Thread regarding AT&T layoffs

My theory on essential personnel:

First off, as a CP manager who actually was deployed last year, hats off to the technicians, ya'll do some real work.

The CEOs make a difference by setting priorities and policies I see (can work vo, can't work vo, how much to spend on development),

The directors know their corner of the business, usually one or a small cluster of related applications or segment, I had one who traveled around the world not on sales jaunts or some ostensible reason for meeting the workforce, but because he was seeking first-hand experience with our tools as they're experienced at most-of-world offices. He's be online in Hong Kong at 3 am pressing the gang back home on why this or that wasn't working acceptably.

But the levels in between director and CEO? They seem to come and go with a reorganization powerpoint every six months. My manager and I—a team for many years—spent 20 minutes a few weeks back trying to remember every AVP we ever had. In our case and most of our colleagues, we're not interchangeable. I could not take over peers' work and vice versa. It's deeply technical stuff that takes a year or more to even begin to master. But AVPs step in, step out, and none of it seems to make a whit of difference to our daily work.

At town halls from that level, I'll be horns-waggled if I can tell any differences other than the speaking voice and the choice of auditorium (or now, whose home office) they use for town halls. The topics are always the same: employee NPS is big. I'll mention it again, because they always do: NPS is big. They essentially repeat the CEO's priorities verbatim, but unable to answer any specifics, either because of NDA or more often, they just don't know. Then, six months later, Poof! and they're moving laterally to lord over a completely different group, and the same town hall happens with different faces and voices.

I suspect there's some available slack in those levels.

I would be surprised if we see any level disappear. There will be some upper level managers retire and reshuffling of resources to make it look like the span of control has increased. This will be accomplished by Directors and above move lower level managers under them as direct reports (i.e. l2 reporting to a l4). To shave off $1.5 in workforce reduction will require more than flattening, it will require the surplussing of 12K employees and the sale of multiple BUs. l3 managers offshore jobs so they get 4 to 1 jump in headcount in their organizations. Looks good to them on paper (span of control) but most of those offshore resources don't live up to the job.

Tons of staff positions just trying to justify their positions and creating a lot of busy work. They definitely need to be re-evaluated

You guys should check out Corporate Communication (or whatever they’re called these days) and External Affairs. They have AVPs managing ... no one! They are top heavy with AVPs, directors, directors over directors. It’s crazy.

Avp/vp/sr.vp..

That's a whole layer of bs right there. There should be just one vp reporting to business unit president.

You don't need associate director reporting to a director. That positions need to be merged. Just 4 layers should suffice.

President
VP
DIRECTOR/Avp - whatever they want to call it
Individual contributors

I am in Vz in IT. There are 9 levels between me and the CEO. Too many.

I’m in digital, there are layers upon layers and zero growth opportunities. So here’s what I say, but it won’t happen,

1. Directors - we have 2 associate (level 2) and director (level 3) - there should just be 1 director (level 3). The ADs typically know what’s going on and how to do it. They get stuff done. Most directors are clueless and do not come from the orgs they manage. They just got shuffled in from somewhere else and have little to no technical knowledge. They are people pleasers and nothing else.
2. VPs - there are avp, Vp, svp, Evp. Range from level 4 and up. This is where the clusterf–k really starts. This herd definitely needs to be thinned. Most know jack about how to do anything and cause more churn and make work via meetings and reporting than you could imagine. Inefficiency at its finest. We spend more time placating this group than we do actually doing things. There should only be 1 maybe 2 VPs.

It would also help to have technical people in those lower level management positions. Not just people managers. These enjoy having lots and lots of time consuming meetings and have a hard time weight accomplishments. People manager's get easily impress by verbal skills but have a hard time identifying true brilliance and innovation when its staring them in the eye.

In many organizations there are more SVPs and above than VPs and below. That kind of speaks for itself.

You forgot the AVP's....so many of these folks with so many Directors under them.....

All you need is the following:
BU President
Vice President
Director
Individual contributor

Minimum span of control to be 20 people per level.
End of year bonus % should be the same for all individual contributors regardless of level, and the same for Director and VP levels. 12% and 15% respectively.

Management, unless it's technical management like an engineering manager, it simply about managing resources. One of those is people. When it comes down to people it's all about span of control. How many people can someone effectively manage? How many techs can a 1st line effectively manage? How many 1st lines, can a 2nd line effectively manage? How much extra c-ap to both have to handle in the performance of their duties? If you're looking to cut costs at the management level, to most people it's pretty simple, either increase their span of control or cut numbers. If you increase span of control, each manager has to manage more people so you don't need as many of them. Sounds good, but not if you don't reduce the c-ap that goes with it? All you're going to do is create stress and probably make their job 10 times harder which always "rolls down hill." You'll problaby get more turnover too. "I don't need this c-ap!" If the workload goes way down, cut numbers is painful but it's that way in any job. If the workload stays the same or increases and you cut numbers...everything suffers in a different way. Personally, what we really need is to get rid of a lot of the c-ap and red tape that both techs AND managers are exposed to that affects their ability to do their jobs effectively. And it shouldn't be some one time "flavor of the day" program. It should be continuous. It's simple. "What can we do to make techs jobs easier and less of a hassle where they can concentrate on just getting the job done." "What can we do to make managers jobs easier and less of a hassle so they can ensure their techs can concentrate on just getting the job done." During my 18 years with AT&T it seemed like we were becoming experts at doing the opposite.

I know they said flattening and I believe they will do it. They’ve thrown you off the real story though. It’s the union members and first lines that will be the biggest numbers by far. Think 100 to 1 for a VP. They won’t save 1.5b laying off vp’s.

The whole AVP layer would not even be missed if it was gone. Once the lower levels are thinned out and Director can report direct to VP and maintain Span of control.

Which layers of management disappear?

Not the ones that count.

Stinky must go!
Poppin' Fresh must go!
Zucher must go!
The Board of Misdirectors must go!

But they will cut others whose demise will not save T.

I work in a sales call center. We have 4 managers (one 2L and three 1L) for 25 sales reps. 10 years ago we had 6 managers (one 2L and six 1L) for 100 sales reps. The numbers just don't add up. Especially when you take the hiring and training employees part out of the job.

Area manager? get rid of them.dead weight.

cutting layers of mgmt., be it am, exec directors, directors, associate directors, avp, vp, evp, svp, etc is a proposition that makes sense, but... c'mon, when was the last time the so called leaders made a decision involving it?

I think they are going to get rid of the avp and evp… and just have VP'S … all that tape for nothing!! the directors are the leaders of the frontline, and know what's going on in the trenches, so I believe they need to stay. I saw the previous town hall they had where they did state they were going to allow more decisions to be made locally, which would make sense to have up to the director... and just have the director report to each VP (not avp or evp just a plain VP, who needs 3 layers of vp's). The vp will have the best of both worlds, the true middle man of sorts between the front line, and the upper management, so that they wont be so clueless up at the top, as they have been previously.

On Hargrove (VP Southeast) call today, he stated he didn't see l1-l3 being affected, which would put the flattening in the avp-vp-evp-svp range.

VZW does not have any area managers

My department let go our Director (March lay-off)- now my associate director reports directly to AVP. So I would agree Area Managers and Directors are a waste of money.

I think L3 and L4 are the most vulnerable. I have already seen evidence that the VP’s are staffing up to the correct span of control ratio at the expense of AVP AND Director span of control. Also, they hate to let VP’s go because that indicates they made a mistake in making that person a VP

Ok, my org in CTO has 4 VP and 2 director levels. Although director is L3 and associate director is still L2. AVP is L4. Nevertheless still way too many levels.

OP poster here. Yeah our org no longer has an associate VP. Our director reports directly to the VP.
Anyone know how Verizon or TMobile is laid out? Pretty sure Morrow is comparing our management structures.

There are 4 VP levels, the OP forget one (AVP above Director), and there needs to be only one. And there are associate directors, needs to be only one. Same with manger. So that is 5 levels that need to go.

he knows we are top heavy, But most changes will probably take place from the middle going down wIth a higher ratio of employees to supervisor allowing for some of those titles to merge like the director and associate director. VP, SVPs and all of those P's maybe. But who knows the current structure is beneficial to those on top, each level going up means a higher salary & bonus margin.

Well, they should be eliminating some in the middle, but then that would make sense, so .... I doubt it. Certainly there are too many AD's and Area Managers, but at least one of the xVP and 'President' levels should go as well.

3 and 4

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