Thread regarding Windstream Corp. layoffs

1/23, hired 46 more, why couldn't any of these positions been offered to those let go last week?

They had just hired 1 new person the week before in my department before laying off 5.

This makes no sense. Last week, the 15th through the 19th WIN hired 119 people. Pretty evenly divided between backfill and 'new' positions​, maybe a little more backfill then the new positions​. This was the same week they let all the people go. The hires were company wide, and were everything from bargain to customer service, engineering, and a few outside plant. So, how are they saving money when they RIF and the SAME week hire? Any help in understanding this madness is appreciated cause I can't figure it out. BTW, I sit in LR and see the hiring report for the benefit Dept.

In our department, the director made all decisions. It was subjective.

That does not sound right at all.

RIFs at Windstream normally follow this structure: review/rating (from the bottom up) followed by seniority. So, if you had a work center with two employees and had to lay off one: the employee with the lower rating would be selected. If the employees were rated equally, the employee with the least amount of time with the company would be selected. This being said, exceptions have been made in the past for huge seniority gaps (hard to justify keeping someone with 2 years of employment over someone with 25 years). There isn’t a lot of actual decision making.

direct management had 24 hours notice and NO input and in my department they hit the bottom of the seniority pool, while others they hit the top. None of it makes sense.

Oh well i was applying out of WS anyway cause i didnt trust them. Just did a phone onterview and have the in-person interview lined up for the 25th. WS just gave me a huge lump of money to go to a better place.

The managers find out the day before and they have no say in it. If they give a heads up and HR finds out, guess what, they get fired. No sense in the manager getting fired over something they had zero control over.

I believe managers know way before hand. We only had 2 people working 3rd each on one half of the week. Manager moved one of our day guys over to 3rd out of nowhere just a week before the layoff and guess what 1 of the guys that was on 3rd got laid off. Suspicious if you ask me the timing was too perfect to not have known.

I was let go this round. I came over from at&t into the Construction Manager position. I was making quite a bit and almost there a year. My direct manager called after the fact, and said he had no idea. But I know that’s a lie because my phone and email quit ringing a week prior. Terrible company. They are hemorrhaging money and keep cutting the fat at the bottom, instead of the top. Tony Thomas should beheaded! Now there is no way for me to return to At&t. Thanks Windstream!

You are correct! I had really good people stolen out from under me, while sh--bags I've been trying to get rid of kept their jobs. Unless it's a group or center they just pick at random.

So what you are saying is once names are given to a manager they cant contest and offer another employee in lieu of the employee originally given?

Seems like every last person RIFd on my team had targets on their back at one time or another but seeing as how this is WS they couldnt fire them for no reason. Seems like names were given and management saw it as an opportunity to remove those they had personal issues (not work performance) with.

Directors and below have no say in the process. Only being told on need to know. The Company is trying to look for an acquisition. So Senior leadership & shareholders can get their payday.

Was this ANOTHER round of layoffs in January 2018? (I was in the August 2017 group.)

Being a great employee was the criteria. Myself and 2 others were responsible for single handedly upgrading over 1000 CPE devices over the past few months. Guess what the reward was? 2 out of 3 of us got laid off yesterday.

Windstream is the worst company where I've worked. Unfortunately, I came to them via acquisition. My boss recently left & they arent replacing him or promoting me just giving me his work and they think that is fair. Like I should be grateful. What they fail to see is the economy is thriving all around while this sh--hole company sinks! On my way out of telecom....asap!

Pay grade was certainty the primary factor. I was included in the layoffs from September. I had moved to the department I was in at the time approximately two years prior to the notice. I was the only person in the position that could and did cover on call duties, each and every day for 18 months. Finally management backfilled the second vacancy that was vacant since my start in the department. All of those after hours calls, which I was ripped from my sleep to handle, equalled overtime pay. The fact is, to upper management all that is seen on graphs and spreadsheets is whom makes the highest in each department. There is no consideration for the reasons why an individual may be making more than the mean pay rate. After an 8 year tenure, getting let go was a blessing.

12 weeks was max package + the 3 weeks vaca

Look at some of the severance packages some of the old timers got

If managers secretly have some input that would make sense to me. Of course they arent going to tell us. I was one of the very top techs of my group (according to a manager’s own yearly eval of me) very well respected by many others in other departments as well (SAT). When a problem needed to be fixed because others on our team didnt know what they were doing, people would come to me to fix things always. But I never was really apart of the clique and i kno that there was some kind of personal vendetta against me by some of those in management and lead positions for reasons unknown to myself. I knew when layoffs hit Id be one of the first out the door because they have been trying to knock me off for awhile despite my work ethic, dedication and talent at what I do.

The company has sealed its own fate. They constantly remove the talent and hard workers in favor of the lazy and clique buddies. Im still not entirely sure if managers have some kind of input in the process or not. But by keeping the lazy and do nothings they only ensure that they will proceed to piss off what customers we still have even more and drive them away from the company.