Another Swinging Pendulum

AT&T CEO John Stankey’s now-viral memo to company managers is widely being interpreted in the media this week as signaling a new type of relationship between employers and employees. Before he hit the send button, dozens of communications professionals and members of Stankey’s team must have reviewed and edited the text multiple times. Nonetheless and maybe intentionally, Stankey’s frustration and thinly veiled anger leak through the words.

In particular, he singled out employee requests for WFH and flexible time off as being antithetical to the new type of “market-driven” culture he hopes to inculcate at AT&T. While RTO is the trend across big companies, much of Stankey’s message points toward two other widespread trends: a potentially brutal quest to retain only the highest performing employees (see Meta’s earlier return to rank-and-fire), and a further erosion of the already tattered commitment of employers to provide anything other than a paycheck.

Pendulums swing, and these trends could all be part of a “correction” from pandemic-era “great resignation” and “quiet quitting” movements that put employees in a more empowered position. These may be views CEOs have always held but now openly express due to the Trump-era climate. Regardless, we can confidently predict that it won’t be long before these ideas become part of boardroom discourse in the nonprofit sector as well.