AT&T is pressing more of its managers to relocate or face severance as part of a sweeping office consolidation, a move that underscores the telecom giant’s hardline cultural reset under Chief Executive John Stankey.
According to Business Insider, the company is consolidating 22 internal help-desk centres into just six regional hubs. Managers in these units have been given two weeks to decide whether to move or leave the company with severance. Unionised staff, by contrast, will be allowed to remain in their current offices, albeit in different customer-service support roles.
The changes, which affect employees who primarily assist other AT&T staff, reflect a broader strategy Stankey has been pursuing since 2023: centralising operations, cutting legacy costs, and prioritising efficiency. A company spokesperson confirmed that locations are being reduced, though they did not specify numbers, insisting the move was not directly tied to Stankey’s recent memo to staff.
The Stankey memo and culture shift
Earlier this month, Stankey told employees in a blunt internal note that AT&T was moving to a “market-based culture” that required closer in-office collaboration. In the memo, first reported by Business Insider, he argued that workplace loyalty and tenure-based security were outdated concepts. The note was a response to an internal survey that found declining employee engagement.
While AT&T maintains that the help-desk consolidation is separate, managers told Business Insider they believe the timetable was accelerated because of the memo. What might once have taken years is now being pushed through in weeks.
Under the plan, managers must relocate to one of six designated cities: Atlanta; Mesa, Arizona; Miami; Orlando; Richardson, Texas; or Tulsa, Oklahoma. One affected manager said they were told to cover their own moving costs and described the impact on their family as untenable. “Without my income, we’re not going to make it,” they told.
Employees say they feel trapped between uprooting households and losing livelihoods. Several staff members also disclosed that department leaders have been tasked with devising “action plans” to address concerns raised in the recent employee survey.
The latest wave of relocations is part of a longer pattern. In 2023, AT&T announced that around 60,000 managers would be reassigned to just nine metro areas, down from 300. At that time, Stankey told Bloomberg that about 9,000 employees would face relocation decisions. Internal data showed that in one division under Chief Technology Officer Jeremy Legg, about half of the 318 managers ordered to move declined and left the company.
Company-wide headcount has been shrinking as a result. AT&T employed more than 160,000 workers at the start of 2023 but began 2025 with around 141,000. By comparison, competitors Verizon and T-Mobile reported roughly 99,000 and 70,000 employees, respectively.
Efficiency, AI, and Wall Street
AT&T executives insist that these moves are about improving operational efficiency. A spokesperson said the consolidation “reflects ongoing strategic shifts to colocate similar work functions and improve efficiency, consistency, and teamwork.”
Legg has publicly argued that as AT&T incorporates more software, it can reduce its reliance on physical infrastructure. Speaking at a KeyBanc technology conference earlier this month, he explained: “If you have 100 central offices, you may be able to only have the gear in 30 or 40 of them.” Fewer physical sites, he said, means lower labour and equipment costs.
AI is also central to the company’s strategy. On a January earnings call, Stankey said AT&T expects to save $3 billion in running costs by weaving AI into operations. Legg confirmed at the KeyBanc conference that AT&T Technology Services is already loading trouble tickets into its generative AI systems, which can now recommend fixes and even write the code to implement them. Human oversight remains, but automation is expanding rapidly.
Investors appear to approve. AT&T’s shares have risen by about 27% in 2025, a surge analysts credit to cost-cutting, a renewed focus on core telecom services, and the enforcement of stricter in-office rules.
The human toll
For many managers, however, the financial and personal consequences are severe. Relocation often means uprooting families, paying moving costs out-of-pocket, or leaving jobs altogether. One mid-level manager facing a cross-country move told Business Insider that the choice felt like no choice at all.
The latest cuts add to a broader corporate shift in the US. From Silicon Valley to Wall Street, companies are demanding more face time in the office, focusing on productivity metrics, and pushing employees harder under the banner of efficiency. AT&T’s approach—blunt, uncompromising, and unapologetic—stands as a vivid example of the direction corporate America is taking.