There is room for deep cuts at those levels! Many of them have fewer than two direct reports.
10 replies (most recent on top)
And can also mean when someone high up has no direct reports. they are being parked out of the way so they can't do anymore damage. Remember when a VP was put in charge of United Way....career death.
Cut, cut, cut!
There are over 1,500 Vice Presidents in the company (AVP, VP, SVP) according to WebPhone. Even with a company as large as AT&T, you can't tell me each and every one of them is needed or adds value because of any particular strategic initiative.
There are Directors with no direct employee reports or one or two. They should be converted to individual contributors. The same for AVPs.
150% familiar.
If you bother to read my whole post instead of succumbing to confirmation bias you’d be able to read that I clearly and specifically write there are people at ALL levels who need to go at T.
The point was if people think because someone is an executive and doesn’t have 100 people under them that they’re not working, they probably don’t understand executive roles. Which, in fairness, it you’ve never been an executive, makes sense.
The whole point is for those of you moving on, you’re going to see higher ups on org charts that might not even have ONE direct report. And if you do the reason isn’t that they’re “not working” : it’s that they’re in a purely strategic - not tactical- role.
In the specific case of T the systemic problems are that MOST directors and executives are simply promoted thru the ranks because of the “It’s my turn to be promoted!” and its cross-pollination model; there are a LOT of people who have NO working experience in their role that were allowed to move to another org laterally.
So you have people with ZERO of the required soft skills for their role that have Peter Principle’d themselves out of adding value, but because of the communist structure of the company, they get to stay on. It’s positively Soviet.
I gander MOST people at T (aka the lifers) are in for a reality check when they are forced to leave. Unless they go to a HUGE company or a government job, the senseless promotion thru the ranks and the cost of living pay increases just don’t happen.
So you take the good with the bad.
If you like pay increases and promotions for NO other reason than “It’s MY turn” and “Eggs are $8 a carton! I need a pay increase!” then you’re gonna have to deal with ineptitude at every level of the business.
Conversely, if you only want to work with truly hard working people who add true value to the company regardless of how many direct reports they have under them, then get ready to work your tail off and only receive more pay if you’re promoted because you actually deserve it. That’s how effective businesses work. (I think we can all agree T is not ineffective, yes?)
An AVP makes $200 fully loaded with benefits. Once you reach the VP level with perks it’s a cruising job with $400k in total compensation. The problem is they are the individuals that got T into this mess.
“Just know if you see an SVP on an org chart and he/she only has one or two direct reports that doesn’t mean they’re not needed. They’re most likely responsible for a very particular strategic initiative.”
Are you not familiar with the dumpster fire T has become? The company is a complete total failure at the strategic level, largely due to SVPs and above.
This will be the real tell as to how serious the cuts are as we have way too many AVPs, curious to see what kind of cover is provided to those-and if any take a step down and bump one of their direct report managers and take that job just to stay on payroll. also I'd expect in any sales org that impacted sales managers will be pushed down and bump off one of their sellers to take a customer facing sales role. Also expect to see a few of the protected class get new titles and somehow kept whole on pay.. This is the way
I heard that this current surplus will hit L3 (Directors) harder than usual.
Please don’t take this the wrong way as I KNOW there are many executives at T that should be cut, but once you’re at an executive level, not having direct reports isn’t necessarily an indicator of ineptitude/lack of value add. The higher up you go, most roles pivot from tactical (think soldiers on the ground) to strategic (think a General in a war room). The day to day managing of people really isn’t the point. Again, at a company THIS size there are cuts that need to happen at ALL levels, 100%. Too many Indians AND chiefs, for sure. But wherever you land after this, just know if you see an SVP on an org chart and he/she only has one or two direct reports that doesn’t mean they’re not needed. They’re most likely responsible for a very particular strategic initiative.