Before I had the chance to know what AT&T was, I thought that AT&T’s main focus was telecommunication. This is only partially true because today AT&T is very competitive in several other industries such as providing fast Internet service or broadband, creating enterprise software and application development and developing an IP-based TV system known as U-Verse.
AT&T has more than 284,000 employees, and thousands of them are IT professionals and code writers who, for example, write the software that handles gigantic database flow systems. The rest of the employees range from drivers to public relations to external affairs who help the government form regulations and to experienced managers. AT&T is spread all over the United States, but their key branches are concentrated in several states. One of them is in St. Louise, Mo., where I work with the other nearly 5,000 employees in one of the three AT&T buildings.
It is amazing how all these massive work processes are man- aged in AT&T. With all these employees, customers and huge numbers of services provided, I was wondering how they manage it. Based on my observation, the work environment in AT&T is based on teamwork. Talking about the IT section of the company, each project has a team to work on, and all team members have to submit weekly or daily status reports to their managers to ensure that the work is progressing smoothly and products will be delivered on time. In addition, AT&T employees are using special tools to increase their efficiency. They keep all of their work documents digitized and are accessible by all the team members who work on the same project for updating and reviewing purposes. They also use in- side-the-house communications tools. Simply put, every AT&T employee can easily communicate
with another AT&T employee using AT&T’s internal Instant Messaging tool, e-mail and phone. No matter what is your position in AT&T, you can simply come in the morning and find the contacts of the chief executive officer of AT&T and send him a good morning greeting via the IM.
Because AT&T is involved with everyday life of their customers, they work not only to deliver a good quality services, they help them and their communities. The pioneers are the world’s largest industry-based volunteer organization with about 325,000 employee and retiree volunteers. AT&T also has about 10 groups that support employee diversity and community involvement. Women of AT&T is organized to connect and inspire members to achieve their personal and professional goals and to effect change in the community. They help women in the workplace and raise about $20,000 each year for women and children charities. HACEMOS is a non-profit, non-partisan organization open to active and retired employees of the AT&T. family of companies. The organization’s main purpose is to foster an environment where people support and encourage each other to succeed professionally, personally, and in the community. Addition- ally, in 2008 AT&T contributed $169 million through corporate, employee and AT&T Foundation giving programs.
In addition to being number one in its business and providing best services. AT&T contributes to the society and to the high-tech community, AT&T receives, on aver- age, two patents every day for a new invention and discovery. Simply put, AT&T is the kind of organization that you want to exist in your country and make you proud.
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