#culture

I can’t believe how much talent will be forced out over the next year through the country studies. We are struggling for good people already and we are walking off the edge off a cliff blindfolded. It’s not if but when this will blow back.

New Chevron slang and acronyms are coming out that are good.

Its truly the change that we need and the things we need to be saying as a company to collaborate and work more efficiently. So here they are:

Going forward if you need to take a number 2 its called taking a MW.

Take a number 1 is a MN.

Start using these to bring us together!

Q is like swimming pool. There is an implicit honor system in a large company that people should behave professionally and with integrity and respect for each other. Instead, at Q, everyone, especially the shameful middle managers and VPs, just sh!t in the pool every chance they get. It's disgraceful. They'll do anything for a buck and job security. People who stick around get what they deserve. Its one big cessp00l.

Morale is horrible across the board. Unless you’re in leadership or close with someone who is, you’re on your own. U.S. employees are treated like they don’t matter, while offshore teams get better support, flexibility, and recognition. It’s discouraging and unsustainable- and yet no one seems to be able to stop it. US employees (not in leadership roles) need to unite and demand changes immediately.

We know leadership at a certain point is about potential- not actual merit or experience/ qualifications.

Who would you say our great leaders would be if it was really up to merit and qualifications?

Why does a RVP nitpick small things when the tile flooring needs to be repaired/replaced and the cases in the beauty department need new lights?!

The Indian accent is undoubtedly the most annoying accent in the world, Verizon needs to ax the entire cs reps based in India and move it elsewhere I know it's pennies on the dollar but imagine Verizon customers hearing that accent when they are already pi---d off

Seems like less people than normal already. Spoke to one of the cafeteria ladies and she agreed. Anyone else thinking the same?

Who else is irritated that subsurface is taking their sweet time with this reorg? All the other upstream groups seem to be done and yet we have to wait until the end of the week because AF wants it.

The structure was bad before but it doesn’t seem like it’s getting any better.

Being part of a recent round of layoffs has given me a lot to think about — not just about my own career, but about leadership, accountability, and the values that guide organizations.

In many cases, it seemed that leadership roles were protected while teams — the people who did the day-to-day work that drove results — were let go. It’s a tough reality to process, but also a revealing one.

EQT people will rejoice while Zayo people will start to jump ship!

Everybody sleeping good?

Interesting article published by MIT Sloan

https://archive.is/bPmXE

Can anyone share what was posted in Alaska about all of Lance’s fu-kups ? Would love to read that ? Thank U much.

I've said it before if they let me go I'll see to it they never win root again or any other awards they may use instead.

Legg all hands. Share your perspectives here

We just lost some of the best people on our team, and it finally hit me that no matter how hard you work or how good you are, the people at the top still see you as replaceable. From now on, I’m done putting work before my family just to feel secure. No more missed birthdays, no more late nights trying to prove something that doesn’t matter in the end. I'm done.

Last year we were on a 3-day RTO schedule and things were working fine. Then, because of the (now admitted) broken presence report, everyone was punished with a 5-day mandate. Since then, leadership has acknowledged that the data wasn’t accurate and that the small group of actual abusers has already been dealt with. They’ve all either left or been terminated.

So why are the rest of us still paying the price?

It’s time to end the punishment and bring back a balanced 2/3-day model. The people who stayed have proven their commitment to this company, even through frustration and burnout. Rolling back to 2/3 days would be a genuine show of trust and a much-needed morale boost.

If leadership truly wants to rebuild culture and retain talent, this is the simplest and smartest way to start.

Does Dan realize that the real problem in verizon is the over paid huge management hierarchy.I mean come on the amount of money and red tape spent on Managers is unbelievable.Every manager has a higher paid manager above them that does even less.That worked in the ma bell monopoly of endless cash not now!!!The only real value in verizon anymore is the only people that actually know or do anything.That group is the associates union and nonunion on wireless & wireline side.All jokes aside most managers are really clueless.Some where hired from pizza delivery places because their daddy was a executive somewhere in verizon.How about we get rid of the timesheet signers who only job is to bother associates over meaningless things instead of focusing on the customer.The people who matter need to start being cherished more and listened to more .Time to squash the Management pyramid of Verizon and focus on moving forward

Leaders are afraid to communicate, afraid to get in the news, afraid of baby-napoleon-pulte, afraid to have ideas. The only word left in their vocabulary is efficiency. They think they are being political savvy tracking people’s calendars, emails, badging. I am not blaming them. Just feeling sad for them. What a culture:(

Necessary follow-up emails are even being halted. Critical meetings - on hold. I've talked to several friends across the company, various departments and the sentiment is the same - uncertainty and "waiting to hear if we have jobs."

It's not healthy and makes me wonder Dan's long term "culture" strategy that he claims is a priority, when the short term has gone south so quickly.

I genuinely thought the environment couldn't get worse than what H created, but it def has, in a quick way :-/

Mr. Stankey, it’s clear you care deeply about rebuilding AT&T’s culture and driving results. But the 5-day return-to-office mandate is not delivering those outcomes. It’s quietly draining productivity, eroding morale, and accelerating the loss of high-value talent, particularly among younger and mid-career professionals.

In the year since the mandate began, the data tells a stark story:
• Voluntary attrition among under-40 employees has risen dramatically across the industry where rigid RTO policies persist. AT&T’s own attrition rates mirror that trend.
• Stock performance has lagged both Verizon and T-Mobile since the RTO push, suggesting Wall Street isn’t buying “butts in seats” as a business strategy.
• Office occupancy metrics nationwide show that mandated presence rarely exceeds 60% compliance. Employees comply on paper but disengage in spirit.

More importantly, the promised benefits of RTO (collaboration, innovation, culture) simply aren’t materializing. Employees report fewer in-person meetings, more hybrid video calls, and a deeper sense of distrust toward leadership. You can’t rebuild culture through compulsion. Culture is earned through empowerment.

Meanwhile, competitors are winning talent with flexible, hybrid models. Companies like T-Mobile, Verizon, Google, IBM and Microsoft have settled on 2-3 in-office days because the data supports it: productivity, engagement, and retention all rise when employees have agency over where they work.

AT&T has an opportunity here. Not to follow the trend, but to lead it. Imagine the signal it would send if AT&T were the first major company to publicly admit that five-day RTO was the wrong call. Reframing it as a “Return to Trust” would instantly shift perception from rigid to visionary.

You have the chance to show that leadership is about listening, not doubling down dictator style. The workforce is ready to deliver. They just need to know their leaders trust them again.

Revisit RTO. Shift back to a 2-3 day hybrid model. Watch what happens when respect replaces resentment.

That’s how AT&T becomes a company people are proud to work for again.

These people gave each other the leg up and none know what the other is doing! I was impacted and frankly I’m relieved! I know the workforce is hard and we all need our jobs but a couple of months paid to figure it out sounds better then the BS Ive been dealing with! I wish you all the best and my prayers go out to all impacted! But since this new leadership has taken over over it’s been a disaster and the ones who laugh at the ones impacted, the ones who were kept, undeserving if based on metrics and performance, your time will come! You survived not for being a leader but for kissing the right butts!

Stop posting to this manipulated "anonymous" board. It's clear that Dell HR admins (trolls) are up voting/down voting at will and deleting comments they don't like or reflect negatively upon Dell.

What’s the point of these celebrations when the very people that made this happen are let go? No meaningful strategy when it comes to these layoffs. Those at the top are coasting while those who do the actual work are treated like cr-p. Trust, confidence and motivation to drive is lost and they really expect us to be excited about these “celebrations”?

I’m seeing a culture of if you are a manager who is not interested in college football, other selected store managers, RVP’S and GvPs are not interested in talking to you. Has anyone else noticed this? # Bizarre

Seriously. Go to another bank. Find the strength of racism that exists no where else only at our finest USAA. even more odd, most employees are actually supportive and help one another at other banks. We have a deep rot here. its why we only attract the most d-list leaders.

long gone is the morally, ethically right culture of Transunion. Say hello to layoffs for thanksgiving.

Pearson continues to decline year after year, I’m shocked they are still hiring people. Every 8-12 months it’s time to layoff a group of people and start over again next year. I spent 7 years watching this disaster before finally leaving. The lack of leadership and pi-s poor planning in this company is ridiculous!

TLDR: me, another person on this site, ranting about Fidelity’s agile, and my potentially useless prediction.

If they’re cutting agile roles, then I hate to say it but they’re cutting in the right place. Frankly, they should have laid them off last year.

I used to want to position myself into an agile role myself. Frankly, as a tech person, I was lazy, and decided to try to weasel my way into an easier role. Eventually, I fell in love with the art of software engineering, so I’m not gonna transfer into Agile. Plus, I’ve met (countless) scrum masters and agile coaches in and out of Fidelity who told me that it’s not a good time to be in the craft.

Frankly, Agile just isn’t done right in so many roles. There’s not enough actually good scrum masters out there. Fidelity is also not a good place for agilists to grow. The way Fidelity is set up, there are many non scrum masters that play as the scrum master. You have scrum masters in Fidelity who glorify things like “it’s a made up job”, and “I just do this to get the easiest way into management”. That culture is rampant especially in FI. You don’t need a scrum master unless the scrum master is damn good at their job, and we’re gonna need those that operate about higher than Fidelity’s EP standards.

It’s just the way Fidelity is. Fidelity isn’t doing agile. They’re doing their Fidelity Fragile. Which, hasn’t worked. Fidelity in 2025 is about networking to the top. Scrum masters are a program dedicated to networking to the top. Respectfully, the way Fidelity does scrum is to have the scrum masters be the ones that the upper management blame and speak with when things go awry. The scrum masters report to those higher up people. They’re viewed by Fidelity as Fidelity figure heads. It’s disrespectful to those who are actually good at their jobs.

My prediction is that a good chunk of scrum masters will definitely be laid off. Potentially, 1/3. I don’t have someone high in ranking “in the know” like many anonymous people on this website claim they have. I just have my experience in tech and my experience with how Fidelity mucks things up. I could be wrong. I hope I am wrong.

This is the rest of my prediction. A few months after the layoff, remaining scrum masters will be reorganized to manage more teams. Usually, they manage up to 2 teams. That’s just how it’s supposed to be in agile anywhere. But knowing Fidelity, they might try to extend that to 3 or 4. Upper management will realize that many don’t really have any real functionality outside of hanging out all day (not an agile fault, it’s a Fidelity fault), so they’ll pile more teams on the surviving agilists to manage. Job opportunities for agility is scarce, so the remaining scrum masters will stay at Fidelity. The good 1% (not even the good 5%) will leave for better opportunity elsewhere. The remaining will probably not have much hope outside of Fidelity. Unless they want to uproot their lives. Many have been in tech as software engineers in the past, but once you cross that bridge from software engineer to Scrum, you ain’t going back. Which is a shame since some are passionate about code.

I don’t know if I’d be happy to be proven right or wrong by this. If you’re gonna lay off the scrum masters, I mean… majority of them deserve it, many are lazy, have no motive other than themselves, and capitalize off Fidelity. Those scrum masters should be out, rather than other positions that don’t obviously offer no value. But then, you could lay off the good scrum masters that make people realize why they’re useful. And that would be sad. But then again, that’s Fidelity’s culture anyway. And Fidelity will still survive since the company is a historic cash cow.

I’m genuinely sorry to passionate scrum masters at Fidelity that you’re in this position. None of this was meant to disrespect YOU. You don’t deserve to be dealing with these other people who do not appreciate you. When I was researching becoming a scrum master for the wrong reasons, I talked with 10 scrum masters/agile coaches. There were only 2 that were actually passionate about agile. That’s just my personal experience, but you may see something different. As for the scrum masters that don’t add ANY value and are only jaded to get a paycheck, please just add some value. They probably won’t take my request seriously. They’ll sit around being like “hi team, look at this chart I made of your guys work, it has a squiggly line that shows how many stories you finish, so now I can make money, derp”.

Thank you for reading. I’d be happily proven wrong, and like to hear back from other people. Especially people who have seen how agile unfolded at Fidelity over the years, and (good) agilists at Fidelity themselves.

When you say you work for Humana all providers Roll Their eyes! It
Is not the same!!! I do not see Humana a provider in 5 years! This UM centralization has totally messed Humana up!!

Times are tough. Changes are coming so fast we can barely keep track. Don’t be discouraged. It is so easy to stay in that mindset. Everyone has moments or seasons, but there is a way through and we will band together to find it. Within TRP or somewhere else. The journey is often difficult, but we will find our new normal, adapt, and flourish. Bad leaders will be exposed eventually. Bad business process too. Unfortunately at the expense of great people sometimes, but that is just the nature of business at this level and in this climate. Care for each other. Check in on one another. The greatest assets are the people, and when we look around at each other, there are far more good apples than bad.

With this new system, and unattainable goals: how can a goal be set if management doesn’t allow you to meet it? It seems like a very complicated way of saying gotcha!

People keep talking about compensation in the town hall thread. So please what was said about compensation? Because they way people were talking it sounded bad.

Just look at the view counts, no other company has so many views and we are much smaller than other banks. I am suspecting they are sending bots to monitor everything that's being said here and they are reporting this up. It's sick just like everything else this exec group does.

All these layoffs su-k. They absolutely su-k. But I think in time for those of us still here, it’ll eventually be OK. I just hope these layoffs don’t start to tear away at the culture.

Forced on-site work for most teams, useless middle management, directors/VPs getting to switch shoes and retain/upgrade their salaries despite abysmal failures in the orgs they preside over, corporate leaders throwing out dead and played-out initiatives that also fail constantly (because they are all outdated, obsolete, and largely ineffective), morale in he-l, frustration across departments boiling over from increased workloads and decrease team sizes causing burnout. I'm sure there are others to add to the litany, but I'm wondering, when does the straw break across the camel's back and we take back power as employees. Do we continue to drink the koolaid or speak up and pushback on these incompetent leaders and processes? Please, if you feel or deal with any of this, it is time to start writing letters or something. This cannot continue. We're in the age of modernization yet things feel so artificially dystopian. Do not play the side lines. Make your voices heard!

How does the culture/pay/benefits compare with TIAA? Is it easier ti transition to one of these companies being a TIAA employee?
Specifically in tech

Start by listening, because -- "newsflash" -- you probably know less than the team you just inherited, so ask questions, find the real blockers, and do your actual job.

Also, stop hogging credit when things go right and then unloading blame when they do not. Happens all the time. Stop now... that routine is stale.

Keep micromanaging and you get 0 loyalty on day one, act professional if you want professional output... treat me lke a child and you will get the bare minimum.. your choice.

If you are a corporate climber (probably are) using us as a rung, expect minimum effort from me in return... no tip, no extra mile.

Respect is not a free perk of your title, the bigger the title the harder you have to work to earn it, and since I cycle through a new manager every 12 mo, you are on probation until you prove otherwise.

stop the pointless mtgs that could be an email and stop spamming me on chat, that noise is not productivity.

Say AI like it is magic fairy dust and you owe the swear jar, pay up unless you bring budget and real use cases.

And cut the passive aggressive nonsense where everything is fine all year and then at review time I am suddenly the worst employee in history, give straight feedback when it matters or save the performance theater for someone who buys tickets.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskMarketing/comments/1nydv68/publicis_exposed/

Recently on Reddit (/r/AskMarketing), a former Publicis employee shared a LinkedIn post describing alleged discrimination, retaliation, and poor management at the company. The whistleblower claims these issues worsened after disclosing her autism, and named clients like Stellantis and Campbell’s as being involved.

Other marketing professionals chimed in, saying similar problems are common in big agencies and rarely confronted openly. Many applauded the whistleblower’s bravery, while some expressed concern about the risks she faces for speaking up.

A number of ex-employees shared negative experiences about Publicis’s workplace culture and management, with some hoping she’ll take legal action. Most responses were supportive, but there’s a shared skepticism whether anything will change, as people think the agency system shields bad practices unless big clients act.

Has anyone else experienced, seen, or heard of issues like these at Publicis or other large agencies? Do you think public posts like this make a difference—or will things just stay the same?