More than 200 call centre jobs going at Vodafone, says former staffer

Monday, 29 April 2019

Stephen Lee worked for Vodafone and its predecessor companies for 22 years but didn't want to watch the latest changes.

Vodafone will make more than 200 call centre staff redundant in Auckland and Christchurch this year, says a former team leader at its Christchurch call centre who decided to quit voluntarily rather than go through the changes.

Stephen Lee – who worked for Vodafone and its predecessor companies for 22 years before taking voluntary redundancy on April 3 – said call centre work previously carried out by Vodafone in New Zealand and outsourced to the Philippines would both be transferred to Indian firm Tech Mahindra.

Vodafone has kept a tight lid on the details of its restructuring plans since speculation first emerged in December that it would cut its total workforce of about 2800 by at least roles 400, ahead a planned partial float on the NZX next year.

But Lee believed the total job losses would be higher and said the changes would see more than 100 frontline call centre jobs in Christchurch – including half of the 66 staff there who provided technical support to customers – made redundant.

Vodafone NZ chief executive Jason Paris is restructuring the business to make it more appealing to investors ahead of sharemarket float.

* Union estimates big numbers of job losses at Vodafone

* Vodafone NZ asks more than 2000 staff if they want to take** redundancy

Ten other teams dealing with sales, retention and business customers would be reduced in number to three, he said.

The Vodafone building in Christchurch occupied three floors but the remaining workforce of about 80 who would be outsourced to Tech Mahindra could fit on one floor, he said.

In Auckland, eight call centre teams, each comprising 12 to 14 staff, who provided technical support to customers and helped them with relocations would be made redundant, along with support staff, he said.

Lee said he decided to leave and retire because he didn't like what was happening.

'I just couldn't bear to see it.'

Vodafone's current approach was to handle routine calls from the Philippines and to manage the 'hard stuff' such as technical support in New Zealand, he said.

But its Philippines operation had been regarded internally as a bit of a 'soft touch', he said.

'I came across one customer in Wellington who hadn't paid bills since 2015, because he just rang up and complained.'

Stephen Lee says Vodafone TV has proved a headache for Vodafone from a support perspective.

Lee said he put a stop to that after one of the customer's complaints was escalated to him in Christchurch. 'I said dream on mate.'

But he said it was challenges delivering Vodafone TV that had put the most pressure on its call centres in the past.

'What has really hurt Vodafone is Vodafone TV. It wasn't right when it launched, and people were taking three or four weeks to get installed.'

One woman had 38 television decoders delivered to her home because of a 'muck up', he said.

Vodafone asked if she could to drop them back into the store but she said, 'I have only got a small car', he said.

Lee said the contracts offered to workers who did want to work for Tech Mahindra offered 10-minute tea breaks, rather than the 15 minutes currently provided to employees.

Those staff who 'opted-in' to Tech Mahindra had been told they would not be entitled to redundancy even though they had not had the opportunity to first see their contracts, which were one-year contracts with no carry-over of redundancy entitlements, he said.

Vodafone spokesman Rich Llewellyn said it did not intend to comment 'other than to reiterate we have been focused on a fair consultation process with all our people'.

'We have been providing support to anyone whose roles have been impacted via a 'future ready' support programme, and we still have a lot of new roles yet to be filled,' he said.

Some customer operations roles were moving from an outsourced provider in the Philippines to Vodafone in India, he said.

'We have also extended our existing partnership with Tech Mahindra, who provide outstanding digital customer experiences to some of the best known digital companies in the world.

'Tech Mahindra will be investing in a centre of excellence in Christchurch and will take on some of our New Zealand team members on the same pay and comparable benefits as Vodafone, initially in the same building, to form the foundation of their business,' he said.

Llewellyn said Vodafone understood Tech Mahindra would also be looking to grow its New Zealand operation, to provide customer services to other New Zealand businesses.

'We have worked hard to retain and redeploy jobs in New Zealand and will continue to have a strong customer service presence in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch and continue to have one of the biggest telecommunications customer care operation footprints in New Zealand,' he said.

'That said, some roles will relocate to partners – Vodafone Shared Services and Tech Mahindra – based either in Christchurch or India over the next few months.'

There had been opportunities for staff to apply for new roles that were being created, he said.

Llewellyn said Vodafone was investing $20m in digital tools to serve customers better.

'We have also invested over $100m on consolidating our back-end systems, simplifying our products and services, and our network, all changes that will over time reduce the need for customers to contact us.'

Vodafone NZ chief executive Jason Paris foreshadowed a shake up of its contact centres in a reader comment on a Stuff story in January, when he noted Vodafone used call centres based overseas in many markets to lower costs and access specialist expertise.

'As a proud and passionate New Zealander my preference is to keep roles in NZ, but when the customer service is the same or better and at much lower cost then it is tough to ignore this option,' he said then.

Cuts are expected to other parts of the New Zealand business as Vodafone seeks to make use of 'centres of excellence' it has established around the world to provide services to the subsidiary.

WHO IS TECH MAHINDRA?

Tech Mahindra is part of Mahindra Group, which was founded in 1945 as a steel company and which now has more than 240,000 employees and annual revenues of more than US$20 billion (NZ$30b).

Mahindra's interests now span everything from software and steel, to cars sales and financial services. Several years ago it overtook United States company John Deere to become the world's largest manufacturer of tractors.

Tech Mahindra, its IT services arm, has been operating in New Zealand since 2005 and its New Zealand subsidiary posted revenues of just under $23m in the year to March 2018.