A reader writes about layoffs in the banking industry. As I can't confirm his information, I'm going to leave the name of the banking institution out of this. They know who they are, and they now know that we know who they are and what they're apparently doing:
XXXXXXX just sent out a huge wave of layoffs. However, "at the last minute" they decided to spare a bunch more positions where the employees have generally worked up long spans of seniority. Sounds like a big relief, right?Any of our friends in Congress interested in a hearing?
They also sent out a notice last week that effective January 1, they are changing their severance packages for people they dump. Instead of getting severance based on years served up to two years of pay, they are capping it at 46 weeks. In other words, they are kindly "sparing" these people's jobs until January "to ensure branch service continuity," at which point they can lay them off far more cheaply based on the revised severance terms and save up to $100K per person.
Not only is this incredibly sleazy and demoralizing (people were crying in the branches yesterday), the very best way to send your company into a tighter death spiral is to get rid of as much long-term customer knowledge as possible.
