Thread regarding Edward Jones layoffs

@ka I agree that non-FA branch associates will be next. When leases are up, branch teams will be scrutinized. What level is FA, could branches in same town join together, could BOAs be shared, etc. No one is verbalizing this yet but it’s definitely coming soon.

@ey ugh, I hate how accurate this prediction is.

@f3 lol we have reimagined ourselves as 'India Jones'.

If you read the Summary Plan Description for the ISP, you’ll notice that we are just at the beginning of all the reimagining. Eligible parties include home office associates and non-FA branch associates, due to things like position eliminations, branch closings, etc. This document will get dusted off again soon when we need to accelerate teaming and reduce our real estate footprint. Let’s be honest that the field isn’t really going to be in control of their future any more than back office folks are now.

@ey With India on speed dial.

@ey Late-stage capitalist doomerism with a dash of dystopian looming apocalypse. Very nice.

Every boardroom has a mantra of “2030 vision.” A shimmering hallucination where headquarters isn’t a place full of people, but a sterile interface between nervous humans and AI systems. Depending on where you sit, it’s either a promised land of efficiency or a form of schadenfreude.

Jones and others will start reaching for “efficiencies.” Departments will shovel their collective knowledge into monstrous catalogs, and communications will be digested, sterilized, and spat back out by AI. Most of what you read will be machine-made—responses engineered to look “human,” some with forced errors so you don’t catch the wizard behind the curtain. A few associates will refuse to adopt, and stick out like ghosts wandering the factory floor.

By 2030, the average associate will develop a cynical sixth sense, a radar for sniffing out what’s flesh and what’s fabrication. It will feel like hammering “0” in a phone tree, desperate to open a portal to the human voice instead of another synthetic echo. The eye-to-eye foundations will be wearing a mask with FA’s and Branch teams. However, HQ itself will be a ruin, haunted by the memory of human voices and the strange inefficiency of real conversation.

Prompts will speak to prompts. Reviews and responses will multiply like weeds, polished with thesaurus gloss, delivered with something that looks like a soul.

@ak I'm with a competitor now, and we use the industries 'best' CRM. it can't hold a candle to the old Joneslink before SalesFarce. PP destroyed an industry advantage...

@ch The term "replacing" is often thrown around without much thought. Most Baby Boomers expected to retire by 2030, what comes next? I agree that the changes within companies have been challenging, change itself is a constant. Many associates seem to be holding on to the past, struggling to adapt to the new world.

@cc and about the same caliber of employees coming in as new advisors replacing the veteran advisors who knew what they were doing.

@aj well we have more EDJ branches in North America than there are McDonald’s 🤡

@am the futurist is here! He knows what you need, whether or not you want it!

The world is changing. We are being taught to just swipe and text. Older folks still like to talk to someone. They are not going to be around forever. AI will replace call centers, banking needs, and investment hunches for good advice. A new world order, good or bad, is underway to save labour costs and increase profit. AI is not ready, but will be soon and it will be perfected in India and the Phillipines before the West now that T1 connections are completed

@OP

This might not exactly answer your question in terms of how someone from the field wants HQ to be structured…but I have a want, and I’m from the field.

I want accountability. And sincerity. I want to stop throwing up a little whenever I see “Speak Up, Listen Up” and know all her fancy corporate phrases tempered with some folksy “ya’ll”s amount to nothing more than a transparent facade meant to distract us. Business as usual, nothing to see here, move along. These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.

I want leadership to stop talking AT US, and instead speak WITH us, which they can only do if they LISTEN TO us.

I want them to stop upgrading/updating/changing every bloody thing just for the sake of upgrading/updating/changing every bloody thing. If I use a dozen tools or pieces of software throughout my day, 11.5 of them have been changed, replaced, or gotten a butt-ugly UI/UX “facelift” in the last 18 months.

I want them to stop operating at the speed of thought, because the truth is mistakes made in haste cannot be FIXED in haste. A GP once told me that the technological upgrades we’re undergoing (SalesFARCE) are overdue by about a decade. So, the solution is to tear it all apart, and go ba--s to the wall in 10 months?

But OP, more than anything, ANYTHING, I want remorse. I want everyone who has helped push this firm closer and closer to the edge to admit, and SAY, “We were wrong.” You might ask, “well what good would that do?”

If they accepted responsibility, there is a chance I would trust the leadership of this firm again. As things stand right now, I simply cannot.

@ah have you been to the new McDonalds? Good luck getting help if something is broke, or grandma can’t find her favorite meal on the screen, or an order is messed up. Even ordering for allergy issues has become harder. Inside is normally empty and drive thru is packed because people WANT to talk to a person. No one has ever called a customer service number and gone “oh thank God! A Robot!”

Meanwhile in France, McDonalds is getting a reputation as a hangout as they are making it more cafe style and less rush/hustle culture.

Is that really want PP wants? To be the Investment form of American McDonalds?

@af

Thank you! It’s been a pleasure! 🥲

@ad some of us are aware and some of us are fighting and speaking out. The hardest part is making the other branch teams aware of what is really going on. Nothing we see from Home Office shows anything but “tough times ahead, but we will weather it” corporate speak. We are frogs in the pot.

You all have supported us. We just wish we could do more to support you now. Too many FAs are walking away instead of fighting, or putting their heads in the sand.

Thank you for what you have done, we will remember you, and, at least the group I represent, will wish you all the best.

@a6 great feedback! I'm OP, thank you for that. I was not aware of a timer on calls (I'm not in a service position). I do know that I have taken FA suggestions and presented them to my TLs and GPs, only to never hear anything back from someone higher than them. That's why we also recommend FAs to send Suggs. There's a priority over us.

I've read some negative comments throughout this page over the past few months. I understand our profit centers. I have no animosity from the FAs. I think ultimately we all want the same goal. There's just a lot of frustration with Saleaforce, Moneyguide, other new tools, and now Reimagining. I'm looking forward to it all passing

@a9 excellent post. 100% spot on

@aa he said 30s, could be 39.

Here is some more truth. The branches that have the wait-and-see attitude about this are going to get a nasty surprise because they are going to get changes too. The branches that are cheering for this are gonna get the nasty surprise of finding that they are no longer as in command with how their branch is set up as they used to be. Forced multi FA branches are likely coming, it’s been rumored for years. New required furniture and equipment, new required paint, new forced ADA regulations, new guidelines about how many FA per branch, even more new required systems, it’s all changing. I saw another post say that there will be other reimaginings. I don’t think the branches are going to make it into 2030 without being reimagined too. I just hope enough people wake up before it becomes too late to stop from losing what remains of the original idea of this firm.

As a quick sidenote, the anti-DEI people are missing the point. They aren’t losing their jobs because of DEI, they are losing their jobs due to greed, plain and simple. The people who want you to believe that DEI is the reason, or that the branches don’t care, or that it’s no big deal, those are the people laying you off. Stop buying into it and start unifying to point to the real problems so that maybe enough of us can say stop before this gets even worse.

We want the people who made the decision to require us to call three different teams for an answer to be removed.

We want the people who decided to segregate education for the associates to give to the branches between multiple shortcuts requiring you all to hear questions you aren’t trained to answer and forward us on so that it hurts us and you on time, we want those people gone.

We want the people who set time limits that cause you all anxiety on call time while refusing to hire and train more staff, gone.

Less middle management making the decisions and more people who are trained on their teams, less GPs who have no background in an area deciding that they know best for that area and more GPs who focus on what they know.

A more efficient Home Office requires leaders who know that efficiency doesn’t mean run with less, but run with the best people fully equipped and supported to do the job.

This was happening under JW too, the creating a worse environment in the name of efficiency , it just got so much worse this year.