Qwest Reviews in Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN Area

Pros

Pay was good. Working conditions were good also. Work was hard but the pay was good as I had no college training - just OJT. I had nice supervisors I worked for and if you like working alot and getting dirty, its for you. There was a great chance for advancement or transfer to other departments to learn new jobs.

Cons

There was mandatory OT at the drop of a hat. You could be told to work OT in the evening (especially if it rained) at noon. I usually didn't mind the overtime as OT pay was good but some techs didn't like it. You could be forced to work weekends at the last minute also, but the company could only force you to work 8 hours a week so it wasn't that bad. Again, I liked the OT.

Advice to Senior Management

Maybe more information sooner on actions by the company as so much was speculated by the rumor mill (which wasn't always true) but more timely information would help that.

Pros

Pay and benefits OK, above average.

Cons

Constant lay off. You never know if you have job from one day to the next. I am always watching my Back. Trust no one!

Advice to Senior Management

Morale is as low as I have ever seen it. Stop with the lays offs and fix your business model.

Pros

-Superior skills and experience of the employees supporting the Network.
-Corporate focus and support to support & deploy emerging technologies.
-Passionate and dedicated workforce and leadership team.

Cons

For the employees in the former US West region, it has been an attractive acquisition target (Qwest, now CenturyLink), so as an employee, having to readjust the workforce and change systems and processes can be very difficult during the transformation.

Advice to Senior Management

Invest time at the senior management level speaking to front line employees and management to identify where the strong & talented leaders are within the organizations...Then remove, or reassign to a non-manager role, the weak/ineffective leaders.

Pros

The quality technical talent that was in the old !NTERPrise group.

Finally figured out that the Internet was important for the future.

Cons

Old management culture is very resistant to change.

Outsourcing strategy by IT was just STUPID!

Take over by telophony side of IT impedes speed to market.

Advice to Senior Management

Get managers who are flexible and care about their employees. Listen to their ideas - stop the Directors who protect their own asses.

Pros

Salary and commission structure are good , as are the benifits, there is a high level of community involvement and overall my direct co workers are friendly and helpful.

Cons

Management fosters an enviorment of low morale, quotas and performance metrics are unrealistic.
There is an us vs them mentality between employees and management. Constant threat of layoffs and restructuring. Very high stress enviorment.

Advice to Senior Management

More positive input is needed to address the morale issue. Internal processes need to be streamlined. management by intimidation is never productive.

Pros

The pay and benefits are excellent. They do provide a lot of opportunities to volunteer in the community. The office equipment and systems are state of the art.

Cons

The company makes changes to your job without any fore thought. You may do your job one way this week and next week it will change.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop relying so much on metrics that have no meaning, or cannot be defined by your team leads. The employees have no way to determine if the numbers you report are accurate.

Pros

Benefits are not to bad. Pay has gotten a bit better.

Cons

No raise. No Pension anymore. Too much work for the pay vs. hours expected to put in. Burning out supervisors and some are quitting. Not a career, just a job.

Advice to Senior Management

You can't manage from a desk or computer. Yes, the numbers do lie sometimes.

Pros

Ability to work on diffrent vendors equipment
Sick and Vacation days
Salary

Cons

Way to many process changes. The constant fear of layoffs is not only depressing but takes a toll on you after so many years. How motivated can one be if you see all of your buddies laid off every year. Funny thing is,, they usually end up hiring some young college kid, who will over work them self just to fit in and impress management. And then Mgmt will use this against the older employees and say "he's willing to do it" "why cant you"

They cut our pension. No pay raise this year. Thy even cut the shift differential pay by 2 hours. And they wanted us to pay back the money. We were told , that we were overpaid, even though they had a meeting and told us , time sheets should be filed out in this order.

BIG PROBLEM with Supervisors who can not perform there own employees job. You hire a new supervisor and you can ask him any technical questions, or escalate any issues to them.

You are just a number here. No sense of team or spirit in the office. The new merger with Century Link only added fuel on the fire.

Separate organizations do not communicate well enough.

You just get the feeling that management does not have your back. They have a sense of entitlement. They are untouchables, while we constantly have to look over our shoulders for the next round of layoffs.

You have to make wine with crab apples..

Job description:: Do what ever I tell you. Or you will be laid off.

Dysfunctional managers hiring dysfunctional supervisor leads to chaos. Give me supervisors who have technical skills, as well as admin skills. They are out there. Supervisors here are not required to be technical. Then how in the hell are they supposed to help me. You always have the feeling that you are going to get burned. If you make a left, they will tell you you should have turned right.

Way to much favoritism.

My group is a dumping ground for parts of the network, that nobody else wants to deal with. so they will give you 2 hours of training and your off to the races. If you screw up. It's all your fault. They will not back you.

Just thinking about it..Makes we want to sit in a dark room with a 5th of Jack. If I took the job serious. I would end up in a mental hospital. Stopped doing that long ago. Chow..

Advice to Senior Management

Hello..I know you have a business to run. But we are humans. Dont' sell you soul to the devil. And stop trying to BS us with the company line. We see straight thru you. Stop it with the unattainable goals already..

Pros

Good pay. Decent benefits. Ability to telecommute for most jobs. A lot of employees with many years of expertise to get the job done.

Cons

So many rounds of layoffs due to downsizing. Too many jobs going offshore. Losing way too much expertise to all these kinds of cut backs.

Advice to Senior Management

Find another way to keep the company going without offshoring jobs. We need another way of thinking to keep us going. It's hard to keep morale up.

Pros

bonus, pension, stock options and the ample vacation allotted. The flexible work schedules and availablility to work from home if desired.

Cons

The politics are fierce and generally people here are very much into gossip and rumor mills. It really kind of sad.

Advice to Senior Management

there should really be a thourough look into the existing 2nd level competencies levels. the managers prohibit and stunt a lot of forward thinking.