Thread regarding U.S. Bank layoffs

@sv 100%! This captures my experience working there perfectly! I left a couple years ago. My manager was all about her little clique of favorites. Her longest-associated flying monkey was d-mb as bricks, couldn't find her way out of a paper bag. And then the manager's manager, the Grand Dame of Narcissism, was stunning in her incompetence and lack of awareness and intelligence.

@sv Exactly.

This company is a sad place. All it takes is for one manager to not like you and poof career gone. I have never worked for such unprofessional people who behave like high school students, this company is full of corporate bullies that lack integrity. Favoritism and nepotism run rampant, leaders will allow just about anything as long as you are willing to behave unethically and stoop to new lows daily. Not a lick of care or decency remains only lawless people who think by ruining others lives, that their careers will magically flourish. News Flash! It's not an if you'll remain, its when you leaders decide you no longer add value! Good luck! You don't win by tearing others down down, glad my time is over wish the decent people who remain well.

Been at bank two decades. Only knew one person who survived PiP. His manager was terminated during PiP. Then the manager’s manager quit. Happy he survived, decent worker. That guy sure had a good chuckle.

Will there be layoffs in January?

Your manager is telling you in the strongest voice possible, you are not a valuable person or member of their team. You rank below everyone else or near the bottom. If a RIF happens, your name will be on the list. You should start looking for a new job.

@br Going one above your manager will not work. In order to push ratings to employees managers have to have them approved by their managers. This is coming from up top.

Look up the HR articles that talk about measuring performance. Then have a clear discussion about how they failed to bring up anything negative all year. If they still do nothing then grow a pair and start calling the ethics hotline people.

No that it will make you feel better, but the 'needs improvement' ratings are a sham. Managers were forced into a last-minute quota and had to pick someone even if they were performing satisfactory. That’s why the news came out of nowhere.

The writing is on the wall for you though if you are a long tenured employee and not on the upswing of your career.

@mn

I am in the exact situation as you describes here, my manager comes up with stupid excuse like i need to learn something new so to give me a needs for improvement, no prior mention of anything for 2025… ok that can be learn fir 2026 and going forward not for 2025 year end review. So d-mb.. I know manager are force to give 10% needs improvement but this is beyond stupid way to do it

Given the tight reins on the merit increase, the AIP and LTI, promotions have to be funded within the overall team allocation such that somebody has to take the NI or the PIP so the others can obtain a promotion or measurable increase over last year or to fully fund the employee deals engineered last year when there wasn't any room in the budget.

I’ve been with the company for 9 years and was recently placed on Needs Improvement with no prior warning, coaching, or discussion with my manager. It was completely unexpected and has left me feeling blindsided and unsure what to do next.

I work in a business line where it often feels like if you’re not part of the “in-crowd,” you don’t really stand a chance. Support and advocacy seem uneven, and that makes situations like this even harder to navigate.

I’m hoping to learn from others’ experiences:
• Do employees on Needs Improvement typically still receive their bonus?
• If placed on a PIP, how realistic is it to successfully get off of it?

Any insight would be appreciated.

I know of one airhead director, completely clueless, who gave her direct report a needs Improvement but never mentioned a thing all year, and the comments of the actual performance review were all worded that he met expectations. At the last minute in the review she did a sneaky little thing where she said she wants him to learn about a certain area and topic that he can grow in, and use that as justification for him needing improvement. Oh and by the way he is already one to two grades lower than he should be. As his peer I can vouch for it.

So let that settle in, your boss never tells you that you need Improvement all year long. Your boss puts in manager comments on the review saying you met all the expectations of the goals and overall. You need to learn a new system in 2026 as a hypothetical example. And that learning new system is the justification for needing improvement.

She's either too d-mb or too unethical to realize that performance reviews are for your past performance of this current year.

Of course it doesn't help that her boss above her mandated a hard percentage quota for needs Improvement regardless of whether someone deserves it or not.

There's some real evil sh-t going on here.

@jd What an awful feeling. Sorry you're going through this. 😕 Please post an update with the signs you're picking up on. The more we share our experiences the more we prepare and empower each other to stand up against the corruption.

Sending good vibes your way today.

@OP
I posted below as “Head Spinning.” Follow up to my earlier post today, I have strong reason to believe tomorrow will be my last day. Too much detail to post but strong signs are there. I’ll confirm tomorrow. But I think it’s one of those things where I’m paid more than they think I’m worth, so out I must go.

@gp

There are people in management and hr who have gone so long without being checked that they are now creating EASY lawsuit because of the sloppiness…. And extremely low iq.

Why do you think the training was so desperately needed.

Sorry about the iq comment, but it’s about truly horrible people with extremely low intelligence………………..so I don’t feel bad.

OP, and anyone else who is reading this - this is a prime example of what needs to be reported. Report this and anything like this.

DO NOT WAIT! They will do everything they can to save themselves when it’s reported…. Like dragging things out to exceed the time you have to make these reports with the Eeoc.

Do yourself something that you will forever thank yourself for and do it TODAY!

Google EEOC and start.

https://publicportal.eeoc.gov/Portal/Login.aspx

@br I get this take, but I've RIF'd those employees years ago and am operating with a skeleton crew compared to 5 years ago. This would not have been a challenging exercise had the cuts still been employed. It's extremely unfair to punish those that remain and are carrying more work then ever.

@br
Good point about end of year rating not being a surprise. Mine was a total surprise. I meet with my manager once per week and I have always told him explicitly that I never want any surprises. Tell me early if I’m straying off path. All of my meetings have been fine, no warnings about falling short of expectations. My understanding is that the final ratings were determined by department managers in a “performance calibration” meeting a week or two ago where they determined the top, middle and bottom in the whole department. So big disconnect if I’m led to believe everything is fine until “calibration.”

@bf
I received NI rating for the first time in my 10 years here. Part of the justification was my in-office presence. Our designated start was delayed by 3 months from the rest of the city hub because the space wasn’t ready. When it was ready, I had to wait another 2 weeks because my name wasn’t submitted for building access. So my office presence appeared to be really low even though it was out of my control. Even when they took that into account their numbers didn’t match my own record keeping that showed compliance. I’m very concerned now because my manager and I had discussed the instances where I appeared to be short and he agreed that there was legitimate reason to be out. (I.e., we had a 4 day team offsite, and that appears to have counted against my record.) my head is spinning.

@by this is 100% on head of HR and 1 of his directs, her initials are ER. ER is a clown, and so are her Product Leaders, who are clowns also. MI who is head of comp, he is the highest paid people of HR except the head of HR, EB. MI flat out said the bank was giving out too many raises off-cycle and self-service for a couple years.

@cj won’t work. USB is at will employment. One would have to prove some level of discrimination or bias, and would need to be terminated because of a needs improvement. If the employee fails to perform because of a needs improvement (a boycott), then that won’t hold up in court either.

Class action waiting to happen! I’m going to enjoy watching it happen

@c4 fairpoint. I was assuming that people with quantifiable goals like sales goals would be able to track that themselves. That they would have some dashboard or some spreadsheet or something that they have access to to look at their own goal. But yeah if only the manager has access to those goals, and the employee doesn't, then 100%, those employees should not get a needs Improvement. Managers need to do better. That's the whole purpose of HR spending money on radical candor training.

@c3 quantifiable goals would be tracked by the manager monthly or quarterly or both. If there's no manager feedback that the employee isn't performing to standard, there should be no Needs Improvement. The employee has a chance to state how they think they did but the manager's opinion is what matters and the manager's role in writing the performance review is a year long process.

@bt there are plenty of us who have goals that do not have quantifiable numbers tied to them. They are more qualitative in nature. And HR clearly states that managers have to have ongoing conversations about performance throughout the year.

At minimum, but not enough in my opinion, a mid-year conversation. So 100% if a manager has not covered the topic of performance needing Improvement throughout the year, there is legitimate reason to push back.

But if you have sales goals or other goals that have quantitative data tied to it, then yeah it would be obvious throughout the year on your own that you are not hitting the goals. Now whether the goal itself is realistic and ethical is a whole other conversation.

@by I am someone who tries to always understand the business perspective of decisions made. This is one I just can’t understand. I do agree that we needed oversight on performance reviews, but you’re right, to change the rules at the end of the game is not good for anyone!

@br THIS!!! All of this and so true. The accountability on leaders to give needs improvement to those who should have it. The problem was the broad brush and pushing leaders for they were not equipped to do, and as such, it came as a huge slap in the face.

@br Valid take but here is my question to you. Why wasn't this communicated at the beginning of 2025? It would have helped everyone during goal settings. Would it not have?

Moving goal posts, changing criteria for ratings and making compensation level changes at the very end of the year is cowards play.

Why would anyone trust this management in 2026 and give their very best? Who is to say they won't make more changes next year this time?

@br I think you're threading the needle on this subject pretty well. Needs Improvements should be rare, but probably more frequent than the reality was. That said, we all know this is a cost saving exercise and people saying it's about accountability are just gaslighting.

A coda: no performance review rating should be a surprise at the end of the year. These Needs Improvements are based on a defined metric, instead of conversations with individuals throughout the year, so by default they're a corruption of the process.

I have a different take. The push this year is a combination of something that was desperately needed and also unethical business practice.

Yes the CEO is definitely forcing a certain percentage of needs Improvement. That is wrong and unethical.

But by doing this we are all so forcing the managers who are too scared of giving needs Improvement in the past to actually handed out to people who deserve it.

So my question to you is which group do you belong in? That's a question you'll have to ask yourself.

I know of several people, not a lot, that need a wake up call. But the number is really low as in I can count it on one hand. But how they are still here is beyond me.

But on the other side yes there will be people that get it that don't deserve it.

Managers are required to have given you several notices through one-on-ones of performance not meeting expectations. If it is a total surprise then you have every right to push back hard. And you should do it. There are no work day check-ins or conversations you've had with your manager in the last 12 months about your performance lacking, you need to go one level above your manager.

Don’t you get it. GK and MC need their Ferraris and golden parachutes. The billionaire class needs more billions. The latest greatest yacht, jet, etc.

NI is no longer means instant PIP. From what I have been told, the future model will be more like 20% NI per year, 20% Exceeds. Not the pure Amazon model where the 20% are on PIP and out the door, but clear a clear indicator that you are not hitting whatever the mark is.

Those in NI will still qualify for bonuses, told 60% of target adjusted for BL pool. Those with exceeds will get a bit more than in the last past as well.

At this point it should be pretty clear to everyone the company doesn't care about the employees whatsoever, what you gonna do? Call the ethics line? lmao "If this doesn't work for you we support you finding employment elsewhere" but good luck with that all the corporations are the same. Only thing you can do is bank elsewhere and sell any stock you own (why on earth would anyone own this toilet stain of a stock?) Nothing else to do but laugh as the ship sinks. Oh re-read the wonderful mass email from the MC for motivation. - Hope that helps