Telstra's Global Service Model: more redundancies, more offshoring
Yet more Telstra jobs are headed overseas as the company presses on with implementation of its Global Service Model.
On 19 November, Telstra notified the CWU that it had made an initial decision to make 49 roles redundant in its Reporting Centre of Excellence (RCOE) in Finance and Strategy. 19 new roles will be created for which employees affected by the decision will be able to apply.
The RCOE is responsible for management and production of business performance reporting and analysis. It is the reporting function that will be transferred to IBM and performed in India.
Further proposed redundancies, this time in the Customer Assurance team in Telstra Service Operations were notified on 23 November.
In a move consistent with other decisions in this current wave of redundancies, Telstra says it intends to offshore a range of what it regards as “repeatable” Customer Assurance tasks to an “industry partner” Infosys.
The reorganisation will result in the loss of 9 Telstra jobs.
Telstra’s Global Services Model is designed to position the company as a multi-services operator targeting high end customers in the Asia Pacific region. As is increasingly evident, it involves a comprehensive and systematic reshaping of the Telstra workforce on a regional basis to meet “dynamic operating demands” .. and, of course, to source cheap labour.
Under the model, work classed as routine, or “simplex” is typically sent offshore, while more complex technical, analytic and managerial functions are retained in Australia.
Over and above the impact it has on local jobs, the CWU’s objection to this model is its impact on both local employees and on service quality. The union’s members, whether performing field workforce or remote diagnostic tasks, consistently report that the offshoring of functions is constantly giving rise to misunderstandings, delays and reworks.
The CWU will be making this point – once again – when it consults with Telstra over these proposals over the next week. Meanwhile, affected members should contact their state branch.
