Jim Meadows credited Resource Link with helping the company avoid millions of dollars in severance payments and also fees paid to employment agencies. According to internal surveys, the satisfaction of both Resource Link's customers and associates was quite high. Many within AT&T pointed to RL as evidence that the company still cared about its employees, in spite of its wholesale staff reductions.
Despite these indicators of success, the unit's management was concerned. RL had
registered increasingly large financial losses over the first three years of its operation;
fiscal 1993 would end with a deficit of over $3 million. The business plan sold to
AT&T executives had projected operating in the black by 1995. Continued losses could jeopardize
RL’s survival. Yet the path to profitability was neither clear nor easy. Associate training and development demanded ever greater investment. Pricing constraints limited revenues. Compensation expenses much higher than anticipated and system inefficiencies exacerbated by rapid growth shrank net income. RL was entering a critical period requiring decisive action.