Can Citi shrink its way to transformation?

To excitiworker and Steve from St Louis, no wonder you got “layed” off…you twits, it’s spelt LAID

The managers have to go
The managers have to go
High Ho the Derry-O
The managers have to go

Starting at the top
Starting at the top
The top tier brats are total crap
The managers have to go

The real problem with Citi (which causes so much of the problems described by the other commenters) is Citi simply got too big.

Not too big to fail, too big for its britches. Empire-building attracts scam artists and flim-flam creators who are always trying to protect their ill-gotten positions and monetary gains by diverting attention from their mistakes to the grunts who have to do the paperwork and interact with customers (many of whom are schemers themselves).

Several decades ago some empire-builders got their companies bigger and bigger by buying other companies that were not competitors, creating conglomerates in the process, hoping to ride out ups and downs in business by having businesses in the conglomerate whose business cycles were not parallel, and the conglomerate would thereby have steady earnings.

But these conglomerates failed because the result was simply too big to handle, the CEOs who created them did not have the personality to oversee such disparity or complexity created by so many details to track.

So Citi will simply have to be taken apart, dismantled. The only service the rest of the world needs is the check-clearing service, that is what the bailout is for, the rest of the company can go bankrupt.

Shedded parts of the company cannot simply become a part of another huge bank empire; all these monster banks have to downsize their operations and remove the bad-idea schemers.

Instead of layoffs the Citi Bank can sell part of its business , in that way the citi bank can get money and let the new buyer can deal with the employess.so that the citi credits cards and the mortages which the employees have will not be risk. so Bad debts add up could be less for the citi bank.

Other industries can LAy of Workers to cut the cost. But for BANKS if they layoff,The employees might have Credit cards with the citi bank and Home mortgage with these banks,So it will back fire them if the employess file forclosure ot not pay cried card bills.ITs Best for CITI to Shed its branchs/ buying selling part of its business.so they get money and the buyer can deal with the employees.

As a current Citi Employee, I would like to tell you that as their stock price continues to decline so does their treatment of employees. My manager harasses me. He writes terrible comments about me on my scorecard, he is constantly critisizing me, and threatens to have me fired. Upper management does not care about how he treats me. He treats some of my co-workers just as bad. I think the upper management encourages the mis-treatment. We work so hard and are ultra-productive. For what? Our jobs could be lost any day now. We only make a couple dollars over minimum wage. We could lose our homes. Would Citi care? No. Citi will get bailed out, but what about the rest of us?

TELL WIJU TO GET A LIFE SMITH BARNEY’S WEBSITE IS TOP NOTCH

As a former short term employee, I must say, Citi has gotten so out of control, no reputable financial analyst could justify the level of staffing in place. I am not talking about the hourly folks, for the most part on the phones collecting bad debt. I am talking MIDDLE MANAGEMENT. They have a layer of middle management that rivals the federal government, all making somewhere between 75K and 120K. Layoffs need to occur in this area to save any real money off expenses. Sadly, as Citi has become so sprawling, the attitudes of employees have become akin to the federal govt or union employees. “I just need to put in 20 years and they cannot touch me” mentality. I was there at the start of the downturn and I saw no urgency in cutting expenses…it was business as usual. How do you justify having a staff of 8-10 people in the public relations dept in little Jacksonville, FL????? How many people does it take to give away a few million to local charities? I guess those little ice cream socials and face painting for employee’s kids takes more than a few people to organize. Get real. Pandit is under the gun because the previous layoff ruse where unopened reqs and other slight of hand did not reduce headcount or expenses as reported. Time to cut real belly buttons in chairs. Middle management is the place to start.

As an existing contractor in Citi Singapore, I have every faith that the company will get back on its feet. All this stock volatility is due to the short sellers out there (maybe some of the ones who bad mouthed Citi here) who are trying to make a quick buck. Hope US Govt bans this practise once and for all.

Sandy caused some US$ 6Billion in losses to the shareholder. Then came Chuck Prince, Sandy’s pupil. Chuck, irresponsibly, would not like the company until his incompetence made the situation unsustainable. Once again, more losses to the shareholders… And now, who is Vikran Pandit? A professional that led a hedge fund (Old Lane) that failed, causing more losses to Citi… And, as if this was not enough, he insists in bringing his gang of friends from Old Lane, the last one being his good buddy Adil Nathani (that came, of course, as Regional Chief Risk Officer and Risk Oversight of Structured Credit). Adil’s major qualification: a Pandit’s old buddy from the bankrupt Old Lane… Meanwhile, of course, thousands of lower paid employees are being laid off (as they are not part of Pandit’s inner circle). And, on the top, major highly paid positions continue being split, so that it is not uncommon to find “co-chairs” of this or that area… Matrixes are common to accommodate people and get everyone confused. Chaos is embedded. When will this company finally get serious? When will it have a real CEO, I mean, a successful banker with proven track record? And when will this company get a serious Board of Directors, as opposed to the current one that has insistently proven itself incompetent, unable to control the company. Sad to see this icon of the American Capitalism disintegrate as a result of human vanity, irresponsibility, selfishness, and, most of all, hubris. When will the incestuous relationship between the Senior Management and the Board of Directors end? When will this company get a serious Board of Directors? Citi, unfortunately, has been a lesson against all proper principles of Corporate Governance. Please SEC/FED/OCC, is it that difficult to do your jobs properly and try to moralize Citi.

Oh, BTW, I’m not sitting around and doing nothing all day. Granted, some of the onshore contractors are skilled and have extensive business knowledge, many offshore contractors are not even qualified to call themselves programmers. Hence, I spend hours and hours to catch errors that should only be made by a college student taking Computer Science 101!!

As a Citi employee that lost a job this summer with the company I would like to state I worked my rear end off for this company. I tried to expertly help customers 8 hours a day for 7 years. What was my reward..a layoff letter and severence,that has now run out and I am at the end of my unemployment benefits.

The source of my problem with Citi is that they decided to move my job to India and Texas, where there were uneducated lower paid workers. The India staff were so inadequate in handling calls that customers would find themselves calling five or six times for help,situations that could have been corrected by one call to our staff of experienced reps with an average of five years of experience. But no Pandit did not care he just wanted to make sure that his homeboys in India had jobs.

In fact in order to move jobs to lower wage paying states they reduced the job skills requirements and even decided that the job did not require a high school diploma previously the job required at least that, but some college preferred.

Citi is a joke they dismantle the lives of the lower paying 13.00 per hour employee like myself so that the big shots could keep their limos and expense accounts.

I for one could care less what happens to this company and for those employees on here supporting them they better look over their shoulders as their jobs could very well be the next on the cutting block. Believe me that 50000 job cuts is only the beginning watch they will be cutting more.

I had to move myself and family to another state to start a new life. I was a loyal employee.

All I can say I voted Obama so that he can stick it to companies that send jobs to India and destroy their tax breaks for doing so. Let’s see what Citi does then when that vacuum cleaner starts sucking those jobs back to the US. Me thinks they will have to start firing some of those do nothing managers that they are so top heavy with and their salaries.

I joined Citi in March, with high hopes. After all, it is, well, was, the largest bank in the world. As time passed by, it became clear to me that except for the better-than-some benefits, which I won’t be able to fully take advantage of until after my 1-year anniversary, there is little that I like about the way my department operates in whole. I am in the IT filed. My job is to supervise the contractors who have total control of the applications we build. Note the word I used, supervise, not LEAD! I hardly have any opportunity or sarcastically, authority, to make any positive changes. Why do they do this, contracting the whole project out to the big India consulting firms? I really can’t see how they are saving money. The application quality is the poorest I have ever seen in my entire career as a programmer. It just amazes me how they can keep it up and running. I was planning to leave in March next year since I got a sign-on bonus that I would have to pay back if I leave within one year after being hired. Now, I’m pulling out my resume and am ready to post it again to Monster.com.

I am a current employee of Citi, and must tell you that I love my job. I am in the IT area, and am not in management. I have great benefits and great pay, and my job is challenging.

What do we do all day? We work our butts off to make our products and services better! Citi realizes things have gone wrong, and we are working hard to fix them.

Unfortunately, we have not heard much in the media lately about what Citi has done right.

Please remember that just because upper management has made mistakes, it doesn’t mean us “peons” are not doing our jobs well.

As the ex-employer of Citi, I must say Citi is a very poor bank. Stupid management team. I think the bank should lay off those senior managing directors and VPs since they just know how to bluff. I am sick of this bank.
This bank deserves it.

pandit looks not better than prince.
He made big mistakes in wachovia
deal,and still want to have bonus while laying off so many employee and bosses in other companies like goldman,UBS are giving up their bonus.

citi has a better performance than GS.
what a moron!

I am currently a CitiGroup employee and would like to address a few points.

To start off with, we only have 250,000 employees now – that leaves us with 200,000 after the cut and that is ACROSS Citi. Credit Cards that has so many different departments just to have it manage and then you have to separate them into different departments after that: consumer, commercial, business then there’s Sears, Macys, Home Depot and then you have the high value consumer so no – we are not all just sitting around. So you have banking, credit cards, mortgage, citifinancial and so forth. And each segment has so many different departments within themselves. So it may look like you wouldn’t need that many do but when you have branches/sites all over the WORLD, you do. And all of us are a person just like all of you so to say you hope we ALL lose our jobs because you had a bad experience with Citi, doesn’t make it right. We all have families at home that our paycheck has to feed those kids.

They will be laying off upper management as well – its not just representatives that will lose their jobs. Although I completely understand and agree that alot of us who are just on hourly vs. salary will get the layoff but they give a good severance package so bring it on, lol.

I think all banks are “dirty.” I mean, if they were nice, clean banks then they wouldn’t be making tons of money off of all of us. I don’t think Citi is just SO wonderful but they do have great benefits for the employees and they are doing pretty much the same thing every other bank is doing in this time of crisis.

And lastly, to the former employee, I guess its different for the credit card division because I have worked there for over 3 years and this is the first lay off that we have ever experienced like this. And what bank doesn’t outsource that is a rival with Citi? Capital One and Chase outsources – Suntrust, Bank of America…

Citi operation are fundamentally flawed when it comes to customer service. One little example I could quote is I had citi nri account few years ago and everytime I needed to know balance, they used to ask atleast 5-10 (security) questions and would create a big mess if you forget your account number. They wont’ reveal anything and would make it very tough to get your account details. I got so fed up with them I chose to cancel and finally close my account after probably 20 attempts or so in a period of 1 yr. No wonder citi is bloated with poor management and poor operation, and non-sense stuff.

As a former Citi layed off employee this doesn’t surprise me. For the people on here asking what we did all day?? Really?? Try doing the job of 4 people! That’s what happens. As one who survived several layoffs with this company for half a decade! This is what they have been doing every year for the past 5 years is laying off chunks at a time to outsource…but somehow no one noticed until now how they operate? I can tell you that’s what they do. One…. outsource outsource outsource…India anyone? And the ones of us left or re located / rehired on to other dept your new job was doing the job of 4 other dept that where cut and fixing outsourcing messes! What on earth are they thinking with the outsourcing…how much time and money have they lost in fixing all the messes caused by unskilled outsourced cheap labor? If you have to have a whole department in the US “Escalations” to just fix outsourcing issues! When you could just have one dept period and get it done the right way the first time! Let’s see 3 outsourced workers and one US worker when all you really needed was the one US worker!

As a worker who worked in the headquarters of CitiMortgage and anyone can tell you that worked at this place ambulances where there often! Why??? People at this company had an uncanny way of having heart attacks! Working for them was no walk in the park! Trust me you earned that paycheck! Do the CEO’s really need that much money?? NO! But the lil worker bees like me needed those jobs! And trust me I wasn’t getting rich!

So for those on here thinking we just sat around all day…guess you think it’s better to take jobs from the US economy and ship them over seas to people who you call for help that could give two cents care about you or helping you! Let alone people reading a script in a language you can’t understand! Or even better yet…the new managers they have brought from oversees that they can pay cheaper….all the while looking at the American workers they supervise like dirt! So hope you people don’t have any cards or loans with this company…..as all this does is make your lives harder in dealing with any issues that come on to your account. And trust me there wont be that nice supervisor or US rep that finds the fix for you anymore………the best and brightest…..the stars…..trust me they have all been laid off! Good luck with those Citi cards in your wallets! And yep pat yourself on the back right now………your right the largest company in total doesn’t need any employees to handle all those accounts just how you don’t expect to get any service when you call them!

Gainfully employed now with a Citi rival who doesn’t outsource customer contact jobs!

As one of the 50,000 now layed off from Citi – I can say it is the best thing they could have done for me !!
That is one dirty mis-managed company which (prior to the credit crunch) was doing dirty business both lending and collecting. At least now I can sleep at night !!! I hope the American people take my advice and NEVER borrow any money from this company … you will be very sorry !!!!!

Good to see the Senior Executives from the Weill era leaving Citi steadily. That is a welcome sign considering the fact that these are people who brought citi down to its knees. First of all I am surprised that these folks have been around for this long despite how badly they managed Citi

Hope this group are all unemployed by next year. This is a slimy bank. Hoorah for their downfall! Stole taxpayer money you crooks!

I don’t think that the upper echelon of the company will lose their jobs. I think it will be people in the trenches that are the nuts and bolts of the organization. These people in the lower echelons are like you and me, not becoming wealthy managing other people’s money. They are getting apycheck and wondering where they will go to work when they are “downsized”. It would be nice if some of the fat at the top could be skimmed off.

Just got a letter in the mail today, that Citi is suspending my home equity loan, which I was just using for real emergencies and always paying on time. Reason: The home values are going down… Well, banks can do anything with you, even if you have a signed contract. Like we said in Germany: When the sun is shining, the banks are giving out umbrellas. When its raining, they want them back…

If you see Sallie Krawcheck, tell her that I have a great job offer that entails transforming financial services companies –
jzagro@mod-spec.com

Their Smith Barney website is the worst trading platform you can ever use. Pandit needs to renovate its whole IT infrastructure to compete with other brokerages.

I cannot believe that the largest bank ( at least before this whole crisis ) has this bad a website. I have several accounts with the company and has terminated most of it because their website is unusable.

As a former Citi FTE as well as a 2x time temp of Citi, please allow me to briefly pontificate regarding Citi’s true need for transformation. Its need to transform is not merely through shrinking; it’s not that it looses, but what it looses. Much like a 250lb. 25% body fat person would do well to loose 70lbs, if they lost 60lbs of muscle and 10lbs of fat, they would actually be worse over and not better.

As a rule, when the financial community hears of staff reductions, they are rarely impressed, either- 1 because it is always believed that the latest round in not the last round and/or 2 that intuitively the market understands that the majority of reductions will come from the actual working class. And by this I mean the non executive Senior VP class and below.

While one measure of a company’s efficiency maybe revenue per employee, perhaps a new set of metrics that might be considered would be historic trend analysis of various employee class ratios. For example, hourly employees to supervisors, avps to vps, senior vps to all non senior vps, etc. Now of course these ratios would need to be calculated based on various populations- the organizational level, the business level and/or the geographic location and of course to compare these ratios over time.

My point being- to cut to the chase- is that senior management- for various reasons- – which I will touch on shortly & briefly- seem to be far better insulated from the shears than the individuals actually tasked with providing the goods and services or supporting those endeavors expected by Citi customers; whether it be the tellers in the branches, back office operations specialists whose jobs are relocated out of city, state, or country or the Operations and Technology specialists that provide the infrastructure to support the transportation and storage of data, more often than not, their boss’ bosses are far less likely to be collecting the $405 weekly unemployment benefit.

As in all walks of like, it is rarely less about what you know than who you know. And by this- I really am getting to my point- I mean that these lords of industry, these captains of capital, these feigners of finance perpetuate their positions due more to their professional/personal connections than as a result of any value added they provide.

In fact in my last position there were so many senior vps- MD (Managing Directors) that literally it seemed their most important function was to be sitting in their offices watching every one’s actions; this ostensibly was to make sure everybody was working and not wasting valuable company time; and when not taking notes they would be motivating employees by reminding them there were plenty of other people that could do their job- – & for less money. I’m sorry but exactly how many $150K babysitters does it take to keep an eye on 25 60k people? Citi has got to have the highest ratios of glorified baby sitters to specialists than anybody any where.

Secondly- and finally- an explanation I heard for why Citi might have a disincentive to release said executives. . . their severances are too large. Anybody remember the Seinfeld with the band-aid situation? How best to remove said band-aid?. . .”ONE PULL”. While I understand- much like with said band-aid the short term comfort of nothing too extreme, the idea of leaving really well paid people in positions they would have to be insane to walk away from because their too expensive to get rid of- well if their to expensive in the short term to get rid of, how cheap affordable are they to keep around damaging moral for those who do provide value added?

They could probably cut ANOTHER 50,000. What do all of these employees do? I am sure many sit at a desk trying to look busy all day. Meanwhile, collecting a large paycheck.

If Citigroup can cut 50,000 employees – and still have have over 300,000 employees, what do all these people do. Do they do anything constructive to alleviate the falling economy worldwide? Or do they just gamble and churn other people’s money for their own benefit?