there are a ton of L2/L3 with no or small number of direct reports. as people have stated getting to a 1:12 ratio is the target. also, as you know the budgets for new work are small to zero in most areas. 5G build and sustainment only this year. surplus on the way big
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ID: @ofe+13ORR4Jj....I know right?? It’s astonishing how many people come here and post who have no clue about management roles/structure at AT&T. IC (individual contributor) management roles in the Technical Career Pathway have been around for some time now. Those roles are spread out across multiple disciplines and job titles at L1-L4. Not all titles are available in all disciplines/roles and you can visit the TCP portal for details for all this.
Titles:
Associate (1A) IC1
Specialist (1B) IC2
Sr. specialist (1B) IC3
Professional (L2 management) IC4
Senior (L2 management) IC5
Principal (L2 management) IC6
Lead (L3 management) IC7
Distinguished (L4 management) IC8
These titles can be a part of various disciplines and roles (example below).
Network Technical Support (Discipline)
Roles:
Advanced Technical Support
Network Support
Technical Process/Quality
Systems Administrator
As a rule of thumb, IC’s do not generally have supervising duties, but since they are AT&T managers they can sometimes be tasked with leading/managing direct reports. You can take the examples above and figure out the hierarchy pretty easily. A Sr. Specialist-Technical Process/Quality and Sr. Specialist-Network Support are in the same IC discipline of roles (think of this as a family of skills), but physically perform separate job functions.
Forget about L1 or L2 as these are the worker bees and producing as L1 & L2 are management but do not manage anyone as they ae individual contributors. If you are talking about AD that is a different story and debatable as some are very Technical and engage in solutioning etc. Not all as the majority are admin only and really not needed as their L2 Tech Leads are supporting the real work. I think where they need to look is at the 3rd Level Directors with no reports, The so-called subject matter experts whose expertise is sitting on calls all day and not producing anything and not managing any one. If they cleaned up this area there may be some L1 and L2 workers who actually have to produce and deliver. I hate to see anyone lose a job but it blows my mind......
put it this way, if you are an L2 individual contributor barely working on projects and making over 100k you wont be around long, should have been long ago and you know it. if you are a L2 with direct reports forget about it, you are gone.
L2 managing are AD's. Some are very Technical. The majority are Admin Mgrs and not needed as they have L2 Leads doing all the Managing and Tech Solutioning anyway....Don't need an AD to push the button on time cards as Tech Dir can do the same. L2 Tech manage themselves, their projects and tech solutions it is redundant...
I hope they will do something with the directors that have no ne under them
if your an L2 with no direct reports in this new at&t, good luck, you will need it.
I don’t know where the 1:12 is coming from but in the Cleveland are it’s more like 1:18 and been hearing more like 1:20
Management research says that 7-8 direct reports is ideal. When they go past this to 12 DRs they save money. Think about it, 24 employees should have 3 managers but instead only get 2 which saves them one salary. When that happens you get managers running around telling people what to do rather than managing. Unfortunately you’ll end up having managers working crazy ours just to stay afloat.
I would love to see the HR people or leadership people who are pushing the 1:12 ratio actually manage that much work load, in the technical community managing 8-10 DR is tough, there is a lot of work and a lot of details that have to be covered, it is not realistic to have 12 Direct reports, but of course some outside firm said that should be the number, so I guess we go from 7 days a week 10 hour days, to 12-14 hour days, glad I got surplus and will be gone March 20 :)
There are some L4’s with no reports that just come in and collect a check!!
Being an L2 does not mean you should be or will be managing people. Many are individual contributors at that level, reporting to an L2 or L3. I don’t know why people here can never seem to grasp that. In ATO Mobility at least, the L2 AM’s that DO have direct reports haven’t been at 1:12 for the last couple years. Almost all are already around 20 or more since all of the surplus and reorg activities.