied. I agree with everything, as a matter of fact, that s/he writes. And my guess is that the number is higher, much higher.

I want to add to the post, however, by saying that other companies have handled similar situations that USAA now faces far better, with far more integrity and honesty, than USAA with all of its fanfare of how great and how much better they are.

At some far superior companies, employees were given a choice to early retire, or to take a package to transition elsewhere. Instead, USAA put in place a woman well-known in industry for dirty dealings. We were psychologically attacked with false firings and phoney PIPs. We were treated so badly that, yes, some of us use exceptionally ugly language to describe the detested leaders who planned these outright attacks.

There was NO RESPECT. Read that again. When I joined, the motto was "respect for others". Now, it is back biting, clawing over others to retain ... well, what? A disgusting job with a thoroughly disgusting employer.

In some companies, the leaders reduced their salaries. What did our leader do? We all know, and yes, it makes me nauseous to think how he tossed employees to the wolves for his own outlandish financial gain. And, finally, I know of a company that asked all employees across the board to take a percentage hit to their salaries for the benefit of the company. And guess what? My husband took it, and a lot of his friends, and the company came back, stronger. I did not hear anything at that time about that company as negative as I read here, nor feel now, about awful USAA. I personally witnessed a gathering of those employees, and there was nothing but quiet discussion of how to bring the company back to its feet.

FACE IT. You all did it absolutely WRONG when you attacked, belittled, berated, and cheated your employees. You created enemies who have long memories and stories to share in the industry.

Sad to say, you could have created friends and allies.

SMH

So, few things.

I agree with you on this: Yes, you can find disgruntled/unhappy employees at every company. Every single one. USAA in its prime had plenty of them, even with peak benefits, employee morale, bonuses, etc. So having vocal negativistic employees is nothing new. Some people are just unhappy about everything and love to complain. We all know people like that.

I also agree that one should not stay with USAA if they are experiencing mental health issues as a result of working here. No company is worth sacrificing your mental or physical health over. Full stop. But it's not as simple as just quitting or "finding something better." Many people have been pigeon-holed into their role and are essentially stuck. Many are in high-paying jobs (managers, tech roles, niche staff roles within bank and P&C, etc.) and there simply aren't many employers that they can pivot to without completely upending their lives by moving, selling their house, moving their kids' school, things like that. For some, maybe it's time to up-skill because they let their skills stagnate. For some, maybe it's time for a new career path. For some, maybe it's time to just bite the bullet and push through to retirement. Everyone's situation is different.

I disagree on a few things, though. First, your post suggests that because there are disgruntled employees at every company, that somehow discredits employee concerns. I think there are a lot of well-thought-out points that are raised here. I also think there are some people who have only ever worked at USAA and don't realize just how bad a lot of companies are. Those folks could use a healthy dose of appreciation. It's a balancing act. RTO isn't a uniquely USAA problem, and in terms of working in an office, the USAA home office is about as good as it gets. The fact remains that USAA broke its core values when it hired people specifically as remote then reneged on that promise. There is no amount of mental gymnastics that will make that okay.

Second, I completely disagree with your suggestion that it's "20 employees out of thousands" who are unhappy. Just look at the employee sentiment numbers of your CoSA scorecard. In my area, only 34% of employees have a positive sentiment. If my CoSA is representative of the entire company, that means that out of 37,000 employees, over 24,000 of them are unhappy. That's not a "vocal minority"; that's the overwhelming majority of the company that's unhappy with the state of things.

Third, your point about "no obligation" is just poor logic. USAA is an at-will employer, so they have very few obligations outside of following federal and state labor laws. They're under no obligation to continue paying you the same amount that they are now, but I somehow doubt you would be expressing this sentiment if they cut your pay in half. How would you feel if they did that and someone said "they're under no obligation to!" What happened to "do the right thing because it's the right thing to do"?

We should be able to express our concerns in good faith because that's how things improve. Your post comes across like those who say "If you don't like it, leave!" when someone criticizes the US. That's a quitter's mindset because it's saying that you would rather give up than put in the work to improve things. Healthy, good faith feedback is how things get better. Key words being "healthy" and "good faith." That post the other day calling Wayne and the EC pedos, as an example — not a good faith criticism. But people who take the time to outline what their concerns are, call out genuine issues about the state of the company, and what might be done to improve things are not just "whining" as you so dismissively put it.

Things change, that much is true. But USAA truly is in a bad state right now and the data speaks for itself. Look at the Glassdoor ratings of many of our competitors: Chase, Frost Bank, State Farm, Progressive, the list goes on. All of them have higher CEO approval ratings, higher recommendation rates, and higher overall ratings. If you are good with USAA declining to mediocrity, more power to you. But many of us love/loved this company and can't stand watching it deteriorate.

Oh lookie, it's the return of the corporate nanny!!! Waving their virtual crooked finger at us while giving us a stern lecture on how to grow up and stop being ungrateful basterds.

If this OP is anyone from exec management or HR posting, let me just say your train of thought is barely on the track and the critical thinking writing skills may get a C in 6th grade English. If it really was just 20 people out here, why are you bothering? Maybe spend your energy on improving the workplace and stopping all the gaslighting. You're telling us to grow up. and selling us a sack of doggy-diggity-do and telling the employees it's chocolate kisses. Well guess what - we ain't buying it. Maybe it's you that needs to grow up and stop peddling forced RTO as culture and collaboration.

OP is clearly HR doing damage control (or Wayne himself LMFAOOO). We now know and admitted by Wayne that the Executive committee reads anonymous message boards about the company such as this. I have seen posts get thousands of views which clearly indicates its way more than 20 people bi--hing and moaning just because.

Did everyone else lose a billion dollars last year?
I agree with you partly, there are disgruntled people who come on here and post a lot and don't add much to the conversation. I do not care if Wayne flies private. All CEOs do. Do we expect Wayne to live in a hovel eating Chef Boyardee? LOL.
But a good 25-30% of the content on here is very intriguing and seems valid. So that us why I ckeck here often, and sometimes post or comment. Being a disgruntled employee has a stigma. You feel like a loser if everyone else is doing great or running a never-ending victory lap based on work you got no credit for. So some of us come here for support so we don't feel so alone at work. That's not really the intent of the layoff site, but as long as the posts stay up this has become the new EJS essentially.

Is that you Wayne?

k.