Thread regarding U.S. Bank layoffs

TOS middle management should have been cut a decade ago. Most technology companies strive for three or four layers of management from the lowest new employees to CIO. Not here. Plenty of uselessness with layers upon layers of official meeting goers. Useless old TOS layers that cloud directions. Every one of these managers of managers specializes in covering their azz and pointing fingers at everyone else. They are Re-org specialists. Blame the front line workers for their failures and Re-org.

U.S. Bank has been quietly laying off people employed with the bank prior to the Union Bank purchase, throughout all of 2023, but most RIF’s are 50 people or less so as not to get picked up by the media.

Majority of those affected were over 35 to 60 year olds in Individual Contributor (IC’s) making up the majority.

Even if you’re an award winning superstar, and in the upper part of the base range for your city location, 38 or older, you’re in the group most likely to be affected when layoffs happen in your BL at U.S. Bank.

May, June, July’s groups received lists of those also affected, but also those not affected, in a particular group. Only ages were listed, but it listed a lot of people over 38 affected.

Obviously Mgmt are trying to do more with less by keeping the less experienced and getting rid of people 38+ because people with 5-7 years are cheaper to employ.

Several upper mgmt groups know that when people are frustrated and overworked they often leave and when coworkers are laid off people get worried and do double or triple the work in order to stay safe. Or they when they leave, U.S. Bank often doesn’t hire a replacement.

Lastly, we have many jobs posted, but very approved offers happening because of the unofficial, official, hiring freeze from July through October.

More layoffs will happen in November, December, and early Q1 2024 that’s for sure do to the Union Bank sc--w up costs, our stock is down under the last 5 years under AC, so employees will be trimmed to cut costs bank wide.

Tech, CBB, Payments, and STCA will suffer the most cuts.

I was notified this week, December 15 will be my last day with USB, along with six others in my department. This day falls one day before my 10 year anniversary. It genuinely through me for a loop. I was not expecting this at all.

In my opinion, the savings expected from the Union Bank acquisition dried up once the approval took longer than 90 days, a year and a half into the approval process, the talent, the depositors, the business clients and the longer term borrowers were long gone along with any savings/efficiencies in the original plan. US Bank got boofed into putting $1 billion on deposit at Republic Bank to allow JPMorgan to eventually buy the assets of that bank when the Fed has already said they couldn't, but the FDIC had to find a nice home for that hot mess and while most banks are working feverishly to meet the new capital requirements, US Bank is whistling past the graveyard worried about social issues, checking boxes, launching a BNPL product into a very, very crowded market and wondering why nobody wants to borrow money from U.S. Bank? It all comes down to leadership in the financials services and banking communities, not how you handle fire drill after fire drill after fire drill and eventually the CFPB is sitting there with its jaws wide open to bite down hard.

TOS has to hit the cost savings that was sold to Andy to do the whole cloud transformation, that we are way behind on. The bill is coming due . That is why there is a Hail Mary to lean out processes and cut out people who manage pieces of a process. There is another Hail Mary to just cut USB resources . TOS needs to find something in the neighborhood of $200-$400M in savings . Do the math, where will most of that come from?

As a former Suntrust member raising a Truist comparison is interesting. We thought and feared that USB was going to acquire us. Once we found out it was BBT and the leadership structure was rolled out it was like we’d won the lottery. Looking at what they’ve done to Truist you better hope USB doesn’t become them.

During one of the investor call last year ,AC ,mentioned that he expects a 60% savings in expenses from UB acquisition.

So you take into account savings from technology , where is the rest of the expenses coming from?

Obviously that savings is coming from employees since we’re the biggest fixed cost expense they can get rid off.

OtheR banks are laying off too, not just us

October and November are favorite months for USB to RIF and Re-org. Tick toc....

"Nope Andrew is going to cut USB employees and cut soon. "

I for one have been waiting for the shoe to drop. I'm wondering if they'll start cutting in earnest during 4Q2023 or if they'll wait until 2024.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out.