Axe dropped today. Wellesley office will close Dec 13 with all employees moving to Boston starting in January.
Message was delivered by reading off script without any time for questions. Ice cold.
Those who don't want to go will be fired for cause. Those who will grin and bear it will have to pick up the slack because replacements won't be coming anytime soon (and not in Boston) so they should probably look toward the door too.
Why should anyone stay at this point?
Wellesley is officially closed as-of today.
No matter how they allocate it there are not enough desks for employees in Boston. I am told they are exploring two main alternatives 1) Desk sharing meaning two people in a workspace 2) Sending employees back to work from home after they swipe in after floor has hit max capacity.
“Wellesley closing has nothing to do with Boston being a growth center” - appreciate the post. Was a bit of a wake up call to read that. We all sort of suspected the same but hearing it from someone with direct knowledge of the strategy is a bit jarring . Thanks for taking the time . Will be firming up the resume, as will others.
Be interesting to see what happens when the wheels finally fall off and BNY suddenly can’t perform back office accounting for 100+ clients . That could get expensive . The platform is very complicated. Needs those people BNY is getting rid of. Not easy to transfer that knowledge. It only generates 250MM pa but it’s a key part of many large financial institutions day to day.
My manager shared with us a rumor that the Boston "Eagle" office has a 12-18 month shelf life. After which employees will be offered jobs in Pittsburgh or potentially sub pay. No details beyond that.
Attestation feels like a trap, but I can’t figure out what it is.
@3fae use a map. A mile is a mile. The verbiage doesn’t say the office has to be within a reasonable commute time. It specifically talks about mileage. How about you use your 5th grade education and research the policy?
All the bi--hing and moaning. The bank doesn't owe you anything. It’s just a job. Move on. It’s good for you.
@7tys+1vfG0oYU I get the badge swipes and network log ins but what are they looking for in oracle and TEX? Never heard of TEX.
The gym was really nice. It also wasn't cheap.
As part of the consulting recommendations, they actually have a team in India comparing badge swipe times, Oracle, TEX, and network logs looking for discrepancies which will then be reported to HR as possible RTO requirement violations.
The goal here is to eliminate as many employees as possible for cause without offering any sub pay.
3ymu+1vfG0oYU
Agree with everything you said except I’d like to adjust one small item if I may:
Life was so much better pre-Robin
We are a silly and grim juvenile detention ward with permanent expulsion now thanks to Robin the Goblin.
I wish I worked in a city again. Several years ago they moved us from a city to the cheaper suburbs, and I’ve hated it. The only thing good is no city EIT and no paying for public transportation. But I’d so much rather them move us back to the city now. Working was so much more enjoyable. I could relax and ride the train, take nice walks through the city, so many eateries for lunch time, I could go to a museum at lunch. And we still WFH 2 days and wasn’t tracked. Life was so much better pre-Covid. But unfortunately you know and I know BNY has other plans. No way having you go into an expensive city meets their long term needs. Something fishy is going on.
3tri+1vfG0oYU
No. Wrong. False. Despite the fee simple clause that suits the company and not workers, It IS significantly further not just by 34 miles a day but also by time. Anyone commuting into and out of Boston can tell you it adds up to 45 minutes each way. On top of that now some people need to pay for mass transit and parking whereas before they did not. All of this on the worker not BNY. So maybe you should think before you post your low IQ nonsense funny boy.
@1rd 17 miles is hardly considered ‘significantly further’ lol. It’s right in the supplemental package agreement that anything less than 50 miles is within a reasonable distance and therefore if you decline you will not receive the supplemental pay.
I'd venture that Everett will go before Westboro.
Wonder how long until they close the Westborough location....
1cwl+1vfG0oYU
You are 100% correct and ‘seeing it’. Think of this as a military style pincer movement. The idea is to sweep and clamp down and save the biggest target for last. And…. What is the one element that RV and his toadies keep applying here? That you count on them to indicate ‘this is it’, ‘it’s over’ or ‘they are done’. Nope. They are going to keep doing it to us. Boston is still expensive, non strategic etc… but it makes an excellent containment pen for what will come soon.
Not so long ago, people were being pushed out of Boston to other area offices because Boston was too expensive. This is a huge red flag, folks. If you get moved to the new location, don’t count on it lasting long.
I am not an employee here but my friend is and asked me to share my opinion as I do a lot of corporate logistics and real estate dealings.
30 years ago the idea was to have a large financial company under one roof in the city so that senior managers can lead top down but these companies have become so big that these executives have no place in the day to day anymore. Also back then the idea was that sales could awe clients and prospects with a visit to “the (operations) floor” but now clients are happy with a Webex video call.
This is so say that over the last decade plus and especially since COVID the trend is to move operations teams out of the city. It's cheaper and helps with retention. For large organizations, the downtown office is mostly for senior leaders, sales, and legal now.
So they fact they are moving you folks into the city is a huge red flag to me. Generally speaking it is 6-8x more per square foot in downtown than most suburban office space plus there is a huge expenditure in the move itself.
I do not know anything beyond that but there is likely “a play” involved here and would be very surprised if this Boston location is the long term plan because it is cost inefficient.
Wishing you all well.
Wellesley was Eagle Investment Systems. We've been in that building about 13 years.
At one point, Eagle was a cash cow for the bank. And then the bank decided to make it their own and started to meddle. The product started to become what the bank wanted and not what clients wanted.
Then "Cloud Native" happened. The bank spent a small fortunate to completely redesign a system instead of putting some APIs around a system that was starting to show its age.
I believe BNY owns the Boston building. We only operate there on a few floors. The rest is leased to other companies. That of course doesn’t mean they would never shut it down however the lease is up in Everett in a few years so likely will have the same outcome as Wellesley. If anyone is left in Everett at that point.
Pretty sure you can’t be fired “for cause” because they chose to relocate to an area that is significantly further.
Wellesley closing has nothing to do with Boston being a growth center. Senior management believes this division is overstaffed with inflated salaries based on their total revenue (especially with new products which have little interest in the market). The original plan was to have a large layoff (around 30%) in January but the dollar amount associated with severance would actually impact financials so they hired a consulting company to explore alternatives.
Ultimately it was decided the most cost effective method was to drive employees to leave on their own. So they are investing a huge sum to relocate this group from the Boston suburbs to downtown mainly with the goal to inconvenience employees (there is absolutely no legitimate reason for them to be in the city). The working spaces downtown will be cramped - basically a sweat shop. Then bonuses and raises will be SEVERELY reduced along with in office requirements increased.
I have been involved in a few calls and genuinely feel bad for the Wellesley team. They are in for a terrible 2025 with corporate effectively doing everything they can to get them to quit so they can relocate these jobs from Boston to true BNY growth centers without sub pay.
Is Boston even a growth center? This just sounds temporary until they close the Boston office. They did the same thing to KOP. Closed KOP and moved it to Wilm, DE a few years ago. And now rumor is Wilm will be closed in a couple years. So if people quit on their own and don’t go to Boston, it’s kind of what they want. They will rehire those spots in a growth center.
At one point, a lot of people worked in that office.
The distance isn't the issue. It's Boston traffic. For people who live in the western burbs, it will add an hour to their commute. And then paying for downtown parking.
At least your weasel drove to your location. Ours didn’t have the common decency to do it in person. They gave us the FU from New York.
They are going to have a real problem on their hands when everyone quits en mass.
Clients, take note and call out the ‘management’ and ‘leaders’ on their bullsh-t.
My area dealt with same thing last year. The weasel who told us drove to our location 5 hours away from his and then hid in a room the whole time. This came after telling people 7 months earlier that we had nothing to worry about and that other locations were being looked at in florida
How far are the offices apart? They did that to us five or so years ago, but we weren’t terminated. They said it’s our choice. We either relocate or take the severance package.
Everett and westborough are next
But they’re committed to having a world class work space !!! Whoopie
Aholes