Layoff Watch ’19: Wells Fargo Has A “Location Strategy” For Telecommuters That Will Require Actual Commuting

Wells Fargo is cutting costs, that is not a secret. Nor is it confidential that some of the bank’s attempts at slimming down spending have verged on self-parody.

But one place that every bank targets in these scenarios is headcount, and one Well Fargo insider tells us that the new regime atop Wells’ tech division is looking to make some people quit before they’re eliminated. According to our tipster, Wells Fargo is calling a “Location Strategy” and it goes like this:

This May we learned that non-customer facing telecommuters would be consolidated into centralized ‘hubs’ (Charlotte, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Phoenix area, Des Moines). Evidently, they think putting people in offices will fix poor management and bad employees.

Which is going over as well as you’d assume:

The only redeeming benefit to stay at Wells Fargo is being yanked out from under us. Us hardworking, high performing and experienced risk minded employees, who don’t live in these hub major cities, our reward for sticking with this company through all its scandals is termination due to zip code. 

Another Wells Fargo insider tells us that “I’ve heard about this and people in tech are pissed at [Saul] van Beurden…But if you step back and look at it, it has to happen one way or another. And he’s just doing what he has to.”