New round of redundancies as boss says workplace will ‘never return to normal’
Telstra has resumed global employee layoffs after almost a year-long pause amidst the pandemic, according to the Australian Financial Review. The entire exercise will affect over 25% of their workforce after the final round of cuts take effect by June 30, 2021. This means a total of 8,000 employees would have lost their jobs due to a company overhaul.
CEO Andy Penn reportedly announced the latest round of cuts on Wednesday (Feb 3) morning, with management contacting affected employees within the same day. The layoffs are part of Telstra's T22 restructure plan, which was first launched in mid-2018. By the end of the initiative, about 24,000 staffers will be left at the global telecommunications firm.
Read more: Telstra to expedite restructuring efforts
“We’ve briefed some of our teams on proposed changes that would see a reduction in roles across Australia and our international locations as we continue to transform Telstra,” a company spokesman told the AFR.
“Decisions like this are always difficult and we understand the impacts on those involved. We’ll be supporting our people and their families with free 24/7 access to our employee assistance program.”
Management has offered to help affected workers secure another role at Telstra ‘if possible’ or be supported by their career transition program and retrenchment benefits, reported the Australian Financial Review.
The T22 initiative aims to transform the business and save over $1billion in costs, mostly through job cuts and rethinking old infrastructure assets. Penn believes the “investments” will completely restructure the business and “continue to fundamentally change how we operate”.
Read more: Telstra to move jobs offshore amid IT skills shortage
‘Never return to normal’
The CEO has called 2021 an “inflection point” for Telstra as it marked the end of the four-year restructuring. He also said how the workplace will “never return to normal” due to the pandemic.
“How we work, how we travel and how we live generally will not look and feel the same as it did 12 months ago,” he said at a Committee for the Economic Development of Australia event. “It is, therefore, better to spend our energy in accepting the changes that need to come.”
He added that the company will likely adopt a hybrid working strategy, though there’s still much to find out to understand the full impact and challenges of working from home. For one, he thinks there is a need to assess how remote working arrangements affect caregivers, especially women since society still places most of the “parenting and educating burden” on them.
“There is a profound shift underway as people have come to understand they can work from anywhere,” he said. “That raises a whole raft of questions about infrastructure and important policy decisions for government.
“Questions about our CBDs, and whether they will now become more about where people come to be entertained, watch sport, eat, drink and socialise, where organisations convene their people to collaborate.”
