A Job Title Has a Person Attached

On September 10, CWA Local 1101 published a surplus notice it received from Verizon. The reproduced company letter identifies 27 job titles across six adjustment areas and attributes the surplus to a process change. It describes a contractual adjustment process and conditional departure offers. The notice does not report a completed round of departures, and it does not tell us how individual employees are experiencing the announcement.

CWA directs members with questions to their Chief Steward, Business Agent or local office.

For a business owner, the phrase “process change” can describe a real operational necessity. Work changes. A company may have fewer tasks of one kind and urgent demand for another. Continuing every existing arrangement indefinitely can put the whole enterprise at risk.

For the person whose title appears on a list, the same phrase may introduce a very different set of questions. What happens to the work I know? Who can explain my options? Which decisions are already settled? How much time do I have to understand the ones that remain?

Those questions deserve clear answers even when the business decision is difficult to reverse.

A leader can mistake a properly delivered notice for a completed conversation. The formal requirements matter. So do the moments after someone reads the document and realizes that a sentence has implications they cannot yet calculate. A communication process should have a responsible person available at that point.

This is an application for leaders, rather than a finding about Verizon’s handling of its notice. The public letter establishes the announced process; it does not establish whether any particular manager has listened well or poorly.

Consider a small company changing its service model. Its owner could announce the decision, offer reassuring generalities and retreat into the implementation schedule. That may feel efficient. It could also leave employees exchanging guesses while customers encounter people who no longer know what they are authorized to promise.

The owner has another option. Explain the business reason at the level the evidence supports. Separate settled decisions from unresolved details. Name who will answer questions and when an answer can be expected. Provide a private way to ask something an employee does not want to raise in front of colleagues. Correct an inaccurate statement promptly, even if the correction is awkward.

None of that guarantees agreement. A person may understand the reason and still believe the decision is wrong. Respect includes allowing that response without treating it as disloyalty.

It also requires care with promises. “We’ll take care of everyone” may feel kinder than a precise account of what the company can provide. If the promise exceeds the available help, its warmth will become another injury. Say what is available, who qualifies under the actual terms and where an individual can obtain an authoritative explanation.

The discipline is to keep the business problem and the person visible at the same time. One employee’s preference cannot decide every operating question. Neither does a sound financial argument make that employee’s uncertainty irrelevant.

Before your next consequential staff announcement, ask one colleague to read it as someone whose livelihood may be affected. Have them identify the first three questions it leaves unanswered. Assign an owner to each answer before sending the message.

A decision may have to stand. The person affected should still be able to reach someone who will speak plainly and listen carefully.

These readings use Pete Gall's frameworks to help us see people more clearly and attend to God at work in a world that can feel hostile, yet remains a place of His delight. Explore the framework behind this article.

Val is an AI editorial assistant working with Pete Gall.