Level 3 Communications Reviews

Pros

Excellent work/life balance. Even the assistants are permitted to work from home. As long as your work is done, you are not frowned upon for your work schedule.Pay is at market and above

Cons

Upper management is lazy, incompetent and doesn't care about their people. Unrealistic sales goals, cold-calling and performance reviews that dont measure up. High-turnover with RIFs,layoffs.

Advice to Senior Management

Understand that without good employees that know the business, your company will bomb. Crowe is unremoved from reality and doesn't care about loyalty to his workers,

Pros

Salary and benefit package is better than average. Flexible work schedules. I think the company is going in the right direction.

Cons

Respect and trust are out the window, I suspect due to the actions of a few.

Advice to Senior Management

Regular team meetings whether we need it or not - just to talk. Involve us more in deciding how the shop is run - we have ideas too. I like free pizza, but I'd give that up if you'd just listen to what I have to say.

Pros

Creativity of solutions, ability to grow market share in wireline versus the "big boys" AT&T, VZ, Centrylink

Cons

Politics. Feedback is not allowed. Non professional actions by management and employees toward each other.

Advice to Senior Management

Continue to weed out the "ol boy" network to get fresh perspectives in business operations

Pros

Great benefits, mostly great people to work with. Always reorganizing so opportunity to slip into many different roles to expand experience. Good job for people coming out of college or with minimal experience.

Cons

Lack of direction. They are so ladened with debt that I cannot see them ever being able to overcome that for profitability and growth. Not impressed with Sr. Mgmt. They really need to change out the mgmt (at the very top) but they are too close to the board to make that tough decision.

Advice to Senior Management

Change out the top 10 guys - wholesale. Hire a turnaround guy (will most likely be ruthless and make the hard decisions that have been lacking the past 10 yrs) but the focus will be refreshing and sorely needed to turn this company around. The network assets they own are solid...just not willing to focus on the smaller enterprise customer that is "bread and butter."

Pros

It is a company that is aggressively seeking to be competitive in a very competitive market.

Cons

Due to the amount of aquisitions in the last 6 years, there are some internal integration limitations that can be challenging.

Advice to Senior Management

Continue to seek resolution of the integration limitations.

Pros

Benefits are fairly good, especially healthcare.

Cons

Too large - no one knows I exist, and I'm a cog - I won't be recognized for the good I'm doing for them. I work in a satellite office of a company acquired by Level 3. I didn't work at the predecessor company, having been hired well after the acquisition. People I worked with in Tulsa originally were demoralized, and fairly rude/nasty to corporate and to me (as an outsider). Many of those people are now gone and the wars fought stories and their heroes are now innocuous. They could have cared less that I came on board with skills that were missing and can help turn the company around. As for now, we've acquired a large competitor and have the integration to go through. Shouldn't be all that bad this time around. Broomfield is where the headquarters are. Lots of inflated egos to stroke - lots and lots of them. I blame that on the Harvard MBA's they employ. Also, Level 3 is politically connected to the DNC, which isn't my cup of tea.

Pros

Profit sharing, great benefits, great facilities, open-door policy all the way to mid management

Cons

telecom can be challenging, must learn industry-speak, process is a moving target and so are the goals

Advice to Senior Management

Talented people will bore easily here. Allow employees to shine. Allow them to tackle new opportunities if interest is shown.

Pros

Level 3 allows you to do as well as you want. They have unlimited information available to you, if you take advantage of the resources. The senior management team was always extremely supportive in complex sales cycles that I was involved in.

Cons

Level 3 reorganizes often, which creates an insecure working environment at times. They, do, however, look to keep as many talented people within the organization, even if they require a shift to other departments within the organization. I thought they paid very well compared to the industry average. I felt my voice was always heard.

Advice to Senior Management

Management should encourage self-starters to take advantage of the resources and excellent and talented team they have. I feel that, due to the size, and the number of companies Level 3 had acquired in such a short time, that they remain very segregated. By encouraging the staff to reach out into other teams within the organization, I believe anyone could find the support they need to be successful.

Pros

Working with sharp co-workers in other divisions (CDN, Wholesale)
The name used to open a lot of doors not so long ago
Inconsistently brilliant sales management throughout the country

Cons

The company pushes new logo acquisition and states that as the main goal, however, to be succesful at Level 3 in SoCal, you really need to have "assigned accounts" In mid markets you have the existing base of accounts given to two reps to farm succesfully by selling new networks over existing services, but new logo acquisition is particlarly weak. I'm not so sure how that rolls up to Wall Street from sales, but audits of mid market would reveal that real challenges of the division are not being disclosed.

Advice to Senior Management

Change the comp. plan to reward new logo hunters more. Inspection of the numbers in SoCal would reveal that new leadership would correct issues surrounding morale and ethics.

Pros

At the time the benefits were good.

Cons

Poor Management and customers suffered because of it.
People who cared and took pride in their jobs were given poor reviews.
People who came to work when ever they felt like it were rewarded
in the department I worked for the moral was bad

Advice to Senior Management

Try to stick with a plan for more than 3 months and try to tweek it.