AT&T Orders Manager Relocations Amid Restructuring, Warns of Layoffs

AT&T CEO John Stankey is enforcing a market-based mentality by combining help-desk centres and requiring managers to relocate to six hubs or risk losing their jobs. As part of a massive workplace reorganisation, AT&T is forcing more of its managers to transfer or face severance.

CEO John Stankey’s Push for a Market-Based Culture

This decision highlights the telecom giant’s strict culture reset under CEO John Stankey. The corporation is reducing 22 internal help-desk locations to just six regional hubs, according to Business Insider. These units’ managers have been given two weeks to make a decision about leaving the company with severance pay or moving.

On the other hand, unionised employees will be permitted to stay in their current locations, although in various customer service support positions. The modifications, which mostly impact workers who support other AT&T employees, are part of a larger approach Stankey has been following since 2023: centralising operations, reducing legacy expenses, and putting efficiency first.

A representative for the corporation acknowledged that fewer stores are being opened, but they did not provide a specific number and insisted that the action had nothing to do with Stankey’s recent email to employees.

AT&T Moving Towards Market Based Culture

In a direct internal memo earlier this month, Stankey informed staff that AT&T was implementing a “market-based culture” that necessitated greater in-office cooperation. He claimed that tenure-based security and workplace loyalty were outmoded ideas in the missive, which Business Insider was the first to report.

Six Hub Cities: Where Managers Must Relocate

An internal poll that revealed a decline in employee engagement prompted the note. Managers told Business Insider they think the memo sped up the timeline, despite AT&T’s insistence that the help-desk consolidation is distinct. Things that used to take years are now being completed in a matter of weeks. The plan requires managers to move to one of six cities: Miami, Orlando, Richardson, Texas; Atlanta; Mesa, Arizona; or Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Impact on Employees: Relocation vs Severance

Workers claim they feel torn between leaving their jobs and uprooting households. A number of employees also revealed that department heads had been assigned the responsibility of creating “action plans” to resolve issues brought up in the most recent employee survey.

Layoffs and Workforce Reduction at AT&T

The most recent relocation wave is a component of a larger trend. Around 60,000 managers will be redistributed to just nine metro areas, down from 300, according to AT&T’s 2023 announcement. Stankey informed Bloomberg at the time that choices on the relocation of roughly 9,000 employees will be made.

According to internal data, about half of the 318 managers who were told to relocate in one division under Chief Technology Officer Jeremy Legg declined and quit. As a result, the headcount of the entire company has been declining. AT&T started 2025 with about 141,000 employees, compared to over 160,000 in the beginning of 2023. In contrast, rivals T-Mobile and Verizon reported about 70,000 and 99,000 workers, respectively.

AI Integration: $3 Billion Cost-Cutting Plan

Another key component of the company’s strategy is AI. Stankey stated during a January earnings call that AT&T anticipates integrating AI into operations to save $3 billion in operating expenses. AT&T Technology Services is now feeding trouble tickets into its generative AI systems, which can already suggest improvements and even create the code to put them into action, Legg stated at the KeyBanc conference. Although there is still human control, automation is growing quickly.