Thread regarding Verizon Communications Inc. layoffs

After having read everything on here I would like to add something. I apologize ahead of time. The criticisms are harsh, accurate and true in my personal experience. I see and work with a lot of the background systems that people aren't always aware of so I come in contact with a lot of the people who have said the same type of things written here. I have seen the results that could only come from the things I have seen written here. My education is in mathematics and analytics and as an introvert the thought of speaking out paralyzes me. It's hard enough to write this. The passive aggressive and non verbalized threats are everywhere. They don't have to be said out loud in most cases. A seemingly unrelated suggestion or a look speaks volumes. Like after identifying a major flaw in some financial calculations and trying to report it. "Have you ever thought about what you could be doing if you were no longer here?" " Have you considered if there is anywhere you might rather be?" "We need to keep things in house because other departments wouldn't understand and it might now go well for you if they got the wrong impression." It's better to remain silent and keep my paycheck and my house.

To the posters who might be Insiders, I think another poster may have identified the source of some of the confusion. I can't speak to wireline but I can say wireless is practically rotten to the core in its leadership. Their motives are not honorable and their intentions are self-serving. The good of Verizon is the last thing most of them are thinking about internally. If your rose colored view comes predominantly from wireline then I would suggest you remove those glasses before looking at wireless. They are not the same from everything I have heard when speaking to my equivalent counterparts on the wireline side. You hear it said that the grass is always greener on the other side. Unless you are wireline looking at wireless. They know the grass is not greener over here and they might prefer we stay on our side of the fence. And I can't say I blame them.

I have heard for years that the two would come together and wireless would be held to the same standard of accountability as wireline but it has never happened that I can tell. And knowing what I know about the individuals at the top level of wireless, they do not want anyone holding them accountable if everything I know that is hidden is ever exposed. Take that to the bank. Was that a hint? Hmmm. I have no idea the reason they haven't come together but I would bet dollars to donuts that wireless has kept it from happening for that very reason. The thought alone probably keeps them up at night.

That's enough. Do with it what you will or just dismiss it as an isolated view you don't agreed with all because you have had the privilege of being shielded from the facts. But if this many anonymous people can retell the same story in their own way and the core message is the same... Think about how many have had the same experience or worse and don't even know this place exists or would be too afraid to post anything if they did.

I think for the first time in years, a group we have assumed was monitoring us found their voice, spoke and are engaging in conversation. Bravo to the OP and the participants. I am still processing this unexpected turn of events. Still feels like an episode of the Twilight Zone at the moment.

@cw Thank you for taking the time to break it down as you see it and I agree with a lot of your points. I also love that your responses are in order of each relevant post. That is a refreshing and unexpected LOE.

Although, the issue is not that anyone thinks leaders should know everything and do the thinking for the team. That happens when employees with experience and knowledge are promoted to leadership positions. (Like the poster above you) But even those leaders know to never discount their team's experience and knowledge because their team may have knowledge and experience they have yet to gain. Leadership is a humbling position of perpetual learning and growth.

The issue is a lot of leaders here already think they know everything and already do the thinking for the team and any other input is dismissed even if the input is known to be accurate. Especially if it hinders the leader's upward mobility. They just want to lead their way to the next promotion. Their accomplishments will always have a positive business impact. Just ask them. The facts may not support it but the facts don't mean anything. How many times have I heard "Well that may be true but this must be completed now. If it turns out to have a negative impact down the road then someone else will be able to address it then." It may not be every leader in every org but it has been almost every one I have worked worked with over the last 10+ years. Certainly this is common knowledge that is relayed in the pulse survey. Oh wait, we're not supposed to write negative pulse surveys because it makes us look like we are not team players and we will get riffed.

Verizon needs to clearly define the traits of a leader that every leadership program outside of Verizon has upheld and mandated for decades if not longer.

True leaders want to find and develop more true leaders, not see them as a threat to their leadership. Leaders want people in the role they are best suited for to benefit themselves and the company, not the best role to benefit the leader. Leaders will listen to their team and take their collective experience and use it as the guide for laying out the path, plan, scope, etc they are responsible for. Leaders will ask to be challenged to verify and identify pitfalls that may have been missed so they can be avoided and later corrected, not covered up. Leaders are always testing the perimeter to find any weakness that might have been overlooked or are new since the last check. Not pass it on to the next leader or let it get worse until it can't be ignored.

They never focus only on the task in front of them. They proactively seek out areas of concern to prevent them from ever becoming a bigger problem than they already may be that no one has noticed yet. Here, if it's not directly in the leader's face pointing at them it's not their concern. It's always sad when someone tells me about a new problem they just found and they discover that our team found it years ago but the leader we had that quarter decided to let it fester and grow until another team found it after it grew too large to miss. They just hoped they would be promoted or re-org'd out before that happened. There is still a long list that haven't been discovered yet.

The list of what leaders are and do is long and I bet a lot of people are nodding right now on just these few points and most know they haven't seen this type of leadership here, at least in wireless.

Almost every "Leader" I have met here has one mission. Hit that goal at any cost. Grab the "low hanging fruit" and make a mad dash for the finish line before another "leader" can do it so the next leader up the chain will smile down upon them. Blur the focus on the higher fruit and sweep all of the fruit that got crushed into the ground during the melee under a tarp and hope no one looks under it. That way they can say they were successful almost 100% every time. To be clear, "almost every leader" is becoming "every leader" after a lot of good leaders self ejected in the last VSP and others are getting laid off.

A couple of leaders I have worked with started out as leaders by industry standards but then they moved up. And then they changed. A couple confided that the dynamic changed and now they had to hit it and get it and move on if they expected to stay. The "or else" is always implied. It was no longer about true problem resolution. It was now about applying a temporary patch that required the least amount of effort and hiding the rest. But since saying that doing something correctly requires more effort than we are willing to commit to sounds kinda bad, they say something like, "After reviewing the LOE it was determined that it was greater than the need" Meaning, too much effort for too little low hanging fruit so we will ignore those issues and define them as outside of the scope. Even though they meet the definition of the scope 100% and are usually twice the amount of the lower hanging fruit. They just need a little, and I mean very little, extra effort to correct.

We now have regular LOE meetings to find lower, lower hanging fruit and discuss how to redefine the rest so they don't accidentally get added to the scope.

The problems we have found solutions to that were hidden is growing a super volcano that will blow one day. Bet on that. A forensic financial audit will prove it without a doubt.

I have spoken to people in almost every org who have described very similar if not exact experiences. I speak with them because we are all separated into silos that are all connected and affect each other. And because leaders refuse to communicate between orgs about how one affects the other, we end up having a negative effect on each other that creates more issues that need to be resolved. Leaders aren't interested in finding the root cause because it is not in their "scope" and may delay their next promotion.

Currently, I see no sign that this dynamic is changing or is slated to be changed but if changing titles accomplishes that, then great.

If it is only to flatten a hierarchy with no actual change to the dynamic by having leaders that lead effectively, then it is all for show.

What good is a title hierarchy that makes advancement easier if none of it is based on honest leadership that has a positive result that wasn't built on misinformation and misleading reports? That seems like a house of cards that is destined to collapse.

@fh We’re talking about title downgrades, not RIFs. If flattening is really the goal, the scrutiny can’t stop with management. The ICs who remain should have their titles and compensation evaluated against their actual contribution, knowledge, scope, and responsibility.

And while you may think the RIFs already addressed the issue with IC, read this forum. Plenty of people claim top contributors were let go while lower performers remained. So be careful what you wish for with this flattening dream. Imagine those lower performers suddenly reporting directly to a Senior Director or VP moving 1,000 miles an hour, with no one buffering the gaps. That should be interesting. Flattening exposes everyone.

Are there terrible ADs? Absolutely—just like there are terrible leaders and employees at every level in every company. That’s a performance-management problem and should be addressed as one. But there are also plenty of ADs doing double duty: producing IC-level work while simultaneously leading, developing, advocating for, and being accountable for a team.

But if we’re serious about flattening, evaluate the entire organization—not just declare “we have too many leaders.” ICs that remain should be able to meet the expectations of the Senior Directors and VPs they’ll report to. But many simply can’t operate at that level—and flattening will expose that quickly.

@df I really love that for you and can say that you are a leader I would be proud to follow.

Managers told us a number of times to reach out if we were interested in moving up and they would get us on the right track but every time I asked, they didn't know how to actually do it. It was something they were told they had to communicate to us but they were never told how to actually help anybody. It always came up right after the pulse survey for some reason. Maybe they will be able to help after this pulse survey.

Although, we did have a national all hands call early in 2024 and were told if our career has stalled it was our fault for not getting more exposure to the senior managers. J.G. suggested we fly out to an office to meet them and buy them a cup of coffee and our chances would improve and not to think our experience or skill level would have anything to do with it. He closed by saying if we didn't like the way he did things in supply chain, we might want to consider taking the VSP and it was okay to admit that Verizon wasn't a good fit. We were floored. It was a topic of conversation for weeks afterwards. And a lot of good people VSP'd out as fast as they could because they knew there was no future here for them. The impact of their loss is still being felt today but I imagine they are happier than ever now.

I really wish I had your experience. I would bet cash money you are in wireline. I have been told many times that wireline was like wireless but with ethics, integrity and accountability. Oh... and standards. Not a different standard depending on which state or office you are in. And that was directly out of the mouth of a wireless AD. And you know they would never put that in writing. Actually I think he might have come over from wireline now that I think about it. Maybe he didn't know until he got here.

@f2 @f2, for ICs, supervisors, managers, and senior managers, the company has effectively been evaluating the organization through the past several rounds of layoffs, RIFs, VSPs, and other workforce actions.

For AD, D, SD, and AVP roles, the company may have conducted similar evaluations, but the fact that most individuals in these positions have remained in their roles suggests that these levels have not been subject to the same degree of organizational scrutiny or change.

@ep @ej Great ideas! If we’re serious about transformation though, nothing should be sacred. Put all Managers, Sr Managers and Distinguished Engineers under the same microscope. If we’re talking organizational bloat, inflated titles and inflated salaries shouldn’t escape the conversation.

You can’t call it flattening if only one side of the org chart gets flattened.

@bh my AD is great. They work harder than probably anyone else in the department including the other ADs, even though I do like most of them as well. I would say 3 of the 5-6 in my group should be where they are, 1 is should go for sure. There are good ones, but there are way more bad ones.

@ej The transformation team and HR should first establish clear, objective job requirements and measurable performance expectations for each management level. These should include relevant years and types of experience, education requirements, required or preferred certifications, technical and business competencies, leadership capabilities, scope of responsibility, and expected performance outcomes.

Once these requirements are clearly defined, the current AD, D, SD, and AVP population should be evaluated consistently against the same standards. The evaluation should include measurable criteria, for example:

Business performance: achievement against annual goals, revenue/cost impact, productivity improvements, quality metrics, or other relevant business KPIs

Execution: percentage of key initiatives delivered on time and against agreed objectives

Team effectiveness: employee retention, engagement, internal talent development, succession readiness, and performance of the teams they lead

Leadership scope: size and complexity of the organization managed, budget responsibility, and cross-functional responsibilities

Strategic contribution: measurable outcomes from strategic initiatives, transformation programs, or business improvements led by the individual

Role qualifications: years of relevant experience, education, certifications, and demonstrated technical/business expertise required for the specific level

Leadership effectiveness: 360-degree feedback and other structured assessments, using consistent methodology across the organization

Sustained performance: performance results over the past 3–5 years, rather than relying primarily on tenure, title, or one year's performance

The criteria should include defined thresholds or expectations for each management level, with appropriate weighting for each category. The assessment should be evidence-based, consistently applied, and calibrated across functions to minimize subjectivity.

chris flood will be in charge of 80k people when he becomes CEO.

why not do what meta and google are doing? Flatten the org. With AI, we don't need so many people managers.

Instead of Chris FLood being in charge of a team of 300, have chris flood be in charge of a team of 50

If Dan really wants to be an AI / Tech company he should put his money where his mouth is

@cw, excellent insights. I believe the transformation team should take a close look at at least these two areas:

1. Evaluate whether we need so many management layers.
   Do we really need roles such as AD, D, SD, and AVP across the organization? Could we adopt a much flatter management structure, similar to what many leading technology companies have implemented?

2. Evaluate whether the current leaders in these roles are the right fit.
   If these management layers are necessary for the business, we should assess whether the people currently in AD, D, SD, and AVP roles are truly qualified and have demonstrated strong performance over the past few years. Those who have not been effective in these roles should be considered for a return to IC positions or, where appropriate, opportunities outside the organization.

Also an AD here. I agree there are useless ADs out there, but not all of us are. The worst kind are the MBAs or leadership development program graduates who went straight into management with zero individual contributor experience. Many of us worked our way up from the IC level to get here. I can do the job of any of my employees as least as well as they can. If you want the company to improve, get an AD/D/SD role yourself and be the leader you think the company needs

lots of emotion and passion around this whole retitle conversation. Let’s bring a few facts and a little perspective into it.

@ba — ADs, Directors, Sr. Managers, and Managers currently sit within the same band 6V … Sr. Directors and AVPs 5V. So if we’re going down the retitling path based on our individual perceptions of what people contribute, let’s at least be consistent and retitle some Managers as Consultants because some can’t even effectively “manage” their own work. See how quickly that logic falls apart? Titles reflect the scope and expectations of a role, not our personal assessment of the person sitting in it.

@bg — The expanded title structure was introduced, in part, based on employee feedback asking for greater upward mobility and career progression within the same job families and functions based on Leader feedback, role expansion and individual contributions. People wanted the ability to grow without having to completely change careers just to move up. Now we seem to be debating whether those distinctions should exist at all. If the expectations or scope of the work actually changed, then yes, going from AVP to Sr. Director makes sense. But that’s a conversation about the role changing — not simply the title changing.

@bh — Sorry to hear your business group operates that way. That certainly sounds challenging. But organizational cultures and operating models vary significantly across a large company. One group’s experience isn’t necessarily representative of how leadership functions everywhere else.

@c1 — The minimizing actually started several posts ago when the conversation shifted toward broad generalizations that ADs contribute very little or are largely ineffective. That dismisses the many leaders who genuinely work to improve the employee experience and deliver meaningful business outcomes.

And if the expectation is that an effective leader must personally know every detail, have every answer, and do all the thinking for the team, I fundamentally disagree. Strong leadership is about setting direction, creating clarity, asking the right questions, connecting expertise from their directs and partners, removing barriers, and holding people accountable for outcomes.

A leader’s job isn’t to be the smartest person in every conversation. It’s to build a team where they don’t have to be. If your measure of leadership is “my boss should know everything I know to be effective,” you may be measuring the wrong thing.

@b9 I absolutely love this word salad:

"An AD managing three people while setting strategy, leading major initiatives, influencing senior leaders, and driving cross-functional outcomes can absolutely have greater scope than a supervisor managing 12 people doing primarily transactional or operational work"

The 12 people doing primarily transactional or operational work, while totally minimalized in your statement, actually know how things work because they work it. And when things get done it's because they know how to do it correctly from past experience.

Please explain how the AD has a greater anything, let alone scope, when:
They don't understand the context of the strategy the want to set.
They can't lead a major initiative if they have no experience in what the initiative encompasses or a current and accurate map on how to get there.
Influencing leaders is just a BS campaign because they know less than the AD.
They can't drive cross-functional outcomes if they don't know what the functions are or how they interconnect with the other functions they cross.

Actually, the AD does have a few greater things. The capacity to fake it till they make it. An overflowing well of denial. An unmatched ego. And unlimited pride.

How is it that everyone on the bottom rung knows this is true but no one in leadership has figured out this is why they and Verizon keep failing?

@ba 100% Slides and poking fingers to individual who actually does he work.

@b9 Accountability? When was the last time any AD was held accountable for the disasters they have created by not knowing what they were doing? They cover for each other point fingers at everything else.

Put some action in your words. Walk the talk.

@br OMG. Truth!! Thanks for that. I don't even know how many times our AD told us specific steps to do something only to find out those steps changed 10 times since that was accurate. And no one knew what the current process was. It's like the blind leading the blind but, really, the blind can do that better than Verizon leaders can lead.

@b9 Verizon leadership, AD, D, EVP, SM, SVP. ABCDEFG, leads like a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy. Each copy is a worse copy than the one before it. This is because the leaders can't lead you to a place they've never been before. They were told by another leader how to get there who was told by another leader how to get there who read in a book somewhere that this is how you get there. They don't know about the roadblock. They don't know about the pothole. They don't know about the detour that was just set up. They don't even know what the speed limit is.

Test it and see if I'm wrong. Ask any of them a specific question about something you encounter every day and know the answer to because of your experience and see if they can answer correctly without having to ask someone else. Many times I was given the name of someone I should ask. And when I asked that person they said they didn't know the person who sent me or why they would have sent me to them because they have nothing to do with anything related to the question.

As one post stated, the people who have been there and know the answers are usually the lowest on the ladder. And they are the ones most directly affected by the failures of leadership leading without a map. They're not allowed to speak up because how dare they make the leader feel like they don't know what they're talking about. There's the ego that another post just mentioned.

And they are absolute masters at spinning the narrative. They will look directly at a dumpster fire full of filled diapers and say "Well, it isn't ideal but it is improving every day and I really don't see that there is a negative business impact were causation can be found. We will look at the scope of the opportunity to see if it scales and what type of initiative we would have to implement in order to get the business moving at a level that meets the expectation of the moment" and everyone on the call will cheer and wipe tears of joy away from their eyes because a leader has spoken. It was all BS, but no one knows the difference.

I wonder what kind of dressing they like on their word salad.

@b9 yeah they led up the strategy and initiatives, and all have been failed, driven the company down to the bottom , but do have the guts to admit under their big egoes

@b9 More general textbook answers without real world specifics that exhibit proven experience.

I have been reading for months but now I need to offer my real world experience with impotent ADs.

Here are some specifics. Never met an AD that ever got their hands dirty and, if they had to, could not perform the most basic of functions that the people they manage do on a daily basis because they have never actually had to work with the systems. They can talk about it all day but wouldn't recognize it if they saw it in real life. Like a cook that read a cookbook claiming to be an experienced chef without ever turning on a oven or picking up a kn--e. And couldn't even tell the difference between a chefs kn--e, a Nakiri and a pairing kn--e. These ADs have run departments into the ground but no one notices because they talk a good game using $10 words they learned at university. We have been trying to fix SAP/S4/1ERP/HANA for years but not a single leader has a clue how any of it works because they have never used it. They demand their direct reports put band aids on everything and then get teams to manually do work in an attempt to complete what the system can't while telling everyone they are leading a successful campaign to fix everything while secretly hoping to get reorged out ASAP. And all the while, the CRs from 2023 still haven't gone in to fix the majority of the problems they created with their lack of experience. Their direct reports can tell them whatever line of mess they want because they know their AD won't know the difference. As long as everyone acts "as if" then leadership will celebrate. Not a single leader is experienced enough to notice that the list of unresolved issues from today is the exact same list from 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025 because each issue gets spun a little bit different each time it is discussed and every issue is always close to a resolution.

It is numbing to come in every day knowing we have the ability to realign almost everything but the glorious AD says it is too much and to focus on the low hanging fruit that will move those numbers to make it look like we moved the needle when, in truth, it hasn't budged.

Get leaders with real world practical leadership skills and hands on experience in what they are leading or tell them to sit down and shut up and let the people that knew how to do it right the first time step up and fix the mess they made and be done with this side show circus carnival of fools and get the systems working the way they should have for years.

I have been holding that in for a long time and now that I got it out, you can bury it so as few people as possible will see it but I will have nothing more to add. Thank you. Bless the people that know the struggle.

why didn't they keep the original style of manager, senior director and vp? besides title complexity, blue jeans, and DEI crying events, what did Hans bring?

if dan really wants to make a difference, he should go back to the original titles

There should not be AD and D or SD, they are just doing the mgr or sr mgr jobs, or only passing and shuffling the KPI numbers and ops reviews talks, what are the waste of life

AD here — titles aren’t simply about how many direct reports you have. They’re about scope, complexity, accountability, and business impact.

An AD managing three people while setting strategy, leading major initiatives, influencing senior leaders, and driving cross-functional outcomes can absolutely have greater scope than a supervisor managing 12 people doing primarily transactional or operational work.

People sometimes confuse headcount with seniority. Managing more people doesn’t automatically mean you’re operating at a higher level. The real question is: What decisions do you own, how complex is the work, and how much of the business moves because of it?

It’s about time. Our Senior Manager has 2 Supervisors reporting to her. Why do you need that? One of the Supervisors is out on leave so technically it was 3 but really? Hire more workers
to get work done!

Many of the ADs I know should have a title and payscale of manager or senior manager. They are not "associate directing" with a team of between 8 and 12 people. Though the number range is a little arbitrary. Anyways, they'e just managing. Title inflation right there.

@as Both. And they claim to be multifaceted and able to do the work of two.

do people with downgraded titles put the new or old one on their resume?

i've seen that where they were AD, lost headcount and then became senior manager again. Dan is getting rid of AD w/ no headcount

@OP seen AD becoming distinguished eng......which is basically same pay rate...different titles

Are they in a different dept? The could have been riffed and taken a new position that's a downgrade

What grouo are you seeing this? N&T?