Vodafone is set to cut about 200 jobs from its staff of 2000 in New Zealand.
Head of External Affairs, Rich Llewellyn told 1 NEWS that while 200 existing roles will “no longer be required,” the company expects to create about 150 new roles to support “key priorities”.
The current executive team of 12 will also reduce to 10 after the resignation of Consumer Director, Carolyn Luey and Customer Operations Director, Antony Weldon.
Llewellyn said the decision to resign from the company "were theirs" and it was not for him to comment on the rationale behind it.
However he did say the strategy acceleration "also means changes and consolidation within the executive and senior leadership teams, to reflect the reshaping of the business".
"Newly created roles will be all about delivering better customer experiences, better digital platforms and products, better value in market, and better network performance. Roles that are proposed to be disestablished are largely in back-office or management roles, or in areas where there is going to be some duplication of function," he said in a statement.
He said accelerating the company was in order for the long-term strategy to “deliver benefits to customers, faster".
“This strategy acceleration means new roles will be created (or have already been created), roles will be moved, and, unfortunately, roles are proposed to be disestablished.
“We anticipate bringing in around 150 new roles over the next 6-12 months, focusing on our priorities of improving customer experience and accelerating our digital transformation, and we expect around 200 current roles will leave Vodafone over the next few months (with some limited opportunities for redeployment)" Llewellyn said.
“Change is not new to our business – the Vodafone of today is very different to the Vodafone of five years ago – but we know changes can be hard. These changes will unfortunately impact some of our people, their familes and their friends, so we will move as quickly as we can to give our people clarity, and enable our teams to keep delivering amazing digital services and connectivity for our customers.
“We kicked off a long-term strategy in 2020 to deliver on this ambition, starting with targeted investment in our networks, customer experience, digital technologies and capability.
“We are in an industry that navigates through huge technology changes, new competitor offers and increasing customer demands every day. These competing pressures, along with changing customer behaviours from Covid-19, mean we need to accelerate our strategy over the next 12-24 months".
Llewellyn said the company is investing “around $110 million in improved sales and customer experience, including the creation of up to 100 additional on-shore customer-facing jobs for New Zealanders and expanding our team of experts model.
“We are also investing around $115 million in the acceleration of our digital programme to develop more digital products and services. This adds to recent investments in the X Squad and the return of business call centres back to New Zealand.”
He said Vodafone also plans to invest over $100 million extra in mobile and internet coverage, bringing Vodafone 5G to more cities, and investing more in regional New Zealand.
Putting customers on the “best value plans” is a priority, Llewellyn says as well as “continuing to focus on our market-leading ICT, SuperWifi and Endless Data propositions, as well as our new 5G Broadband offer”.
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