Read AT&T CEO's frank response to employee feedback about a 5-day RTO mandate

Business Insider

3 days ago

Roughly seven months after AT&T called workers back to the office five days a week, CEO John Stankey has a message for employees: Get on board or get out.
In a lengthy Friday memo addressed to "all AT&T managers" that was obtained by Business Insider, Stankey shared his thoughts on the results of the company's employee engagement survey.
The AT&T CEO said he is "not surprised" by the declining self-reported employee engagement level and touched on some changes the company is going through.
The note was, in part, to help workers identify where their "professional expectations" may be "misaligned with the strategic direction of this company," he wrote.
"If you are of the small minority that shared comments similar to, 'I have heard this nonsense before and I'll ignore things until this goes away…' or 'things were just fine the way they were…' there might be a disconnect between you and your current professional choice," Stankey wrote.
According to the memo, 79% of respondents said they feel committed and engaged with their work. The survey results represent over 99,000 employees, which is 73% of the company.
AT&T told BI that the company has no additional comments on Stankey's memo because it "speaks for itself."
"We run a dynamic, customer-facing business, tackling large-scale, challenging initiatives," Stankey wrote. "If the requirements dictated by this dynamic do not align to your personal desires, you have every right to find a career opportunity that is suitable to your aspirations and needs."
"That said, if a self-directed, virtual, or hybrid work schedule is essential for you to manage your career aspirations and life challenges, you will have a difficult time aligning your priorities with those of the company and the culture we aim to establish," Stankey added.
AT&T has undergone a series of changes this year, starting with replacing a hybrid schedule with a five-day in-office mandate. Some AT&T employees previously told BI that it became difficult to obtain office desks and parking spaces amid the RTO push, while the telecom's rival, Verizon, saw the office mandate as an opportunity to recruit AT&T workers interested in hybrid schedules.
In the memo, Stankey addressed the "right to expect to work in a professional, well-maintained, and functional facility" and the ongoing and coming investments into office hubs.
Stankey is the latest CEO to tell employees to get on board with a return-to-office policy or go elsewhere.
He also described the company's transition as a shift away from some elements, including "loyalty, tenure, and conformance with the associated compensation," to "a more market-based culture —focused on rewarding capability, contribution, and commitment."
"When I read comments lamenting disruption, I tried to pick my brain for an example of another 100+ year old company that didn't have to disrupt itself to secure sustainable relevance," he wrote. "I am still searching for the first example."
So far, AT&T shares have risen more than 21% in 2025, and the company posted robust earnings that met analyst expectations over the past two quarters.
"I know change like this is difficult and can be unsettling for some," Stankey said in the memo. "However, as General Eric Shinseki so eloquently stated, 'If you dislike change, you're going to dislike irrelevance even more.'"
Read AT&T CEO John Stankey's full memo:
A Message from John Stankey
My Observation on our Employee Survey results
To: All AT&T Managers
Thank you to the over 99,000 employees who responded to this year's Employee Survey. Your feedback helps us understand what we need to focus on—and how we need to communicate — as we strive toward our goal of ranking in the top third of Fortune 100 companies in employee engagement. It is incredibly encouraging that 73% of our employees took the time to respond to the survey, with 79% of those respondents feeling committed and engaged with their work at AT&T. While this is reassuring, especially considering the amount of change we've navigated as a company recently, it wasn't a surprise to me that we fell short of our engagement goal. Nor was it a surprise that scores declined since our 2023 survey. We are midstream on a multi-year journey to build the company we want, not simply optimize the one we have — and I believe your feedback accurately reflects where we are.
In the survey you asked for transparency in communication from leadership. Although not my best in terms of brevity, the purpose of this multi-page note is to share a few of my thoughts with you directly while your leaders work with you to prepare their action plans. After reading this, I'm hopeful you will understand my perspective on the company we are working to build and what we can and will do to respond to elements of your feedback.
This note may also help you identify areas where your professional expectations might be misaligned with the strategic direction of this company. Most points outlined below have been communicated in other forums and with your leadership, but this is my attempt to articulate how all the pieces fit together.
Let me start by setting some context on what has been underway at AT&T over the last 4 years. To secure our long-term success as a company, we concluded that a shift in our operating culture was essential. For those of you who are fans of management science, this shift can be characterized as moving away from an orientation on hierarchy and familial cultural norms and towards a more externally focused and competitive market-based culture.
I understand that some of you may have started your tour with this company expecting an "employment deal" rooted in loyalty, tenure, and conformance with the associated compensation, work structure, and benefits. We have consciously shifted away from some of these elements and towards a more market-based culture — focused on rewarding capability, contribution, and commitment. We believe this is the only way to succeed in the dynamic, technologically driven markets where we operate. I know change like this is difficult and can be unsettling for some. However, as General Eric Shinseki so eloquently stated, "If you dislike change, you're going to dislike irrelevance even more." Many of your survey comments indicate agreement with this notion — a desire for our company to evolve to better support our customers and each other.
If you are of the small minority that shared comments similar to, "I have heard this nonsense before and I'll ignore things until this goes away…" or "things were just fine the way they were…" there might be a disconnect between you and your current professional choice. It takes every one of us, moving in the same direction, to win against the competition, sustain our business, and create rewarding and interesting challenges for employees who want to work in a market-based culture. Changes to compensation, pensions, benefits (paid time off, care leaves, mental health support), delayering, work locations, and workplace environment are all in service of this change.
When I read comments lamenting disruption, I tried to pick my brain for an example of another 100+ year old company that didn't have to disrupt itself to secure sustainable relevance. I am still searching for the first example. I suspect our willingness to disrupt ourselves is the under-pinning of why this company approaches 150 years of relevance — from fixed to mobile, TDM (Time Division Multiplexing) to IP (Internet Protocol), and narrowband to broadband to name a few. I recall at every turn there were parts of the organization advocating to maintain the status quo, and I suspect hindsight would tell us we are happy we chose change — as messy as the journey might have been.
Your Survey Feedback
Now to the survey. There was quite a bit to unpack in your feedback, but like any business imperative, focus and prioritization are essential. Your collective data and comments were analyzed to extract the most critical themes outlined in this note. You will hear more specifics from your respective leaders around these themes in the coming weeks.
1. Career and professional growth
I agree with the sentiment that everyone should understand potential career opportunities and career paths we have here at AT&T. With that, you should have a solid sense of the contribution required in your current role, and what can be done to earn more responsibility to push professional pursuits to a higher level.
Many leaders have not yet fully addressed this expectation within their own organizations. Our shift to hub locations was a pivotal step to more effectively achieve this goal. Concentrations of employees enables the teamwork, mentorship, and visibility that, when combined with performance and contribution, can better equip you to advance your career. While we have made strides to get more people into fewer places, we have more work to do to align complimentary work functions in the right places. I expect all department leaders to complete this work — to thoughtfully consolidate coordinating functions and career paths to reduce the ongoing need to relocate for growth and development.
2. Capabilities to do your job
You deserve tools, processes, and capabilities that help you serve our customers effectively, without being hindered by internal process friction or system constraints.
While we've made progress with legacy migrations and infrastructure upgrades, there's still a long way to go. We find ourselves at the midpoint in what is a long and technically challenging journey. You have my commitment that improving these capabilities remains a top priority. We are committed to allocating resources and attention to ensure we see tangible benefits of our record levels of investment in these areas, and we'll continue to update you on these improvements.
3. Where we work
You are right to expect to work in a professional, well-maintained, and functional facility. Another reason we established a focused set of hubs was to allow us to invest in our workplaces and bring them to a more common standard. This was something we never would have been able to achieve while operating in 500+ metropolitan areas. It's also why we need to continue exiting under-utilized real estate (the remnants of deferred maintenance from a long string of mergers and acquisitions) to free up resources to invest in our core locations.
The fact is real estate transitions require sustained efforts over several years to arrive at the place we desire and you deserve. Some of you are in a location where enhancements are actively underway or even completed. Others may be unaware of changes that are coming in short order. We will more actively share where we are making investments, what has been accomplished, and what is on the horizon. We agree with the feedback you shared, and we are taking this seriously. I expect we all will be required to demonstrate some patience and flexibility as we work towards a better place.
4. Culture
Your collective comments about culture may be the most difficult to synthesize. This topic is a bit like beauty — it's all in the eyes of the beholder. Many of you suggest a desire to improve upon what you're observing as "daily norms." I wish I could summarize a set of actions that could quickly guarantee our transition to the market-based cultural norms I described earlier. But I don't think a short-term list of actions or programs would suffice. Believe me, there is nobody more impatient for this outcome than yours truly. Changing and embracing a workplace culture is like learning a language — knowledge grows in a variety of ways and develops over time. Like learning a language, you gain proficiency by practicing in the real world. We need to commit to learning the language together so we can all share a common "shorthand."
To that end, we will be doing some additional work illustrating what market-based culture norms look like in practice — and sharing some prompts that can be applied in your daily work life. We'll keep coming at this cultural evolution from every angle — but I have to ask you to commit. Commit to adjusting your own behaviors and actions without looking to your right or left (or above) to see what everybody else is doing. A favorite quote by W. Clement Stone comes to mind: "So many fail because they don't get started." Please jump in and avoid the human tendency to blame the neighbors for the problems in the neighborhood! We will all change at a slightly different pace, and that's to be expected.
5. Personal wellbeing
I understand that many may find the demands of your daily lives challenging and difficult. Elder care, job stress, child rearing challenges, economic uncertainty, community unrest, technology anxiety — the list can get long. While no company can address how the combination of these dynamics might impact your specific circumstances, we can work to support employees in a way that improves their ability to manage what life throws at them.
Our decisions to maintain industry-leading healthcare, change time-off policies, augment leave structures, offer financial counseling, and enhance mental health benefits are examples of overt decisions we have made on this front. Despite rising medical costs, we intend to hold management medical contributions flat for the 2026 renewal cycle. We continue to test new approaches to services and care in the workplace and are seeing some promising models emerge that may warrant implementing at scale. These are just some examples of how we are constantly evaluating how we can best support you in managing life dynamics, and you can expect more updates in the coming year.
Now, onto some additional context and expectation setting.
How we work together
The most challenging things we do here at AT&T require unwavering teamwork - it's essential that we attract and promote talent that embraces working together to deliver results. When you think about what we are doing to transform this company - efforts like legacy sunset, fiber deployment, wireless network modernization, moving down market in Business, BSS/OSS (Business Support System/Operations Support System) platform migrations, digital/online/omni channel enablement, core routing network consolidation, and 5G standalone core - these are all efforts that require inter-departmental collaboration and coordination. They constitute the bulk of our $23 billion annual investment.
This work is far more demanding and challenging than our efforts to keep the train on the tracks during enforced COVID isolation. -person collaboration and predictable presence improves each team's ability to execute effectively on large, complex projects. Our customers expect us to be here to serve their needs. Our third-party partners need to be able to consistently depend on times to collaborate. Our employees deserve reliable support with their current responsibilities and impromptu guidance for continued development. This is why we work in person, together, during common hours.
We run a dynamic, customer-facing business, tackling large-scale, challenging initiatives. If the requirements dictated by this dynamic do not align to your personal desires, you have every right to find a career opportunity that is suitable to your aspirations and needs. That said, if a self-directed, virtual, or hybrid work schedule is essential for you to manage your career aspirations and life challenges, you will have a difficult time aligning your priorities with those of the company and the culture we aim to establish.
Does this mean there isn't room for emergencies or special circumstances? Of course not. will always try to support that which can't be planned for — or that which needs to be deliberately planned for — and I expect any leader to manage their organization accordingly.
Contribution, trust, and effectiveness
Our cultural tenants include our intent to Win as One. Implicit in this commitment to one another is that we all carry our part of the load aid measurably contribute to the priorities the team. As technology and the "information economy" evolves, each of our respective contributions are going to become increasingly measurable.
In addition to information garnered from performance reviews, peer feedback, assessments work history, and certifications (to name a few), we analyze patterns of behaviors from broad cohorts (aggregated data). This allows leaders to identify behaviors that are obvious outliers, supplemented with the broadest set of information available, to determine if the behavior being evaluated is consistent with our stated priorities and employment expectations.
An employee's data must significantly differ from their peers — to a level harming team cohesion, compensation, and inconsistent with our Win as One philosophy — before an individual's name is linked to any behavior.
Some may view this approach as a matter of trust, and that perspective is understandable. In several forums, I've expressed concerns that past data indicated more outliers than we'd like.
If we overlook these outliers, it can impact overall trust in leadership and coworkers, especially among those who consistently contribute and uphold our standards. Addressing these exceptions is important to ensure we're fair to the vast majority of employees who support their colleagues and deliver for the organization every day.
Next steps
I hope this clarifies how we've prioritized action planning around your feedback — and transparently explains why some concerns and desires expressed may not be entirely aligned with our strategic direction as a company. While it's natural to feel uneasy during times of conflict and change, the greatest source of lasting anxiety is when expectations aren't aligned or discussed openly.
Determining the best way to address new challenges and position the company for long-term success is constantly on our minds as leaders. I truly believe that this approach is the way to attract and retain customers, secure necessary resources from our investors, and offer meaningful employment to as many of our folks as possible. As difficult as it is to balance all these stakeholders, I am confident that we are on the right track.
Your leadership team will be outlining our path forward in response to the survey in more detail. Until then, I ask that each of you explore your own opportunities to make a difference. While there will certainly be actions and initiatives that require sponsorship from senior leaders, our collective success also depends on each of us taking ownership where we can. Rather than waiting for others to act, I encourage everyone to share their ideas and take initiative.
As I said at the beginning, we are midstream on a multi-year journey to build the company we want, not simply optimize the one we have. Your feedback makes us better, and we have many strong capabilities and attributes to leverage.
John