Thread regarding American Electric Power Co. Inc. layoffs

There's been no update, the closest they came to addressing it was during the employee meeting on Tuesday. Phil said the recent opinion poll had a lot to say about RTO and it was quite negative. He even used the phrase "hard to hear" so it sounds like people really let it fly. Of course their response was to stone-face it and said they are committed to "doing it right" (whatever that means) and then Bill said they aren't changing course, which I guess can be taken as an open admission that employee opinion is irrelevant.

So is there any update to our RTO or allowed times? They really are shoving us in the offices with no plans yet. Heard alot of you Ohio employees don't have word on your office or room for spaces

He didn't build AEP, but he wants all the glory. Stolen valor is a crime against virtuous integrity. Shame on Hedge Fund Bill. No sweat, no pain, no suffering, no sacrifice just outlandish compensation and trash talking the builders and maintainers. Hedge Fund Bill can handle the next major storm outage all by himself. No point sweating, bleeding, suffering and sacrificing for nothing.

The options are that you have no options. If they tell you that you have options, it's a lie and they will walk it back at some undisclosed later date.

Is there anywhere that states the schedule options for RTO or are they at the discretion of the org VPs?

Hedge Fund AEP is like a sparkler it may burn bright but not for long. It is consuming employees and customers at an alarming rate and new hires are not going to endure 30 years of this B.S. I give new hires 3 years max and they will be out the door.

We've been everywhere being talked about. We've built infrastructure, made customers happy, handled the office like a well-run machine and had excellent culture.
All of those things were ruined by management over time.
Every time he brings up something we had before, that got outsourced, offshored, hit with layoffs, closed down, or endured decay it's a cringe moment for the people who had to endure it. Dude, stop with the painful history lessons. Unlike you, we were actually there.

The long game is providing power, which is what we do and will continue to do.
I'm all for complaining about AEP but can you at least do it intelligently? What exactly are you complaining about? Investors expect a return? Ok and? Do you have any investments? When you invest in something do you expect a return or are you happy to lose money?
How can you say we are only focused on ESP? Did you listen to any of the meetings today? We have a $50 billion capital investment plan and a huge backlog of customer service requests.

What exactly is Bill and AEP going to win? The stock price will go up. Look who is on the board of dirrectors. Usually when activists tske over s company the stock will increase. This is because of short term driven results. The question is, whst is the long game? Will any of thr decisions made in the next year drive long term growth for the company? Another question is what growth are we talking about? Only EPS. Does that winning and growth benefit AEP communities or include employees?

More than three-quarters of the 3,200 senior executives in the power utility industry interviewed for the report said they have difficulty hiring new employees. Value the employees you have. They are not a dime a dozen and they make you rich. The next 10 years will see a significant migration of long tenure employees leaving the industry for their well-earned retirements and the time to build the team for the next 30 years is today. Short sighted, immediate gratification, profit driven leadership is a failure of colossal proportions that shall leave our nation and electric customers vulnerable to a new energy crisis.

I am an avid Bill defender and AEP enthusiast. I have an entire room filled with AEP memorabilia. You think you love AEP? Not more than me, chump. I want Bill and AEP to win. I want us to control every watt of power in the United States. Do it for Bill.

Transmission expanding to the Corpus office. Voluntary relocation.

This forum has elapsed into clown mode. People really hoping for the company to fail to own the guy who wants them to return to work. That will teach him.
Show me on the dolly where the bad man hurt your feelings.

I feel like there is no new good information coming from this forum..

I don't think Bill actually does anything. Bill disabled his calendar from being shown on Teams this week. Quite funny. I used to check what he was up to. Lots of wining and dining and that's about it.

Wall St is expecting a jump in EPS from last year. If they met or bet that, Bill will look like a genius. As an employee, there's only a few times when I actually wanted to see the company fail to cover the target revenue, this is one of those times. I really want to see EPS miss. I know that's not right but since I have no affect on it, I don't care after they forced RTO on us

Yeah the fact that the investor meeting is first followed by the employee meeting is great. At the first one we will hear about how amazing the company is doing and how strong our performance is. Then in the second one we will hear about how we all need to RTO.

Can’t wait for tomorrow’s company-wide employee webcast. I hope earnings make the shareholders happy.

It’s about the damn control. Billy needs it because he has nothing else to do at home.

A new survey from FlexJobs noted that 68% of people who recently quit their jobs did so without having another job lined up. What’s more, the number one reason people cited for resigning is toxic company culture. I left an organization six years ago without another job lined up for this very reason.

Similarly, a report from MIT Sloan Management Review stated, “A toxic corporate culture is 10.4 times more powerful than compensation in predicting a company’s attrition rate compared with its industry.”

Toxic company cultures aren’t just unpleasant, they can take a serious toll on your physical and mental health.

YOU just lost your plausible deniability and are vulnerable to an employee initiated class action lawsuit. We will be taking back the wealth and piece of mind we earned and you stole.

Don't let self-induced stress and the stress caused by "OTHERS" become the safety event you are held accountable for. Take a moment when you feel overwhelmed to REFOCUS on the task at hand, even if it means not achieving all you planned to get accomplished today. We are all working with a tremendous handicap and we all have to recognize our new limitations in the current workplace environment. Stay safe for each other and our families.

Sounds to me like they just found their reason to deny all 4/10 requests.

This whole RTO is nonsense. Why does it matter when every dept might be on different schedules? Like the person before me said, we will all most likely be in the office Tuesday - Thursday. How is that any different than 3 days hybrid schedule? face palm

What are a reasonable number of years to work at Legacy AEP?
What are a reasonable number of years to work at Hedge Fund AEP?

Here’s something to crystallize the absurdity of RTO.

My team is all going to do four 10’s with about half of us doing Monday to Thurs and the rest Tuesday through Friday.

We’ll all be downtown Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Three days a week.

Just like we currently are in the hybrid model!!

Overall morale is poor at best. First COVID, then RE-ORG, then organizational chaos and now impoverishing inflation has exhausted our patience and resilience. We all know, who is to blame and who is to be held accountable. Our discontent becomes more destructive with each passing day.

People got to look at what leadership is at AEP. The leadership team does not have the ability to look at themselves and the environment they created. Instead of acknowlegeing that their is a problem with retaliation, they will get mad and blame the employees. This is dysfunctional behavior. Just look at the response they gave on Glassdoor. They took no ownership of the problem, that states it all.

A few others need to be shown the door for bringing TCS in. Everyone in management above 1st line needs to be shown the door if they came in with Therace. They have shown no support for the in-house folks. It su-ks to be part of Operations. They only upside, Therace gets a new gig, she'll pull her a-s kissers with her.

The relationship between AEP corporate and customers and employees is no longer symbiotic but rather ravenously parasitic and therefore unsustainable. Leadership unable to recognize this irrefutable truth and reality is unfit to govern and criminal in intent and purpose, the hallmark of hedge funds,

Archaic, antiquated, obsolete, out of touch, authoritarian, self-absorbed, lickspittle leadership has succeeded in enraging the source of their wealth and the employees that deliver it to them. Their fortunes are going to decline rapidly and permanently. As permanent as a grave.

Retaliation for us was greatly reduced when they fired Therace. She didn't leave to spend time with family, nor did Sanjay, they were fired. They just didn't want to have a lawsuit on their hands so I'm sure she got a nice golden parachute. Sanjay, most likely the same even though he did some dirty dealing with TCS. At least that sad chapter is coming to an end in the next year or so. Took us 5 months to show them everything and years of follow ups and they still can't do the job. I'm sure they'll be out of here on the final day of the contract no matter what.
I know a few guys that left, couple retired, wish they were up to coming back for a few years after TCS leaves but that's wishful thinking. This place will be a sh-t show for a while but at least we won't have to deal with people in India and I can stop pretending I care about them.

Not sure where to start, seems Bill might not be the right person with the right personality for the company. He might have been 30 years ago but not now. At his age, i expect to see him gone in 5 years based on his age. It will also depend who over that time stands out as his replacement. Who is being brought in with him that stands out and is a lot younger. There's a reason why there is an age limit for the CEO. I know the Board can exempt that as they have but I don't think you want to get in a habit of doing it. I'd like to see someone younger who is not a boomers (no offense to the boomers out there, I'm one) but we do need someone who is not tired to the old ways of doing things. There are better ways of doing things. I have a few years to go and will not be around for the next leader change but I'd like to have the company reflect the employees a bit more than this mo--n does.

I concur with the retaliation comment. I’m currently experiencing it and within HR. It’s alive and well around here. I’ve worked here 9 years and loved what I do until a year or so ago when we got a new leader. There’s a lot of hate for Bill, but it’s not Bill. He was handed a mess that needs fixed my new leader is constantly blaming Bill and throwing him under the bus. She is constantly throwing around assumptions and comments like “white males” “I noticed you are registered republican” and most recently “I know you’re the one posting on the layoff site when we find out it won’t be good for you” I can’t even make this up. What she doesn’t know is that there a lot of us posting on here cause it’s the only place we have to get this off our chest. I’m going to have to find a new job if this continues. can’t call the concerns line I know it will be tracked back and I will experience more retaliation. The surveys are a joke. We inflate the scores to avoid retaliation from her. If you notice former top performers are all of a sudden quiet then talk to us/those folks. We didn’t change, our “leader” did and we’re just protecting ourselves at this point. I’m not the problem here. Bill, please look into HR especially areas with high survey scores. It’s time to clean the HR closet so we can actually help the employees like we used to. Phil is aware but chooses to do nothing about it and hide in his office. Haven’t heard from or seen him in months.

Retaliation exists at the highest levels. Complain to the concerns line you are done. Nothing is annonymous.

Dreading Mondays used to begin at 8 p.m. on Sunday night. Now it begins at 8 p.m. on Saturday night. Maybe, that is a sign it is time to retire.

Amazing that they are citing the cafeteria as a benefit.
I wonder how much AEP is making off the top of that little operation.

What's the first thing you guys are excited to collaborate on when we get back to the >> office?

Exchanging tips on the fastest route to the parking garage and coffee badging techniques.

HR just started responding to negative reviews on Glassdoor to save face.

"American Electric Power Response
Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and experiences. We value honest feedback from employees. It is essential for our growth and improvement. We understand that the changing workplace landscape has been challenging for many employees, and we are committed to fostering an open dialogue and creating a supportive atmosphere. We also love to see when employees appreciate the benefits we offer, such as the pension plan, 401K match and health and wellness programs and the cafeteria. We consistently strive to balance the needs of our employees with the goals and opportunities in front of AEP. Glassdoor reviews are anonymous, and that empowers honesty. If you'd like to discuss your experience in greater depth, consider reaching out to our internal Concerns Line. It is also anonymous. Let's work together to create a better work environment for everyone."

What's the first thing you guys are excited to collaborate on when we get back to the office?

“We, the unwilling, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much, for so long, with so little, we are now qualified to do anything with nothing.” — I used to passively laugh at this quote made into a social media reel. Now the irony is almost physically painful!