As soon as they learn how to do the job and gain some experience, new hires go to competitors.
How do you comment such a business strategy - serving as a source of talent for our competition?
Isn't it too expensive for ATT to hire, train and then very easily give up new hires to direct competitors?
15 replies (most recent on top)
What the villages id--ts have forgotten is that we are a utility company. Network technology takes years to develop, test, and deploy. We are NOT some not flashy web company that goes through flavor of the month hyper growth and crash. Failing fast isn't in the DNA, when cell phone doesn't work, you don't tolerate failure at any time, and people will die when they can't connect to 911. Low merit increase and benefit cut backs are encouraging long term employees to leave or retire. The younger folks who are expecting FAANG type opportunity and pay are leaving fast, T will never be a "tech" company. It is a pi---d off, low morale employee base. Stankey and HR are living in an alternate universe
I haven't had any job related training in over 10 years with this company. They keep promising to train the craft employees, but you don't really need training to rack a couple of devices. Sending a technician off to a class for a week or more puts more strain on the team than it actually helps the technician. By the time the technician gets an opportunity to utilize that new training, it's usually more than 8-10 months and by that time, the tech has forgotten most of the training. There's more than enough technical support for technicians to rely on to get him/her through an installation.
Employees who leave at the 5-year mark are the most valuable workers at T. They were around long enough to be trained but have also realized T is a sinking ship and the only choice is to leave. Employees with over 20 years of service are the ones who have usually become stagnant with highly outdated skills. They are the ones who never leave until forced.
It's just flavor of the month. Right now a transient workforce is in vogue. Wait a few years, companies will be complaining that they can't keep employees. They will cry about spending money on training only to have employees move on to other opportunities. Many employees will try to find employment with a defined pension benefit plan. I don't blame them.
Training is appreciated but why stay if management is going to treat people like garbage?
For those of you who’ve been asleep for the past 10 years, corporations have zero interest in hiring anyone who desires to put in 10+ years. And ATT is no exception. Additionally college new hires join companies for only a few reasons today: experience, salary, opportunity to work for companies whose social ideals mesh with theirs, and work life balance flexibility.
Notice that list does not include pensions, concessions, benefits. Corporations and younger employees have common requirements….eventually those who want a 30 year career will be eliminated via attrition. That’s just the way it is.
College hire retention is poor, 75% will leave within 5 years. Not investing in people as a strategy is working just fine. Company keep paying for transition cost and productivity lost for retirements and people quitting. No executives will acknoledge these costs to bottomline, and yet don't print anything to save cost.
Good for the new hires!! Better to be proactive!
This has been going on for the last 5 years if not longer. You speak to most VP's and above, they will tell you we are a resume building company, put in your 3-5 and get the he-l out of dodge.
They are doing these people a favor by training them and turning them lose. The company dumped a ton of money into out terms and the smart guys learned a lot. The other Union locals should be happy to pick them up.
You should review the corporate e-learning course that outlined working styles and behaviors/expectations of different generations of employees. Younger employees want challenging work relevant to current industry standards and prioritize work/life balance. They know coming in that pensions are no longer available and have certainly never expected T to cover their burial many years down the road.
Maybe its because the new hires work for a manager who been at the company for 15yr and doesn't know how mentor younger employees??
This is now the common model all across corporate America.
There is no loyalty, no pension, no gold watch waiting upon your retirement.
CEO hates long tenured employees.
HR awards a "promotion" with a 5% raise.
Layoffs are announced every other year.
The job market is too hot to deal with mediocrity.
Stanley has stated publicly the days of career T employees are over. T can no longer afford longterm employees.