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T-Mobile has more bad news for employees. After eliminating more than 1,900 positions in March to consolidate its call centers, CEO Philipp Humm has told employees that more cuts are imminent, as the carrier works to further align its costs with its revenue realities.
According to reports, 900 jobs will be cut.
Humm, in a memo to employees posted by The Verge May 15, offered a vague explanation of the second essential step in T-Mobiles rebuilding effort and tried for a sympathetic tone in explaining that T-Mobile will this weeknicely, but as quickly as possiblereveal which remaining employees will be getting the ax.
I want to assure you we will move through the communications this week very thoughtfully, but also as quickly as we can while preserving the quality of the conversations that need to happen, wrote Humm. Irritatingly (surely not just to me) he added, As always, our T-Mobile Values will guide our actions.
Customer service representatives still remaining in T-Mobiles 17 call centers, technicians in engineering and frontline employees in corporate-owned T-Mobile stores, he added, neednt worry.
The rebuilt structure will provide T-Mobile with needed cost savings to build out its Long-Term Evolution (LTE) networkon May 8 it announced it had signed agreements with Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Networks, to get the project under wayand pursue the B2B (business-to-business) segment, where T-Mobile plans to add 1,000 new positions in the next few years.
The restructuring will also make the company more agile, wrote Humm, better able to put resources where the current opportunities are, grow in areas where potential is greatest, and act on emerging opportunities quickly and rationally.
It will also enable T-Mobile to pursue a more sustainable organization model, thanks to two particular areas of change that Humm touched on. The first is a greater focus on driving Customer Delightwhich, while sounding like something from a Friendlys menu, is more likely a company tenet. Or, at least, some frequently used, internal marketing speak. Regardless, it plans to accomplish the latter by shifting and consolidating groups in the field sales regions and the FSC to minimize redundant workresulting in more effective coordination and communication.
The second changeresonating with a blog post that recently circled the Internet about a disillusioned and disgruntled former Microsoft employee who was critical of all the meetings and reports that Microsoft employees busy themselves with instead of difference-making workis a reduction in the number of direct reports that will be written, enabling faster decision making and the empowerment of more of more employees to take charge.
There will be, wrote Humm, an evolution of our leadership model from player-coach, where more time is spent on daily tasks than on planning and guiding, to leader-coach, where time is focused more strategically on coaching, developing, delegating and motivating.
He added:
“We approached the restructuring process and decisions with care, rigor and cross-functional alignment. A team comprised of top leaders, with support from industry-leading subject matter experts, worked closely together over the past few months to develop an effective and sustainable structure. We strongly believe the organizational principles we applied are lasting ones. More details on the new organizational structure will be shared in department and team communications this week and more broadly after that.“