AT&T Reviews in Atlanta, GA Area

Pros

Benefits and for individuals with no desire to advance career

Cons

Management suffers from the inability to execute on strategies, typically poorly designed

Advice to Senior Management

Implement metrics that clearly measure employee performance and add value to the company. There is too much activity that provides no quantifiable value to the growth of the business.

Pros

Fortune 15 Company
Benefits
Advanced Technology
Leader in Innovation

Cons

Overworked Management
Overpaid Union
Too many Federal Regulations

Advice to Senior Management

Give better Per Diem for traveling managers that are on the road and away from family for a good portion of their job. $42 a day doesn't cut it in most cities.

Pros

The company is continuously working to move away from a legacy landline organization to one that is Mobility-centric. Efforts are being expended to train 1st & 2nd line managers to enhance their skills and take on more responsibility. Innovation is encouraged and rewarded. Benefits are quite good.

Cons

AT&T is working to "cross-pollinate" skills between wireless & landline orgs - while this is good if you're from the landline side, if you're from a legacy mobility side, the movement could take you from a high-growth, fast moving division into a negative-growth, dying division.

Senior leadership says the right things, but often the execution of those ideas and strategies get filtered while working down through multiple levels of leadership (from C-Level to EVPs to SVPs to VPs to AVPs to EDs to Directors to 2nd line then 1st line managers and the front line employees.

There is too much bureaucracy and process orientation in many orgs - it appears that many people are so focused on working the processes they support that they forget what we're really trying to accomplish.

In addition, there are a high number of employees with 25, 30, 35, or even 40 years of experience. There are some good sides to this, but with what appears to be a high percentage of employees with long tenure, I have questions about succession planning for when those employees begin to retire in large numbers.

Because of the shifts between legacy environment and large numbers of high tenure employees, advancement potential appears to be reduced for 2nd line employees. In my personal experience, I have applied for Director-level positions which I was highly qualified for, only to be told by the hiring Executive Directors that they could not even consider me because I was not already a Director. Only existing directors could be considered for lateral moves, so promotions were not possible. This situation has also been confirmed with other 2nd level managers.

Last point is the constant reorganizations. In the 10 years I have been with the company (and legacy divisions), I have had 15 different supervisors, although only one came from being selected for a different position.

Advice to Senior Management

1. Ensure that the strategies and plans at senior levels have a commitment & corresponding action from each successive level of management downstream.
2. Work to ensure that there is no "brain drain" from highly capable employees leaving due to lack of advancement possibilities.
3. Work to enable employees that specifically joined high-growth segments are kept there, unless there is a program for cross-pollination that does not leave these employees in negative-growth segments.

Pros

Salary is comparable to other companies, plus whole work environment and people made it enjoyable. Most of my experience with AT&T was positive and I had for the most part wonderful people I worked with in the 20 years I was there.

Cons

Opportunities for other positions within company are there, but far between "sometimes" due to people stay in their positions for long periods of time. Competition for these positions is high, so unless you have seniority and/or majority of skills required, it will be difficult to be considered as a candidate - in my opinion

Advice to Senior Management

Make sure your employees understand that sometimes you can not provide the information they are wanting, at that time. Don't just not answer or misdirect, be straight forward and let them know when changes are coming, & some things have to come out at certain times. You are not hiding things, but you are restricted by PTB what and when information can be provided. You will be surprised how people will accept that.

Pros

flexibilty
telecommuting 2 days a week
business casual
10% bonuses(yearly)
lots of company trainings to keep you "in the know"
always hiring
great benefits package
401k matching
They promote family 1st
awesome ceo

Cons

pretty much confined to one department/ hard to move around within
upper management moves around a lot- so looking up to them is not worth it
management will throw you under the bus- to save themselves!
the good ol boys are the ones that get promoted or attention. If you have a certain look- theyll use u as their show boys--and in the background the "work horses are churning out the work" but the "good ol boys" get all the credit
like anywhere- thats lots of favortism

Advice to Senior Management

Continue promoting work, life, and balance. It keep employees very happy. and Make sure to hire competent leaders- not just those that can talk the talk. Many can talk it, but behind closed doors they cant walk it.

Pros

Benefits, insurance for my very ill son.

Cons

It appears that since this new boss knew I needed the healthcare he could use me as a whipping post. Very sadistic. My colleagues reported the behavior to HR, however they did nothing. Additionally, the company is so desperate to increase gross revenues they roll out products with out real support to fulfill what is promised. Therefore customers "buy" and definitely hear from AT&T collections after 30 days, ruining their credit score, but seldom receiving the value promised.

Advice to Senior Management

True-fully review who is running the company, and how you are treating front line employees. Why is moral so low? Why do our customers have such a poor opinion of AT&T? Extend your vision, beyond your executives bonus' of 2011. LOng Term view, with customer and employees as priority. Think Google, Nordstrums.

Pros

Decent benefits and salary. Competence rewarded with longevity. Opportunities to move laterally to gain experience. Fairly good management communication.

Cons

Promotions usually go to the talkative and aggressive if they are qualified. Employee welfare talked up but not well-performed.

Advice to Senior Management

Put more resources into continuing education and advancement opportunities for employees. Don't be so cheap--buy people equipment they really need.

Pros

AT&T has a vast technology portfolio.

Cons

There is not enough work - life balance. Given the company conducts head-count reduction every October, sales organizations have to take on more and more post sales duties. This creates an every increasing work load.

Advice to Senior Management

Find ways to give people their lives back

Pros

Company is large enough to stay in business for quite some time, and there is potential for the culture to change though it will be quite some time.

Cons

Extremely political, managers lead mostly out of fear, yelling (yes yelling) and threatining language. I do not know one person on our team of 60 people who is happy doing what they do here. Business processes are not efficient, and project managers are hammered for status on projects so often that nearly 30% of our time is spent communicating status of what we are working on.

Advice to Senior Management

IT specific. You have caused any good talent to leave or be broken so much that they no longer care about quality. If this trend continues the software being developed will continue to cost AT&T more and more money to maintain and modify.

Pros

Great place to start your career. If you're bright, work hard, take risks, and are willing to challenge the system a bit, your efforts will be recognized. Everything is done on a huge scale - this can be exciting.

Cons

There's a pretty stiff bureaucracy, which is necessary at a company its size. This causes us to be "late to market" on a lot of products in development, but hopefully a new generation of managers can breathe some life into the process.

Advice to Senior Management

The company's been in a perpetual state of merger consolidation for the last decade or so. Facilities are worn out (other than the renovated headquarters) and there are few "extras" to make it comfortable. Most of us are used to it, but attracting the best talent is difficult when they compare the work environment to other tech and telco companies.