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Verizon Says 44,000 Managers Qualify for Company Buyout Offer
- yostrovs 8y agoAmazing that they have 44,000 managers
- fullshark 8y agoAnd want to lose them!
- ExBritNStuff 8y agoThey use the term manager for lots of roles that don't actually have any management function. I worked on a team within Verizon that had ~40 people, all of whom were considered managers, even though none of us, other than the two actual managers, had any people under us.
- minikites 8y agoFor those who may not know, companies do this so they can classify as many workers as possible as "exempt employees" meaning they are exempt from overtime pay and other worker protections.
- zdragnar 8y ago"In general, to be considered an “exempt” employee, you must be paid a salary (not hourly) and must perform executive, administrative or professional duties." https://www.thebalancecareers.com/exempt-and-a-non-exempt-employee-2061988 https://www.thebalancecareers.com/exempt-and-a-non-exempt-em... To be honest, I'm a little surprised that these employees couldn't be considered administrative or professional without a managerial title. Edit: reading further, this clarifies a bit: "These categories are purposefully broad to encompass many types of jobs. However, it is the tasks performed on the job, not the job title alone, which determine exempt vs. non-exempt employment status." Essentially, it's not entirely a cop-out by companies to avoid worker protections.
- MisterOctober 8y agoThis is emphatically the case. The administrative and IT exemptions are rankly abused. It's not only big / tech companies that engage in this practice, either -- so many folks work for middling-or-less salary and expected to put in uncompensated overtime. Companies craft HR policy to shoehorn practically every full-time position into an exempt class.
- da_chicken 8y agoYeah, I worked at a public school district where everybody who was neither hourly, nor a teacher, nor someone high in administration qualifies as a "manager". Pretty much the entire IT team was coded as a manager. It really just meant "salaried, 12-month, no overtime, non-instructional employee". Outside IT most of the people actually did manage people, though.
- swozey 8y agoIs this a tax thing? I've seen this at a few big old guard software companies. It confused the hell out of me coming from startups and seeing the guys next to me were all VPs/Managers (in the Engineering aisles).
- toomuchtodo 8y agoIt's a labor law thing.
- swozey 8y agoI'm your run of the mill srSWE just like them, they'd just been around 5-15 years. I've been non-exempt my entire career as a neteng/syseng/swe, etc. Do you mean something else? I assumed it was something like X amount of mgrs/VPs on staff = some benefit (taxes, etc).
- toomuchtodo 8y agohttps://www.dol.gov/whd/overtime/fs17e_computer.pdf https://www.dol.gov/whd/overtime/fs17e_computer.pdf Feel free to email me (contact info in profile) if you want to discuss further.
- madcaptenor 8y agoI work at AT&T. “Manager” here means, basically, “not unionized” - so basically not technicians, call center agents, or retail store workers. “Supervisor” is the term of art for “has people under them”.
- jakelarkin 8y agowhat do they all do? I imagine regional/vertical sales or procurement roles from the before-internet scale era?
- dionidium 8y agoThey're programmers, data architects, analysts, some actual managers, and so on. It just means "non-union employee."
- beemeetoo 8y agoHad a friend at a yuuuge company (comparable to Verizon) and their title changed as they spent more time with the company w/o their role or responsibilities changing a lot throughout the years. After 7-8 years at the given company this friend of mine became a "VP" and first I was "WOW, look at you!", but then he explained that he is doing the same sh*t, maybe a tad bit more, but this is how they get their promotions, etc... so they had tons of "Managers" and "VPs"...
- dionidium 8y agoI started my career as a programmer at AT&T and was "management" on day one, despite no managerial responsibilities. The term means nothing more than "non-union employee."
- whack 8y agoAren't these buyout offers the worst way to trim headcount? The people most likely to take them are the ones who are good at their job, and confident of landing another one at a different company. The people least likely to take them are the mediocre ones who know they'll never land an equally good position elsewhere. If you want to keep your best people, this seems like the exact opposite way to do it.
- ct0 8y agoI believe the intention is to trim cost
- Torn 8y agoShort-term cost though, if whack's thinking is correct. Longer-term talent drains means execution risks sliding even further into mediocrity
- toomuchtodo 8y agoOnly the short term matters in these cases. Management will already be out with their bonuses by the time the org is a skeleton of its former self.
- TAForObvReasons 8y agoFor highly compensated people very close to retirement age (which is probably who they are targeting), 60 weeks pay is a mighty fine way to walk out. A non-compete tied to the industry probably dissuades the younger competent people from jumping ship
- SilasX 8y agoI don’t know how Verizon is doing it but sometimes the offers are structured so that they exclude “essential employees”, ie anyone they like. So, if you get the offer it’s a sign they think you’re not any good :-p
- mudil 8y agoCompanies throw a wide net in these matters to prevent lawsuits, such as age discrimination lawsuits. But then more managed process takes over on the individual level.
- jsnell 8y ago> The incentive includes three weeks’ pay for every year of service, thanks in part to profit-enhancing benefits from new corporate tax laws. I genuinely had to check whether this was some kind of a parody site. "Corporate tax cuts are great, companies can now afford to give bigger severance packages!"
- _jal 8y agoI'd read that as, "The investor class has not quite yet internalized regarding the recent tax changes as their god-given birthright, so at the moment they don't squeal quite so loudly when the proles get a nickel."
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- paul7986 8y agoVerizon paid me $4k (business customer svc rep) to go away which I put towards my first startup/learning to code. It was a fun place to work with some great people and it’s hard to beat getting paid to go away(union).
- paul7986 8y agoMy heart wasn't in this job or profession, but I do thank Verizon immensely for being a great company to work for and treating their employees very well!
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- onetimemanytime 8y ago>>"Verizon had 153,100 employees as of June." and 44,000 managers qualify for the buyout. Let's assume that 100% of managers qualify, so they only have 44k managers. What am I missing in corp America? 1 in 3-4 is a manager?
- datavirtue 8y agoYeah. It's a stupid title like "architect."
- datavirtue 8y agoWhy did they hire them to begin with? Joe investor would like to know.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- sytelus 8y agoIn past decade Verizon had been rapidly reducing workforce: 224K to 153K. The 44K new cut is massive 29%. So net shedding over a decade is almost 48%. From the look of the graph, the shading had been at constant rate. This short of indicates that the problem isn't over-hiring (which they could have fixed by one time layoffs) but rather attempt to increase stock by risking long term prospects. AT&T for comparison has over 254K employees. I'm now bit worried about verizon's long term future. I have been planning to switch to Verizon from AT&T and now this doesn't give me comfort.