Thread regarding Wells Fargo & Co. layoffs

@ar Pretty common for an exceeds to get a less than meets the following year. Expectations increase every year. This happens a lot with people promoted too early. They werent ready for the higher expectations of the next level.

Exceeds and consistently exceeds rated employee here. Suddenly using some made up reasons that were laughable and cannot be proven, was rated less than meets. I have worked long hours, delivered solid business value but suddenly I am no longer needed. And rather than laying me off I believe they’re trying to go for termination. I hear you OP, may be I can document all that but unfortunately I don’t think that’ll stop them.

@af

OP here:

Thank you for responding. You sound like a good manager who is doing what they think is right for the firm. And you are doing what is right for employees if you are using reviews to praise good performance and give them an opportunity to improve their skills and grow. If they are given an action plan and appropriate time to improve, and they do not follow through: then I agree with you.

However that is not what is happening in at least in some parts of the bank. I’ve read it on this forum and taken it with a grain of salt since this is an anonymous forum. But I watched it happen this week to a well-respected person working for an opportunistic callous division leader.

I understand and respect your desire to tamper down my post. No one needs to believe me. Just follow my advice to protect yourself. There is no downside to protecting yourself from a leadership who is known for protecting their own jobs first.

@af If you're a manger, WTF are you doing on this thread during working hours? Don't you have some, you know, managing to do? Are you posting here during one of your many pointless meetings? WF has layer upon layer of unnecessary "managers." This is a big reason for RTO. With everyone working from home, "managers" cannot flit from desk to desk looking important; their uselessness becomes obvious. Gotta get everyone back in the office so it looks like the "managers" are doing something. Layoffs and performance-based terminations should start with the "managers."

I was let go three weeks after a "meets" performance review because I hurt my TL's feewingth. TL would leave incomprehensible notes on my cases and got bent out of shape whenever I asked for clarification. TL was just barely literate, like so many people nowadays. I strongly suspect TL was instructed to ride me like a pony until I snapped. TL lied to HR about it. Spineless manager, who aside from being spineless, was actually pretty nice, wouldn't stand up for me despite acknowledging that TL was incompetent and thin-skinned. If you are a subliterate brown-noser, look for a job at WF. You will thrive there.

@a2

How do you squeeze in any work, with that incessant bootlicking?

Wake up! The tone from the top started at the end of last year when our CAO stared directly at the camera (like the serpent he is) and sternly said “there is no room for low performers at this company.”

That happened literally a week or two after Wall Street dinged WF due to high severance costs.

People that are saying that this stuff isn’t happening are unbelievably clueless. False performance ratings ARE being used to cut employees that have met or exceeded every performance metric. I have seen it happen to multiple exempt FTEs that were in my group.

The deniers will be next

As a manager, I can attest that there is some truth to the increased level of performance management, but I do not believe it is as nefarious as the original post suggests.

During the past several years of heavy layoff activity, some managers, myself included, became too dependent on layoffs to solve performance problems. Instead of formally addressing a low-performing employee through coaching, documentation, and corrective action, it was easier to wait for the next reduction and let the position disappear.

Executives are now pushing managers to do proper performance management again. A poor-performing employee and a position being eliminated are two different situations, and they are supposed to be handled differently.

This means more employees will see tougher reviews, more documentation, and potentially termination for performance than they became accustomed to during the layoff years. But increased accountability is not, by itself, evidence of a coordinated strategy to manufacture “for cause” terminations simply to avoid severance.

It's not a rumor because you said so?

@a2 I wonder what type of person actually posts garbage like this. You must be a real joy to work with lol. Do you find yourself eating lunch in your car alone because nobody likes you ?

@a2 hope you’re next!

this is a violation of the severance plan and other laws.

gonna take a high level employee to distribute the smoking g-n evidence

@a2

I hear you, and your feedback is valid. But let’s see how your POV changes if and when you are the employee/manager who easily repeats “the company line” and then are shocked to be terminated with no severance several days after one negative review and working for the same team for years. Don’t say that it’s not happening because it is. Don’t assume the employee is at fault and the company has clean hands because they don’t.

The real trouble is there are a lot of managers who do their team a disservice by not correcting performance. Some employees are allowed to underperform for years. The manager simply avoids the confrontation or shuffles the underperformer to another group during a reorg. That happens quite a lot. And then the employee gets a manager who corrects the behavior and the employee is shocked.

You are not entitled to a job here, nor are you entitled to severance. Find out from your managet what you need to do to stay meets, and do it.