Thread regarding American Electric Power Co. Inc. layoffs

Stop crying big babies, oh and welcome back to work, the rest of us have been here keeping the lights and infrastructure working while you were gone.

I’d almost be willing to go in - and throw a party while doing it - if we could roll back the co-sourcing.

Also, why is it that grocery store workers are savvy enough to unionized but IT shops are not. We certainly have the tech skills to do this. What is wrong with us?

The weight of negative public opinion is like a rising tsunami, if it continues unabated the corporate board, major shareholders and hedge fund raiders are going to realize that no amount of wealth or political campaign financing can save you from the consequences of your sins against a virtuous society. Members of the Virginia General Assembly are so concerned they are considering a bill to freeze APCO electric rates for 2 years.

In addition to all the other mess, AEP left 17000 people without power on the coldest night of the year due to poor infrastructure. The public is angry. The employees are furious about many things. Applause to the poor guys that had to go out in -10 wind chills and restore power, but it should have been ready for that load. It was no secret that subzero cold was coming. Now we have confirmed proof of leadership lying to employees. In my annual review of the company (I wish), to use a quote, "I'm very disappointed."

Psh. Unreal.

Personal context on why this move is so devastating. For me. A few years ago, my ailing sister moved into my home. Her options were either a longterm facility, or to live with someone who could help to care for her throughout the day.

Working remotely, then hybrid has allowed me to make her breakfast before I start working, take her to the bathroom a few times during the day when she needed, and check in on her. A caregiver supports her the other days I’m in office.

I’ve also been able to avoid after school costs for my child two days a week, which amounts to about $500 in savings a month. She just comes home and quietly does her homework while I plug away at work, or she helps her aunt out if needed. This entire time, I’ve done my job and done it very well. My team doesn’t even know my personal circumstances which is an indicator of how successful I’ve been at managing this wonderfully challenging life of mine.

So now, I’m out of the $500 for childcare , and I have the choice of spending more than I make each month to pay for daily in-home care for my sibling, or to put her into a facility. I’m devastated that AEP did this. This cannot be the company I’ve given so many years to. I feel like this is no longer the AEP we built.

If this was truly about productivity I think he would/should have given specific examples. It was very light on the details. Just a bunch of vague language about "stakeholder value" and "tremendous opportunity."
If our productivity was really so bad I want to know how. In what ways have we failed? Did everyone fail equally? How was it being measured? Tell us.

ICP payout is March 14th. Start interviewing now and beat all the lazy ones that will wait till later to start. Get your $ and vote with your feet. IT people are mostly sc--wed but there is still a great hiring market for engineers and construction people.

I would highly suggest that everyone reading this comment, go to GlassDoor and leave your honest rating and feedback on the current state of AEP. This is no where near the same company from 10 years ago and that should be reflected on their overall rating.

Technology will soon follow. It's not a bad thing. Half of my coworkers in tech have quiet quit but are too lazy to leave.

I think he's just jumping on the bandwagon. There's a lot of news right now about big companies going back to full in-office and I think a lot of executive leadership feel like this is their chance to reign WFH back in and re-establish control over their employees.
Quite honestly, Bill strikes me as an airhead. The email was pathetic. Just a flurry of buzzwords. I wonder if he even has the self-awareness to feel ashamed at sending something like that out.

The irony is that Bill himself is technically remote. Of course he has access to a private jet and car service at the company’s expense.

It is really strange because AEP pays below market for most of its white collar positions. The hybrid / remote perk is actually a damn good draw for talent to take a lower salary.

This goes to show that leadership at big orgs is not forward thinking. Every org is running lean. This can’t be to encourage resignations because we already have a ton of openings out. What is Bill’s real purpose here? Pressure from the board? Political signaling?

Mr. Berkshire Hathaway himself has finally brought down the hammer on the lazy employees of AEP who do nothing but take away money from our precious shareholders.

Remote workers get a pass, but that’s only for now. I expect that will be to encourage resignations in the fall if O&M is under control. I’d expect us all to be back in office by Summer 2026

Bill just sent out an email confirming 5 days a week in-office beginning June 1st.
He says we need this because of performance issues.
The IT guys in India are conveniently not required to be in-office and will continue enjoying the benefits of WFH.

It's interesting that they want full RTO but they make all these exceptions for certain people who have already been granted full remote. I guess you were either at the right place, right time to get these benefits or else they are gone for ever. They'll say we need RTO to "foster collaboration" or something like that while simultaneously creating a class structure where some employees are given special privileges that others can't have.

Return to office for anyone within 50 miles of an office is required beginning June 1. To use Bill’s language… I’m disappointed by this. This was not the employment agreement that I accepted. Our lives have been built around this way of working. They will get less out of me because I’ll now have to spend a few hours a day in the car… go out for lunch…etc etc. this is old school 90’s leadership style. Definitely not progressive.

“Also some organizations pushed back and are remaining hybrid and remote.”

Does anyone know which organizations???

@1mne+1qB6FXi3

I was in a meeting a few months ago with director level management and he was adamant that remote employees would not lose their privileges. Then again Bill said he had no intention of changing the hybrid schedule so who knows. I guess they can just do whatever they want. They're the ones who really bring the "star power" to AEP, we are just the lowly grubs who do the actual work.
How long until the "Ask Bill" articles stop being posted?

don’t know when rto will be announced but heard it will go into effect on June 1

For the people in the know concerning RTO- any idea when they will officially announce it?

APCO and PSO management agreed that hybrid would go to the office full time. Does this mean the remote workers in those OpCo's are going back in the office too? Also some organizations pushed back and are remaining hybrid and remote.

Can confirm RTO. An absolute disgrace. Everyone fawned over Bill because he pretended to be a straight up and honest guy. While he straight up LIED to our faces. Bill and HR have been plotting this RTO for months.

My leader told me about it yesterday but it was an open secret at the highest levels of the org for some time. And Bill flat out lied and said he had no issue with the 3 days in office model several times, ON CAMERA. The entire time, he was actively planning an end to the remote and hybrid model. Bill is demanding you give your entire week to AEP in return for…demotions and the workload of multiple people since they refuse to fill open roles in many areas. Oh, and another layoff is coming later this year in operations.

Name ONE thing Bill has done to improve the day to day experience for employees. Seriously, name one. He’s taken our titles, refused to fill extremely important vacancies, and now he’s asking you to give 45-50 hours of your physical hours to AEP. As if the work you did before wasn’t good enough.

It’s time to jump ship and find an organization that values YOU, and understands that you also have a family and/or personal life that you care about. Work doesn’t define you. It’s just your job, not something need to sacrifice your spouse, your kids, your health etc for. Those days are over. Since AEP has no respect for that under Bill’s leadership, it’s simply time to leave.

No better way to lay off for zero cost then end WFH. Is that official or just a rumor still?

If they do RTO I'm gone.
WFH was the last advantage this place had.

Starting to look more and more like Bill was brought in to be the hatchet man.

Work from home ends June 1.

I can see more and more non-IT Dept heading back in the next 2-4 months. IT may be back after everyone else. Most of the IT mgmt is out of state or outsourced. Hard to ask local folks to come back when the manager is still at home. When they can replace those managers that are out of state, IT will be up next. Personally I don't care, I'm leaving soon so really it doesn't matter to me. I think it will just depend on how many people are told to come in but then leave the company instead of coming back in.

When will we be back in the office full time? I’ve been waiting for it to happen. Federal workers are having to be back in the office so what’s up?

Will the dei hire managers and even operating co executives be eliminated soon ?

Getting ready to leave in April, I'm done. Will give my 2 week notice on the Friday after our bonus is paid out for April. Will have enough to hold me over until the retirement checks kick in. I was going to tell them after we came back 2 weeks ago but decided 2 weeks was more than enough. Not sure if I'm being over generous or not with the 2 weeks, I should just walk out. Was part of the group last year that had to stay, missed out on the buy out and doubted there would be another one so best to steer my own course at this point. Good luck to you all.

"I work harder so major shareholders can have better lives", said no working American ever!

"when she was hired she promoted the co-sourcing" was a smoke screen. They could not afford to lose everyone before they got TCS trained. Why in the world would you bring in 20 Indians to work with 10 US based employees so they would be working when we were off. It took less than 5 months before heads started to till. Those 10 US workers was cut down to 2-3. They had to keep just enough to cover NERC/FERC access/work because overseas Indians were not allowed to hold an FBI background checks. It was all about cutting jobs from the start. F... Therace and the horse she rode in on.

Everybody not in the good ole boy fraternity also noticed the corporate culture paradigm that excluded men and women, who were independent and didn't rely on their "network" to get them promoted. DEI was not the only ideology to influence promotions and disappointing outcomes. Leadership professionalism promotes without biases the most qualified candidates. No one should be putting their thumb on the scales.

You are arguing against strawmen. No one said every woman who works at AEP is a DEI hire. That has never been what the discussion was about. But to sit there and pretend like we didn't all see this ideology sweep through corporate America the past few years is just willful ignorance and makes people question your motives. I get that you want to sweep it all under the rug and pretend like we are insane/evil for noticing, but some of us have long memories and we won't be forgetting the rhetoric that was being thrown when you felt like you were unstoppable around any time soon.

There were women working for AEP long before DEI, and doing a great job. 32 years and going to work everyday.
My posse of women still are hard at work, and all hold degrees. And they all work well with their male co- workers, sharing the work.

I would agree that Therace was not a DEI hire. However, I do not believe she was hired to cut costs. If memory serves, when she was hired she promoted the co-sourcing but at the same time she was expanding the size and scope of IT. She and her mangement team was hiring like crazy. She brought in new layers of management, new teams/roles, and IT had so many posiitons to fill that they had managers hire by job family vs to fill a specific position within their team. I think Therace sold management a growth agenda coupled with offshoring. Then AEP encountered tough times with high interest rates. So they had to slash people. Good management does not overspend to the degree AEP IT mangement did because it will catch up with you eventually leading to the need for more serious job cuts.

Two things here. It appears DEI has become all the rage on this board for whatever reason.

1. Is Therace a DEI hire because of her s-xuality or gender? Be clear what you’re referring to. I’m not defending her track record at AEP, but a quick search shows she led technology at a Fortune 1000 financial company and JC Penney which is a much, much larger outfit than AEP. To me, seems like she’s at least got the qualifications to lead technology at a utility company. Easily.

2. Technology has been slashed to death and offshored more jobs than any of us would have liked her to. Technology is in a terrible place. But has anyone ever considered that she’s doing exactly what the Board, Nick, Julie and now Bill wanted her to do?! Do you think she unilaterally decided to take technology in this direction? Absolutely not and if you do, you’ve got no idea how executive level performance is measured and how these leaders are hired. Therace has sadly done what she was hired to do. The leaders are pleased with her. She was hired to do exactly what she has done, which is to decrease costs in Technology any means. It’s awful, but why is Therace and DEI getting the blame instead of Nick Akins and the board that approved her hiring? Julie could have fired her. Bill could have fired her at anytime. But they won’t because she is doing what AEP hired her to do. I hate it, but that has nothing to do with DEI. That’s just illogical.

I agree with parts of the last comments but I would classify Therace as a DEI hire, who in turn brought in her own hires who some were DEI hires. They in turn, destroyed IT. So it only takes one DEI hire to destroy a functioning department.

You are correct the big issue has been the loss of jobs to India and the hiring of former TCS managers who were out into positions of power in the department. I am sure they still have more loyalty towards TCS than to AEP. I just don't trust them, period. As for Martin, I don't think I've ever seen him in anything but a black T-shirt, he's no Steve Jobs for sure.
But everything goes back to Therace, she is without a doubt the worse CITO around and for now we've been saddled with her. I can not wait for that B to leave.