Thread regarding AT&T layoffs

@gn if you aren’t already reporting to a director then what are you even doing here?

If you review is ok, you will not get PIP.
PIP is performance based.manager and HR will do a lots work, it will not worth to do it unless your manager really want make you suffer.

PIP: Privilege In Place!!

@c4 Skip level assumes you have a director who cares. It's also pretty demotivating when your director changes 4 times in 4 years.

@bk Depends. Amazon hires to fire, and their PIPs (Paid Interview Period) are basically made to be unachievable. It's all about managers protecting senior staff by sacrificing new hires.

I've never seen a PIP at AT&T. Based on my experience, layoffs were always abrupt and you find out at the last second. This company wants to keep employees in the dark as for as long as possible. If you get PIP'ed, they're scared you'll start breaking stuff.

Main factor for being chosen has always been favoritism. My old team was a merger of two with a manager that came from the larger one. He would always pick off everyone from the smaller team, and it became so god damn obvious he was cherry picking. He would bust his a-s to get remote exceptions for his former team and had a secretary with no technical skills whatsoever. Meanwhile, we had a guy from the smaller team who I would rate as exemplary.. he was irreplaceable, and you know what he got? Laid off because he was in Saint Louis.

Losing him was a massive demotivator, and at that point I just didn't care anymore. The company's a toxic shithole. Leadership has zero trust in their employees, and it reflects very strongly.

@bp true comment,"because the Government teams wouldn’t have anyone left in my area if they did this."
Looks at the stack ranking YTD for Public Sector and see how many sellers are > 70% and then look at how many were not surplussed this latest round...

If you’re in the Union, go to your steward, over and over…it’s what you give up 2.25hrs of pay for.
Protection from Management.

Take advantage of the fact that meetings are recorded on audio and video. Copilot can also create written record of any meetings. Use their own surveillance tools against them. Your attorney will thank you.

Get ahead of it. Document that you work in a toxic environment and that your manager isn’t supportive of career development or progression. Take notes when team meetings are a cluster and 1:1 sessions are not productive, esp if the manager consistently cancels the meeting. Observe and document teammates that get undeserved ovations, or if the whole team is not functioning due to morale or failed direction.

Get to know your HR Specialist and have a casual conversation to let them know you’ve nominated on new roles to expand your career horizons and goals but struggling due to lack of support - document their responses too.

Schedule a skip-level meeting discussing your career development plan. Before going, complete several AI and Leadership Development trainings from LinkedIn or other PLE courses and ask what they see for you and how you can help the team - document that.

You’ll get the normal lip service along the way, but be prepared because when (not if) you get a notice, you may have a good case esp if your demographics don’t help their stats.

They may sniff that out on you and leave you alone for a few rounds until they get you on a presence report issue or when a project that was doomed from the start ends up failing because budgets were pulled.

Good luck

Are PIPs mostly a union thing? I have never heard of a manager being put on one, but have see quite a few just fired outright with minimal warning. Perhaps state law plays a part?

The new way they are doing it in Mid Markets is “no profitability” firings. The company is deciding you don’t make enough money to sustain your job to success plan or PIP so you go straight to firing. Pretty ruthless my market has been sla-ghtered by it they won’t do it in other channels which is hilarious because the Government teams wouldn’t have anyone left in my area if they did this.

If you've done well on recent reviews, a PIP shouldn't appear out of nowhere. Typically there will be documented instances of poor performance that lead to the PIP.

Have you had documented instances of poor performance?

Another tool for thin the heard, and depends on your role, if you are in an admin or support role PIP usually means you've done something wrong, for sales roles PIP is generally applied when a seller is at 70% or less of their assigned quota, for a seller it usually means you're on your way out with no severance, in any role if you're on PIP and the timing coincides with a surplus -then you're lucky and could get a severance.

Well, how you are rated in your 'performance' does play a role in who is chosen for 'surplus'. That and the presence report. Those two factors are definitely 'in play'. Of course, other factors include whether leadership sees your 'role' as 'value-added'. In my organization (for this latest layoff), they just eliminated 25 people (bo-m - you're gone) who leadership decided were no longer 'relevant'. (We'll see how this notion works out.) They've also eliminated entire groups. So, you can be a top performer, doing everything right, and the axe still falls. There really is no job security anymore - not with this company.

You will probably get laid off with severance at the next opportunity. You will not be fired for performance . . . if you really sc--w up then you get promoted i.e. CEO.

If you get a PIP, you are low hanging fruit for the next round of layoffs. If you feel they are looking at being laid off.. take the hint, just saying.