Thread regarding American Electric Power Co. Inc. layoffs

Mandatory meeting with Bill at 3:30 today for all Energy Delivery

What changed in less than 2 months from the original RTO announcement stating IT was exempt to now they have to come back?

AEP is far from a stable company.

There was so much more Bill could have done to get the “collaboration” and “togetherness” he was allegedly looking for in an innovative way, that would have kept engineers, IT and other talented people from running towards the exits. AEP could have implemented dedicated in-person hours from say 10-3, 4 days a week. That is more than enough time for the fake in-person magic leaders claim to be looking for, while allowing for people to have flexibility to independently do important work without disruption, while still having time for personal and family duties. He could have implemented a seniority based system allowing individual contributors with 5 or more years in the company to work with their manager to determine their true in-office needs, after hitting that tenure mark. There’s so much they could have done, and he’d have been viewed as an innovative leader. Now, AEP is just a stodgy old utility that pays less than the market rate in a number of key roles across the company.

I just think Bill is stuck in the 80s, and other leaders at the top who are supportive of these moves don’t know how to manage employees they can’t see, or see the office as a place for social interaction. An adult childcare center.

The company-wide RTO itself is arbitrary. Many senior level employees already secured remote designations and are exempt from RTO according to Bill's order, which defeats the entire purpose of RTO, since the point was "collaboration" and the senior level employees are the ones who's presence would be most critical for collaboration.
I don't begrudge them for finding out a way to stay remote, I would too if I could, I only point it out to demonstrate how d-mb Bill is and how his messaging doesn't even make sense.

I don't think the Energy Delivery engineering management has a clue what to do. The top leadership doesn't care and gone are the day when good engineers never left AEP jobs due to so called stability of working in a utility. These mid level managers/directors don't say no to the top but don't know how to keep a team together with all these resignations. I think engineering will have to outsource more than in source.

The IT RTO will most certainly provide a convenient arbitrary exemption for the CIO and her direct reports. If it is arbitrary, it’s meaningless. It should be all or nothing.

This discussion was started with IT as the main focus. It’s hard for me to understand why IT people are still working for AEP. It’s all off shore now. This isn’t anything new. It’s the way of the world. The bigger issue is the massive lack of knowledge, talent, and most importantly the compartmentalization on the capital projects. We are a joke when it comes to executing projects. No other industry would tolerate the inefficiency. And that’s where AEP makes the money. Embarrassing to say the least.

Hey maybe that is the plan. Replace us all with Indian outsource people. They can then say their trademark only answer for every IT problem, "I will elevate this trouble ticket" in broken English.

"Get back in the office and stop complaining!!! Be grateful you have this job and that it is stable and provides a means to feed your family."
George Warleggan could not have said it any better, of Poldark infamy. George Warleggan is a vile and wretched creature masquerading as a gentleman.

The thing I don’t understand about the “new” RTO policy is that prior to COVID, AEP had a lot of staff already on work from home status. During COVID a lot of people were hired out of state or definitely not local, what is now going to happen with them.

The bigger question for IT then becomes, if employees have to RTO, how are they going to justify all the cr-ppy contractors in India?

Heard about the RTO, seems the rumors were true. Sept/Oct. There may be a carve out for some but haven't gotten the details yet. Guess will wait for the call tomorrow, I'll bet Therace will be exempt.

There will be an automatic 30 day hold on rolling over your cash balance pension fund to a traditional IRA. As the other person stated, DO NOT take it as a lump sum cash pay out, you'll be in the 37.5% Federal tax bracket. You have to roll it over, after that, you can move part of it to a Roth or just invest it as recommended earlier. There is no hold on the AEP401K, you can do that at anytime.

I don’t believe there is a pension penalty. There is a 401K penalty. Two separate accounts.

IT RTO to be announced tomorrow. This fall.

AEP employees have made shareholders millionaires many times over and yet they insist on stealing our wages, bonuses and benefits we earned. Common thieves, who deserve the same punishment they impose upon criminals, who steal their ill gotten gains from them.

Don't cash out your pension as you will pay penalties unless you are old enough. Just do the paperwork to have that pension money rolled over to your personal IRA. Then you can invest it as you see fit. Get yourself a nice broad market index fund. Then earn your market average up till retirement vs the 4% AEP was giving you to hold your $.

Make sure to cash out your pension to when you leave. That thing is going to get raided, and you’ll make more back investing it yourself.

I already landed a new remote job and put in my notice. The pay is about the same, but it’s a no brainer since I’ll be saving tons on commuting costs and all those extras like lunches at the cafeteria with coworkers. I was lucky to time it perfectly and keep the ICP. Looks like they have to pay out unused vacation to per aepnow. It’ll be nice to get two “bonuses” on my way out. GLTA looking for new jobs. The market is not as bad as they say. There are still plenty of hybrid and remote opportunities.

I wonder what our investors, customers and utility regulators would think if they knew that AEP outsources 80% percent of the workload and pays those outsource company Sr. engineers a rate of $200/hour and Project Managers even more! That's over $400k/year for a Sr. engineer verses $100k/year for an employee. And no competitive bidding! No controls in place to ensure they are getting the best price for their customers. No one or even a process to question the invoices submitted by the OECs. Customers, want to know why your rates have increased by 50% over the last 5 years? There you go! AEP doesn't care, as the more money a project costs the more money AEP makes because you, the customer, pays for all that cost plus 10%’ish in the rate case increases they present. At the same time they rob their employees of compensation and have created a revolving door for employees and scraping the bottom of the talent barrel on incoming candidates. We’re gonna run this company with fresh college grads!!! Go Bill!

Don't forget to donate the required NCOE hours each week when you work that OT! You are paid so well that management expects you should do some extra work for free. He-l, if you are a principal or staff engineer you should just do all the OT for free.
Nevermind it is their fault we are short staffed because of their d-mb RTO policies and compensation. They can't compete in the marketplace for employees but that is the employees fault.

If another 10% leave this year, that would push AEP down to about 15,000 employees. When I started, there were 21,000. AEP really has not gotten that much smaller, maybe in terms of operating plants but the work load hasn't been reduced at all, if anything with the lost of people it's gotten worse for sure. Boss says to work on the higher priorities projects but if the smaller ones are not touched, they get moved to the front. So the solution, they're all high priority and you'll just have to work overtime but I'm salary. I know, you'll get comp time but I carried over a 100 hours last year and I lost 10 hours because I didn't have time to take them. I can give you comp time. So what do I do, I work but code it as comp time and the projects don't take the hit by going over budget. I really hate my job.

You know what was really a slap in the face giving us less than half a year to prep and move back!! Not all of us can just afford a down-payment on a house or all those apartment fees!! I live with family but damn the commute is going to ki-l me again. Already looking online for better opportunities since AEP wants to bend us over on all these "Changes for the future" . Bill and Executives thank you...

Get back in the office and stop complaining!!! Be grateful you have this job and that it is stable and provides a means to feed your family.

• AEP Shareholder

Energy Delivery is in for some rough waters. The turnover seen in the engineers with 2-5 years of experience has crept up the senior+ level and now the managers. Last Friday’s wave of resignations won’t be the last. I guess this is what happens when you do not pay competitively and keep adding to the job descriptions.

Even with reducing management layers and flattening there are still a lot of passing along e-mails, shirking responsibility and forcing the lowest paid employees to make decisions that are not commensurate with their pay grade. I am questioning, if the wrong people were forced to leave to make room for lickspittle.

One could say it but that does not make it true. Just as ranking people by the quantity of coin they amass has little to do with the quality of their character.

Interesting. One could say the very same about Harvard.

Harvard University's Nieman Lab deemed Forbes "a platform for scams, grift, and bad journalism" as of 2022.

Glassdoor. I’m looking at this site and it gives you these star ratings. So when you go to rate a company, like AEP, it requires a minimum of 1 star. That’s really not fair right? You should be allowed to rate zero stars. Anyone else notice this?

Exciting news, everyone!

AEP has been named one of America's Best Large Employers by Forbes! This recognition reflects AEP's commitment to fostering a supportive workplace where employees can thrive and grow!
A HUGE thank you to Bill and the executive leadership team for making AEP a great place to work every day!

Want to see what sleezy looks like. Look at AEP leaders biogs. Those are sleezy humans. Destroying people is not a game its a hobby. Some I am sure of it, get pleasure hurting others.

What have we been forced to sacrifice to remain employees of AEP?

Former AEP employee has a nice ring to it, more should try it on. You'll be surprised how well it fits.

Stakeholders are going to take back their dignity and shareholders shall have none.

Former 8 year AEP employee here. Left 2 years ago and it was the best thing I have done for my career. Even so, it hurts to see the company in shambles like this and I wish everyone here the best luck in finding a new position or adapting to the "changes" at AEP. Please, don't stay out of some sense of loyalty to the company; I almost did and looking back it would have been a huge mistake. Side note, is anyone willing to post a copy of the current SP20 salary chart on imgur or somewhere? Really just curious how much (or little) it has changed since I left.

"They take 3+ years to train on extremely niche subjects that no one else knows about and are imperative to our grid functioning"

Good luck finding someone from who is left to train new people

I accepted an offer at another company and put in my notice at AEP. I just couldn't justify staying with this company any longer. AEP today is not the AEP I signed on with 10 years ago.

My new position is a 30% pay bump over AEP's salary. To those who are stuck because of this brutal job market, my thoughts are with you. To those who are able to find new positions, get out while you can, and best of luck!

It is not just RTO. Let's make a list.

1. AEP pay is below standard. Say it is comparable all you want pointy headed bosses but it is not. People are making large gains in compensation when they leave AEP.

2. Management is too slow to increase pay as engineers progress. Always a tight pool for raises and they leave new engineers at lower grades too long. This in turn means that once they are getting more self sufficient/trained they can leave for better pay at any one of the OECs.

3. Pay banding means that anyone with experience/time in band is getting less % of money every year. Less experienced employees get a larger share as they are lower in the pay band. While it is not a huge difference, it is a percent every year that you losing and it compounds over the years of service.

4. ICP. One of the things that AEP has had right in the past. It helped with the lower average pay getting that money in March.

Well that $ won't be there in March of 2026. Bill is giving that money back to investors as returns as Bill thinks you are all overpaid! And I mean look at the evidence. That overpayment is why it is so easy to hire replacement engineers. That is why there is always 30 applicants with every P&C job posted and supervisors can just pick the cream of the crop. Management can replace any Principal or Staff engineer in what maybe a week?

Feel free to add other things to the list. Maybe Bill will read it at lunch.

Transmission P&C is absolutely wrecked now and this is all RTO’s fault. Really not sure how AEP can handle the footprint without enough in house P&C engineers. They take 3+ years to train on extremely niche subjects that no one else knows about and are imperative to our grid functioning