Thread regarding T. Rowe Price Group Inc. layoffs

@qn Frankly, I think they should offshore some investments people. 3/4 of the funds are underperforming. They may offer a different perspective? Couldn't hurt to try? If anyone is getting their pa-ties in a twist, it seems to be investments because they always seem to jump on here - a layoff board when they clearly think they won't ever get laid off. Kind of r-tarded to come to a board unrelated to anything you will experience then.

@qm oohhh….did it hurt your precious little ego to hear the truth ???

In the past 5 years No mass layoffs in investments. Plenty in IT.

Never said investment is good. Just that it cannot be outsourced. You won’t understand how business works. Enjoy your Accenture meeting

@q5 you are wrong. Investments division will always be fine. They can outsource Tech and other services but not investing. Not talking about jr analysts but real research and pm.

@pv IMO two types of associates will come out of this well. One is those who have already made enough money and are close to retirement. And the other who can jump to another place without taking a financial hit. The others will get hosed.

All decisions makers are in the former box. If you think they care …..

Gain or loss, what is worse?
Tao Te Ching

Chapter 44 should be required reading, even the most avaricious old/young employees would benefit. I would venture a guess, that a Taoist studies group would benefit the company in more ways, than any brg or Ai lab they have now.

@kt Indian Burial site that was made a toxic waste dump? Ugh. Thank you for this perspective. With the way this MC spends on "branding", fancy signs, and a ridiculous commercial that says nothing, I really thought shps was behind this. I remember seeing the stock at like $240 one day. Now we are lucky to hit low 100s. I get some of this is changing customer tastes, but it is just sad for the people who lost their livelihoods who had nothing to do with this - those who were laid off outright and those who had to train replacements. It is really sad. I saw this happen with Black and Decker when Stanley bought them. I hope things workout for all of us grunts (MC not so much).

@k9 good points. The building was signed up for by the then CFO and CEO (you know who). The stock was at 200 and nobody gave a sh-t about expenses.

Now they’re both gone. Stock is back at 100. And the company is trying to cut expenses by firing the support staff because they cannot go after anyone else

No the company doesn’t own the building. Or the land. It’s on a long term lease with right to renew.

It’s built on an Indian burial site which was then made into a toxic dump I heard some one say.

@kj Really? What about us who are still here? So management is knowingly making OUR jobs harder giving us a bunch of fkwits to waste our time? If that is the case, fire the entire Helpdesk today - Google and ChatGPT work just fine I guess. That is at least what my group uses now.

So the MC throws their hands up in the air, accepting they are getting their clock cleaned by other firms, and what do they do? Spend $1B on a fancy building and do nothing but cut staff? Winning strategy I guess - at least they will have a fabulous view when they go under. Talk about fiddling while Rome burns. Thanks for the great laugh!

@kj Well, if they really see networking, etc as "unimportant" then they really are total tools. They will care when they are hacked and there is a data breach, and then they will get sued. In any case, I pulled out my investments - just a few hundred grand, but I got tired of watching other funds perform far better and better rates.

@k9 26 straight quarters of outflows. Mainly because Performance is down. Before pandemic nearly three quarters of funds were beating peers. Now it is only one third.

Growth equity business - the flagship- has not had a net inflow year in the past decade.
Then the trend to passive is unstoppable.

The only thing they can control is expenses. So they outsource support services.

And to those who complain how bad the overseas workers are- that should tell you how important your job really is. If you know they are bad, the management surely knows. But they think it’s not that big a deal.

@jp Thank you for getting that. Yes - it is a cycle of outflows and layoffs. And it is really a shame, because the people who have gotten laid off so far had nothing to do with why outflows have persisted FOR YEARS. I guess the board/shareholders are naive enough to keep trusting the great minds in charge here. Outflows started mid 2021, and they are still happening 5 years later. Why was such an opulent building needed on the water? They lease the land under it. They will never own it. They had a golden opportunity after COVID to reduce their real estate footprint. I question why they insist on being in Baltimore City with the crime and higher costs. And apparently the stadium advertising and scoreboard have not done much either. I was watching an Os game one night, and it dawned on me that an ad running on MASN was for T Rowe Price. It is just a vague ad I don't see how it brings in business. People that do visit the website or call because of those ads/branding likely end up disappointed at the outdated products and go elsewhere. At some point, it has to be realized that cutting payroll and replacing people with workers that are not as good as the old ones is a dead end. It does nothing to change the downward trajectory of this business. It is a shame no one notices.

@d8 there is a clear connection between outflows and outsourcing - but not the way people are saying here.

Outsourcing does not cause outflows. It’s the opposite. More outflows -> lower earnings -> more cuts.

@g0 Clients remove money due to overall poor management decisions, offshoring is just one example. Try and keep up. Keep waiting for "Next 90" to "fix" the outflows, if you can ever figure out what the H*ll it is!

Lololol. No wonder soooo many of these desktop support roles are getting outsourced. The level of entitlement and ignorance is absurd.

@g0 it’s a layoff board.,,,,more outflows…more layoffs. and more unskilled Accenture workers for the rest that are left to work around or clean up after.

If you can’t see that I suspect you are benefiting from that trajectory

There we go again. The original post was about flows. If outflows are because of outsourcing then kindly educate everyone how it is. Clients don’t move because some support center was moved. But it’s too much for some people to see beyond their own situation

@e2 One thing that I found to be very telling was that when the initial batch of workers sent to Accenture did not perform well, they never considered abandoning or even pausing this replacement of workers. The Helpdesk should have been a red flag as well as the Service Desk and Operations group. Instead, they pushed on rapidly with a few more rounds - roles with higher system privileges and a larger effect on over IT infrastructure. I have heard managers even admit that Accenture promised them experience workers, but didn't deliver, but added that was "typical". Huh? Who is in charge here? MC or Accenture? Some functions seemed to fall through the cracks during these transitions, and it seemed they had to negotiate with Accenture first to get them to handle those. I also heard that Accenture refused to do anything they did not have solid documentation for. Who is running the company again? I just felt it odd that it seemed that company had the upper hand here. Send poor workers, oh well, but that is how they roll? The whole thing makes zero sense. And spare me the "racism" comments. People from many backgrounds and ethnicities have lost jobs including people from India. This all just seems d-mb. I'd be furious if I had hired a group like this. It is bait and switch but apparently Accenture has the upper hand and has them by the ⚽⚽.

@da Agreed. People like to use “racial reasons and prejudice” as a deflection from the root of the problem. Tell me how the service we get from our new Accenture workers has improved service. It’s awful. If the service is better than what we had before then I am all for it…it’s not.Next!!!!

I think I can educate some of you people who are programmed to call everyone racist who sees things differently from you. I think the Accenture reference was to point out that this organization is now willing to toss quality out the window in various areas, and it is questionable whether less knowledgeable people will ever be some kind of "recipe for success". My friend who worked here for almost 20 years was one of the "replaced". The people replacing their function that they had to train had zero experience in that function. Not to mention they lacked basic communication skills. This was a role that would have to interface with both business and technical functions - poor communication skills are a problem. You never see a job advertising for poor written and verbal communication skills.

And one fallacy of thought I see regularly on here is that only IT roles will be offshored to people who lack experience and communication skills. Yeah, that is usually one of the functions to go first, but Accenture offers a wide variety of functional replacement opportunities including HR, Finance, Accounting, and yes, even Investment roles. Maybe this has to do with people having an outsized assessment of their own self-importance. "They can't replace me, I have been here for so long, I only got great reviews, my boss likes me a lot..."

Race and nationality have nothing to do with talent. People with the same ethnic background as these offshore workers have also lost jobs in all of this. They were great at their jobs and replaced by fellow countrymen who lack most of what made them great here. So the knee je-k virtue signals of calling people racist have nothing to do with much of anything.

The business is compromising much of what made them successful in the past. And if you look at similar firms doing better financially it is because they had a better finger on the pulse of this industry and had the foresight to make key changes early on. It has nothing to do with race, and they did not strip down to a bare bones staffing budget either. For an investment firm, they seem very hung up on AI. AI is great and all, but AI cannot make them go back in time and correct poor decisions. And AI is only as good as who is implementing it. The MC does not seem to have a clear plan except for "AI" and slashing payroll. There are threads he about what "Next 90" is. I think the Accenture references are just being used as examples of an overall poorly thought-out strategy. And yes, a poorly run help desk, or inexperienced workers being in charge of networking and management of sensitive financial data sounds like a liability to many people. Only time will tell I guess. But none of this has to do with "race".

@d8 while I don’t connect outflows with Accenture (yet… it takes time for the lack of skill and low quality support staff to reach client experience) Why is any observation of obvious poor performance from their staff “hate”. feels like deflection. Defend the quality or excuse the lack of it for $$ trade offs but I have seen nothing that reaches “hate of foreigners “. though I see we all pretty much agree that every Accenture job = non citizen. I think it’s human to be troubled by that.

@d0 I get you’re upset about outsourcing. But seriously if you can’t connect outsourcing IT with outflows then you’re grasping at straws. They’re two distinct issues. I personally thought the outsourcing of IT support roles was a bit harsh. Then I see all the hatred (not from all I’m sure) which makes people lose sympathy for you guys. There’s a business to be run and honestly people care more about flows than outsourcing a cost centre.

@bh Stop being one of those people who thinks everything is about some racial hatred. Annoying.

@ay what do Accenture workers have to do with outflows?? You seem to hate on foreigners - but perhaps logic isn’t your thing.

Any day now the Accenture workers will "pay off" lol.

@OP Stock price down today too.