With consolidation, AT&T looks to get as lean and mean as its rivals

AT&T is looking to consolidate its 22 help-desk centers into six U.S. locations

AT&T CEO John Stankey. | Image credit-AT&T

Similarly, you can’t expect employees working at 22 help-desk centers to be as close as they will be once the desks are consolidated into six U.S. locations, if the sources are correct. These support desks are not for AT&T customers, but are for the carrier’s employees. Managers will have two weeks to decide whether to move to the six locations or take their severance packages and lose their jobs. Those workers who are unionized will be allowed to stay in the office they currently work at doing a different customer-service job.

However, Stankey’s memo could be totally unrelated to the consolidation of the help-desk centers, according to one AT&T spokesperson’s reaction. On the other hand, one AT&T manager said that Stankey’s memo was actually the incentive that was needed to speed up the consolidation of the internal help-desk centers. Normally, AT&T would be expected to take two years to complete this move.

The same employee added that help-desk managers will be moved to Atlanta; Mesa, Arizona; Miami; Orlando; Richardson, Texas; and Tulsa, Oklahoma. A manager moving hundreds of miles to one of the aforementioned locations showed Business Insiders a memo from AT&T to these managers telling them that they will have to pay for their own moving expenses. Such a demand from AT&T might help bring these employees together as AT&T wants. The only problem is that they would all be united against the carrier.

Talking about the relocation of the help-desk centers, the AT&T spokesman said that the move will help the wireless provider. “It reflects ongoing strategic shifts across our call center operations to colocate similar work functions and improve efficiency, consistency, and teamwork,” he said.

Compared to its rivals, AT&T’s headcount is bloated

Action plans will have to be created by department leaders according to six AT&T employees who work throughout the company. These action plans will include suggestions on how to fix issues that came up in a recent employee survey that was filled out by 99,000 AT&T employees. Even though some negatives were brought up in the survey, CEO Stankey said that 79% of the respondents felt committed and engaged with their work.