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The University of Texas at Dallas

AT&T
Final Report
Professor Kyle Edgington
OBHR 3310-S15

by
Jasmine Kamga
Miguel Hernandez
Danielle Rubio
Divya Narayanan
Hao Ma

04/07/2015

Introduction
AT&T is one of the worlds largest communications companies. AT&T originally began as a
telecommunications company more than a century ago, but since then has expanded to offer
products and services such as internet, cable, and innovative security. AT&T serves over 110

million wireless subscribers in the U.S. with voice coverage in more than 225 countries, data
roaming in more than 210 countries with 3G in more than 170 countries. AT&T is a global
organization that serves millions of enterprise and multinational business corporations on six
continents. AT&T made a reported revenue of $128 billion in 2013 and is one of the 30 stocks
that make up the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
The origin of this successful company can be traced all the way back to 1876, when
Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. The telephone would become the foundation of
AT&T. The American Telephone and Telegraph Company, or AT&T, was formed in 1885 as a
subsidiary to the American Bell Telephone Company. AT&T established Bell Telephone
Laboratories Inc. as its research and development subsidiary in 1925, this would become the site
of much of the innovation within the company. At the AT&T Bell Telephone Laboratories, John
Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockly invented the transistor in 1947. This device
would become the foundation for modern electronics. All three shared the Nobel Prize in Physics
in 1956 for the achievement. AT&T has produced up to seven winners of the Nobel Prize.
In 1982, AT&T and the U.S. Department of Justice agreed on terms for settlement of an
anti-trust suit filed against AT&T. In it, AT&T agreed to remove itself of its local telephone
operations. Consequently, a new AT&T emerged in 1984 with solely long distance telephone,
manufacturing, and research and development operations. In 1993, AT&T announced a merger
agreement with McCaw Cellular Communications Inc., one of the largest providers of cellular
service in the United States. The resulting acquisition was renamed AT&T Wireless. In the year
1999, AT&T acquired TCI turning into AT&T Broadband. AT&T Broadband acquired the cable
company MediaOne, becoming the largest cable company in the United States, in 2000. With the
new acquisition, AT&T announced the same year that it will reorganize into a family of

companies: AT&T, AT&T Wireless, and AT&T Broadband. In 2005, SBC Communications Inc.
acquired AT&T, this is the company seen today. Since then, AT&T has become the leader in the
communications industry.
As seen in the history of AT&T, one of the big values by the corporation is innovation.
Deliver the future first. To accomplish this, AT&T encourages taking intelligent risks to learn
from what works, pursue what hasnt been done, and enabling others to innovate continuously.
Being a service company, customer satisfaction is another thing AT&T strives for. Build strong
customer relationship. AT&T instructs employees to understand what their customers want and
deliver it, to make good decisions for customers, and to empower consumers to use technology
safely and securely. Lastly, AT&T understands that customer experience and employee growth
alone wont maintain loyalty in both parties, AT&T has to earn their trust. Operate with integrity
and trust. To build and maintain that trust, AT&T strongly believes in doing the right thing,
talking straight and following through, safeguarding customer and company information, and
honoring decisions and keeping commitments.
As stated earlier, AT&T is a diverse communications company with many characteristics.
The focus of the report is primarily on the sales aspect of the company, specifically the retail
stores. An AT&T retail store found on 810 N Central Expressway Plano, TX was selected for
observation. To better understand the operations of the store, analysis begins with organizational
structure.
Organizational Structure
When it comes to the organizational structure of AT&T, there seem to be a lot of concepts
already in place. Each employee had a certain area of expertise but work specialization was
somewhat weak. In other words, the employees were expected to know and perform a vast

spectrum of tasks which each customer. All the employees know a bare minimum which is a
standard set by the company itself. This is so that they have a certain amount of knowledge about
any problem a customer may come in with but AT&T does make sure that people who know their
phones better will specialize in selling those compared to those who know their cable
connections and home internet better. For span of control, there was one store manager, five
assistant managers who reported to the store manager, and about fifteen employees working on
the floor when the observation was conducted (but a total of thirty work there). All the sales
associates report to the assistant managers and all the assistant managers report to the Store
Manager. So there are approximately six employees to each assistant manager but this number
may vary depending on the department. Centralization is maintained in this environment as the
assistant managers and the store managers are the ones in charge of all the decision making.
Whether it be about employees or situations with the customers, the managers are the ones who
decide what should be done, although the employees are given the freedom to deal with the
customers problems in whatever way they see fit. Formalization also exists in the environment
in the sense that the managers make sure to keep a professional setting at the workplace and
outside the workplace to ensure that interactions between the workers and the managers doesn't
get skewed by becoming too informal.
From all this, it was concluded that the organizational structure overall for AT&T is very
organic, since a lot of things depend on what the customer wants and needs fixed. There is a
wide span of control, multiple chains of command that all the employees must acknowledge, and
making some decisions independently all point to how versatile all the employees need to be and
how well they much be equipped with all the information and details about the companys
services. Within the structure of the AT&T store, teams exists as well.

Teams: Characteristics & Diversity

As previously mentioned, the chain of command goes from the store manager at the top, the
assistant managers below the store manager, and the sales associates at the lower end. These
assistant managers, hereafter referred to as managers, and sales associates work together to make
up a work team. Teams tend to display a distinct level of task interdependence, goal
interdependence, and outcome interdependence. There is a moderate amount of task
interdependence at AT&T between the sales associates.
Task interdependence is when team members rely on other team members for
information, materials, or resources that are needed to accomplish a task. Because of the nature
of a sales job, each associate is looking out for their best interest since giving a sale away to
another co-worker means a possible sale for them is gone. But even though this has the potential
to create a competition between employees, it is not present. The associates sometimes rely on
each other for help. One of the associates said that if he doesnt understand how a device or
promotion works, hell ask a fellow co-worker to clarify and sometimes even help with the sale,
like a tag-team environment. This resembles comprehensive interdependence, the highest level
of interaction and coordination between team members.
There is also goal interdependence at this AT&T store. Goal interdependence is when
team members have a shared vision of the teams goal. There are store goals that the managers
need to meet, such as a certain amount in sales that need to be reached. Although there are store
goals, the managers know that they cant be met all the time. As such, the store goals are not
enforced too much, making the store have weak goal interdependence. Instead, the managers try
to incentivize the associates to help meet those goals. One of the associates said that although the
store has its sales goals, he also has his own personal goals that he needs to meet. He said that his

sales job allows him to pay for school to finish his degree at University of Texas at Dallas. He
also relies on his job to pay for rent and other bills so meeting his personal goals is very
important to him.
There is also very little outcome interdependence between the sales associates. Outcome
interdependence is when team members share the rewards that a team earns. Each salesman is
responsible solely for themselves. There are also incentives that each individual can receive that
are based off of their own performance, such as bonuses and compensation. This relates back to
the what a sales intensive job it is. A sales associate generally shouldnt be affected by another
associates inability to make sales.
There was a high degree of diversity at the AT&T store. You could see all kinds of people
working there at all levels of the hierarchical ladder. There were people of all different cultures,
age groups, and races and it all contributes to a large pool of viewpoints and opinions, a
perspective in diversity known as the value in diversity problem-solving approach . There were
also different personalities working at AT&T, some more extroverted and others more
introverted. Most of the people observed tended to be extroverted. This personality type is
beneficial in this line of work as being open and talkative can make it easier when making the
pitch to a customer. Though introverted people were represented as well.
Diversity at AT&T is beneficial to have because, for example, if one associate was not
able to relate to one of the customer because he is from a different background, another associate
probably could relate better. If that person who couldnt relate to the customer wasnt there, then
likely the customer would have walked out the door. However, having a large pool to draw
experience and knowledge from isnt enough to succeed as an organization. AT&T needs to have

talented employees that are able to perform well in their job. A big indicator of job performance
is ability.
Ability
Typical to most organizations, ability plays a large role at AT&T. Ability refers to the capabilities
people have to perform a range of different but related activities. To illustrate how important
ability is at this AT&T store, consider the following observed scenario:
A female customer came into the store and was greeted by a male sales associate. The sales
associate asked the customer how he could help her. The customer said that her phone wasnt
letting her connect other devices to the internet. The sales associate asked for more information
and came to the conclusion that the problem had to do with the hotspot capability of her phone.
After a series of technical and time-intensive activities, the customers issue was resolved. The
sales associate asked the customer to try out the phone to make sure it was fine. She was able to
connect to her phones hotspot on her laptop. She left satisfied with a promise to return to the
store and that particular sales associate in the future.
This scenario is common occurrence at this AT&T store and displays one important
dimension of ability, cognitive ability. Cognitive ability refers to the capabilities related to the
collection and application of knowledge in problem solving. The above scenario exhibits two
forms of cognitive ability, verbal ability and reasoning ability. Verbal ability, better known as
communication, was important throughout the entirety of the scenario. When the customer is
communicating the problem to the sales associate, he needs to utilize oral comprehension in
order to understand what she was trying to express to him. When the situation was understood,
the sales associate now had to use his oral expression capability to explain to the customer what
the cause of the problem was and how he was going to resolve it. This had to be done in a way

the customer could understand so she could follow along when the sales associate was
performing the solution. Written comprehension and written expression wouldnt play too much
of a role in this scenario, though written comprehension could be necessary in navigating menus
on the phone as part of the procedures.
Reasoning ability, which is a diverse set of abilities for sensing and solving problems,
played an equally important role in the same scenario. When the customer explained the
problem, she told it in a way she could understand the problem. It was up to the sales associate to
use his knowledge to sense what the root issue was. After this, the sales associate could consult a
manual, which is distributed to all the sales associates, for identifying common problems. At this
point, he would apply the information he had collected and would select the appropriate course
of action. This particular sales associate didnt need to consult the manual as he had eight years
of experience working in the industry. From his expertise and knowledge he was able to identify
the problem, select the appropriate solution, and perform the solution while guiding the customer
through the process.
The use of cognitive ability isnt exclusive to the just helping a customer with a technical
issue. Cognitive ability is also important in making a sale to a customer. In a potential sales
scenario, the sales associate would need to understand what the needs of the customer are to be
able to match them with the correct phone or plan. Even just having a casual conversation with
customers requires high cognitive ability. As a matter of fact, the sales associate in the above
scenario discovered from casual conversation with the customer that she owned a business. From
this he was able to spot a potential sale opportunity by offering her a service that would benefit
her business. He explained it well enough that the customer agreed to return at a later date to take

him up on the offer. This all the while he was in the middle of solving the problem she originally
came in for.
Ability has a strong correlation with job performance and many of the employees at this
AT&T store seemed to perform well. Customers were attended to within satisfactory time and
many left satisfied. However, ability only has a weak correlation with organizational
commitment, so how is it that the talented sales associate in the above scenario has continued to
work at AT&T for more than eight years? The answer to that lies in job satisfaction.
Job Satisfaction
Job satisfaction is essentially how someone feels about their job. Job satisfaction is
thought to have a strong positive correlation with organizational commitment. It is no surprise
that the more someone likes their job, the more likely they are to continue working there. Not
just organizational commitment, the level of job satisfaction that an individual has for their
profession can greatly affect their own job performance as well. There are many factors to how a
person feels about their job, and their feelings consequently affect their job performance and
commitment. During the visit to the AT&T store, all the staff were questioned about their
thoughts on the job. The employees did have quite a bit to say about how they personally felt
about their job and the many different aspects that attribute to overall job satisfaction.
When talking to the individuals at the store many of them had positive comments about
their overall experience with working at the store. When analyzing what aspects really factor into
the satisfaction of a job to an individual, there are five common factors that positively correlate
with job satisfaction. The order of least to most influential being: pay, promotion, coworkers,
supervision, and the work itself. The sales associates on the floor all had very similar responses
when asked the questions, Overall, how do you feel about your job? Would you say that you

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have a high or low level of satisfaction when coming into the workplace?. They explained that
they feel like all their coworkers are their friends and that they enjoying spending time with each
other even outside the workplace voluntarily. Also the benefits and pay that AT&T offers them
individually is almost more than they could ever ask for at other companies. The opportunities
that are available to employees are another positive, students are able to work and attend school,
and current workers are able to advance up to higher positions based on their educational
background. Lastly, the relationship between the sales reps on the floor and the managers seems
to be fine. Its professional and there does not seem to be a large amount of conflict between the
two sectors, as they both seem to be working towards a similar goal for the success of the AT&T
store. Overall AT&T is able to cater to the five factors that highly influence an individual's
satisfaction quite easily without much conflict.
Another way to evaluate the satisfaction of the employees at AT&T is through the job
characteristics theory. This way deals more so with how the individuals psychological needs are
satisfied in the workplace and whether their career actually offers them. The five characteristics
include variety, identity, significance, autonomy, and feedback. The level of satisfaction will
depend on how each category is sufficed for an individual in the workplace. Sales associates
explained that every day brings forth new challenges and knowledge to be gained from working
with different types of customers. Another sales associate explained how he found a lot of
significance in ensure that customers left satisfied. Since everyone is equally qualified to perform
their tasks they can generally work alone and are responsible for their own customers. Whether a
customer decides to come back to a sales associate or not can be seen as a form of feedback to
each individual sales associate. One thing that may need some work is the identity that an
individual feels at work. If everyone is qualified to do the same job, a single person may not feel

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like their own work really matters and could cause counterproductive behavior in the job later
on. The managers are very similar when it comes to these five characteristics, however there is a
bit more sense of identity in their job as most feel that they have control and responsibility over a
wide array of things. They can really put their name on a successful day. However overall, this
AT&T store does a great job of catering to their employees psychological needs in the
workplace.
After evaluating how AT&Ts employees rate their overall job satisfaction and how that
relates to how the store itself handles its employees, a general idea of how good a relationship
the employees have with their actual work was formed. In the end, it seemed as if that AT&T
store did a great job of catering to their employees and making sure that mostly everyone is
enjoying their job. Since the satisfaction levels are relatively high, this store enjoys content and
motivated employees that are willing to work and expand their skills. If the store continues to
satisfy their workers then there should be a good level of job performance for each individual
and organizational commitment to the store as a whole. Of course, working at AT&T isnt a
perfect job. One issue that was observed at AT&T was the level of stress present among
employees.
Stress
Stress is described as the psychological response to demands that possess certain stakes
for the person and that tax or exceed that persons capacity or resources. Stress was most often
present in troubleshooting, especially when there was a time frame in which to perform. In the
case of the company AT&T, employees seemed to well manage stress. In fact, it was surprising
that the employees were not that affected by stress. After some evaluation by the members of our
team, it was observed that employees who are working as sales associates dont really face a lot

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of stress in their day-to-day activities. The ones who are affected most by stress were the
managers, who lead the teams. Managers feel they can manage stress more effectively by
overcoming the fear associated with being responsible for the actions of employees and by
having a good plan.
The AT&T store has a good amount of people that are well trained and obviously know
what they are doing. Having to face stress isnt that large of an obstacle for the sales associates.
The sales associates mentioned how they are often having fun while working so when there is a
situation they are able to handle stress better. One of the male sales associates pointed out that
the only time he or one of his team members might actually be facing a stressful situation, it will
be whenever a new phone is making its debut at the store. Phones such as the iPhone, Samsung
and iPad to note a few. When those phones come out, the needs of the customers increase as
many of them have more questions about the latest phone. In these moments, sales associates
face a lot of stress because the needs of the customers become priority number one. At the same
time, sales associates have to be mindful of the amount of time they are spending with each
customer as, typically, the volume of customers increases at this time. To accommodate for the
increase in turnout, sales associates dont have a break, which would usually be used to eat or do
whatever other preoccupations they had to accomplish. Essentially, they are working a double
shift until the customers line is depleted on those days.
Another stressful situation sometimes encountered by the sales associates has to do with
the fact that they are expected to keep pushing sales and reach company goals. This mean that
each and every employee must make an effort to satisfy a sales quota for their store. Company
quotas arent the only thing demanding higher sales, competition from other communication
companies such as T-Mobile also have an effect. In addition, the position of sales associate is

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heavily reliant on commission. This translates to if the sales associate doesnt sell anything, their
pay at the end of the month will reflect that.
As mentioned earlier, stress is definitely experienced by the managers of the store. In this
particular AT&T store, there are three managers, one male and two females. Each of them has to
satisfy not only the customers but also their employees. Whenever something goes wrong
between the customer and an employee, they are the first to be reached out to. They are the ones
that fix the mistakes of the sales associates and answer questions associates may have difficulty
answering. The managers carry a lot responsibilities at the store such as: keeping all the
employees schedules on track, keeping track of who comes into the store and who goes out,
planning the day while keeping in mind the schedules of each employee, maintaining the store in
a way that provides a welcoming atmosphere, and providing a pleasant experience for everyone.
Despite all these responsibilities, one of the managers mentioned that the responsibilities are
shared between the three of them. This makes it so that one individual manager isnt overloaded
with tasks.
Being an employee at the AT&T store can be a challenge for everyone, it just depends on
how well the individual is able to manage time. Having this capability tends to reduce the effect
of stress according to some of the employees. Another thing that helps would be the pay. One of
the sales associates mentioned that the pay from his position at AT&T helps for tuition. A sales
associate also mentioned that they are lucky because they are working in a good environment
where they have the support of coworkers in case they need it.
All in all, AT&T seems to be a great place to work at from the perspective of the
employees. The store is managed very well and employees are generally satisfied, which made
finding areas for improvement difficult. After careful thought, three recommendations related to

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reduction in counterproductive behaviors, store goal accomplishment, and motivating employees

were settled on.

Recommendations
Something observed at the store was the high level of cohesion between the sales
members at the AT&T store. Sales associates are friendly with each as well as the managers and
get along with each other very well. A manager commented that this sometimes causes a
problem. That manager believes that the sales associates sometimes lose track of the
professionalism of the business. This may be due in part to the fact that the sales members are
too comfortable working with their coworkers. This causes them to forget their business
etiquette. An example that manager cited was that sales associates at times have their shirt not
tucked in. They go throughout the day this way until a manager has to tell them to tuck it in. This
may not seem to be much of a problem, but consider that this employee is a representative of one
of the largest communications company. It is only natural that the managers would want sales
team members to represent the organization in the best way possible.
A potential solution to this would be to make use of reinforcement techniques to shape
the behaviors of employees. Reinforcement is when a behavior is followed by either a
consequence or the removal of the consequence for the purpose of either increasing or decreasing
a behavior. In this case, the behaviors would have to do with business etiquette. There are four
types of reinforcement techniques, three of which are: positive reinforcement, punishment, and
negative consequences. Positive reinforcement is when performance of a wanted behavior is
followed by a reward for the purpose of increasing the frequency of that behavior. A way that
positive reinforcement would be applied in this example would be for management to recognize
employees that are compliant with the dress expectations management has. It could be as simple

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as saying, I like the way you are dressed today. Keep it up! Punishment is when performance
of an undesired behavior is followed by a negative outcome for the purpose of decreasing the
frequency of that unwanted behavior. In this example, punishment would work by pulling an
employee who wasnt compliant with the dress code to the side for a chat. The chat could be just
telling the employee to clean up his image while at work. Negative reinforcement is when an
unwanted outcome is removed following a desired behavior. Going back to the punishment
example, the employee would not want to be singled out in this manner. To prevent it from
happening, he/she would avoid having their shirt tucked out.
The next area that could use improvement would be goal interdependence. As noted
earlier, goal interdependence seems to be weak at the AT&T store. The store may have sales
quotas set, but for the most part employees arent really affected by them since enforcement isnt
high. Instead, some employees may have their own personal goal of selling more to make more
money off commissions. As such, there exist employees that put in a lot of effort to make sales.
This doesnt seem to be much of a problem as the store runs well enough, however; sales quotas
could be used in a way to drive sales associates to sell more.
Currently, associates set their own goals in terms of sales. The problem with this is that a
sales associates wont put in more effort if they are satisfied with their current situation. Dividing
sales quotas between sales associates could become a strong motivator for increasing sales. The
goal-setting theory states that employees will put in more effort in their tasks if they have a
specific and difficult goal to meet. The idea is that when an individual has a challenging goal that
can also be measured in terms of progress, they will become more motivated to work towards
their goal. For example, giving one associate the task to sell five phones in a week can be seen as
setting a goal for them. To meet that goal, he/she will have to come up with a strategy. Through

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the use of intensity of effort and persistence of effort, the goal either will be met or will not be
met.
The goal setting theory is said to be a stronger motivator for individuals who value
feedback, task complexity, and goal commitment. Another thing to note when setting a goal
would be that the goal has to be difficult enough to challenge individuals while not being
impossible. Repeated failure to meet a goal can decrease the confidence level of individuals,
which may lower performance in the future. Still, this potential use of sales quotas could result in
achieved quotas with most of the enforcement done by the sales associates themselves.
Lastly, another issue that AT&T is facing is trying to motivate individuals who feel
content at where they stand in their job, rather than trying to reach their full potential. Although
job satisfaction is important to an individual and an organization as a whole, an individual being
too comfortable with where they stand can be a problem. If an employee stays at the same level
for a long period of time, when they are perfectly capable of moving up in their job, it definitely
hinders their individual job performance potential. This could possibly hinder the overall
performance of the organization as a whole. Therefore, it would be in the best interest of AT&T
to try to get all of their employees to reach their full potential for the benefit of the individual and
the organization as a whole.
In order to properly motivate an individual, many different aspects of what really
motivates a person need to be attended to. An acceptable theory to analyze with an individual is
the expectancy theory. Under this theory, what motivates a person is basically whether or not
they believe that they will achieve their expected outcome. If they feel that the effort is worth it,
and they can perform well and achieving their goals, then they will be motivated to attain those
said goals. However if they feel that the effort is not worth their time, and they wont even

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perform well anyway, then they will more likely than not be more unmotivated than before. In
order for managers at AT&T to properly motivate their employees, they should satisfy these
needs for the individuals who could possibly perform at a higher level than what they currently
are.
Essentially, if the managers want to motivate lower sales representatives to aim towards
higher goals, they should be coaching the individuals rather than an entire group. If the managers
were to just broadly explain the benefits of what could entail from moving up from beginning
sales reps to more advanced, it may only motivate a few people. However people who are happy
with what they are doing currently wont be affected, which is exactly what some managers at
AT&T want to change. Instead of broadly addressing the sales reps as a group, the managers
should try one on one coaching with individuals and be trying to satisfy the characteristics that
affect motivation in the expectancy theory. This will include figuring not only figuring out what
they want out of their job, but also guiding them to try and get them to a higher place.
When managers approach the individual sales reps that they want to motivate, they
should try and guide them to want to achieve higher goals, rather than tell them the benefits of
achieving higher goals directly. The manager should ask them directly what it is that they want
and what can they do together to get what the individual wants. Then the effort that is required
from both parties can be analyzed to see if the goal is within reach. Once an attainable goal is set
into place, the two parties should analyze if the effort put into the plan of action will lead to a
good or bad performance, and what possible outcomes could come from it. After the outcomes
have passed, it would still be good for the manager and employee to meet up and discuss what
each person thought about the whole process. That way both people can see if this process was
worth it, and what were some positives and negatives of this, to get a learning experience for

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both people. After this is done, managers can see what works and what doesnt and can help the
other employees that they want to motivate to get to higher positions.
By motivating employees this way, it should benefit the employees, managers, and the
organization as a whole. Employees will be working at or striving to work at their full potential.
Managers will be getting the best qualities out of their employees. With everyone in the store
working better, the store as a whole will be achieving more than it would have been if those who
were content at lower positions decided to stay at those levels. If those at AT&T decide to follow
through with this recommendation, the levels of motivation should rise and the stores potential
will rise as well.