Orange job losses

Message from Bernard Ghillebaert

To all Orange UK employees

I wanted to let you know about some specific integration and efficiency proposals that are being discussed in Customer Services through a series of briefing meetings that started today. These proposals, whilst being right for our business, will affect many of our colleagues in CS so I wanted everyone to be aware of what was happening.

Over the last few months we’ve set out to create a new integrated Orange organisation that is leaner, more agile, more cost efficient and better equipped to compete in the market. And as with the rest of the business, in Customer Service this has meant finding more efficient ways of doing things.

In addition, we’ve also have to careful to protect our reputation as being amongst the best in class for service, and invest in those areas of CS that are vital to the delivery of our strategy. So the proposals put forward today represent a balance between efficiency initiatives and re-investment into key growth areas like sales and loyalty. The overview of the proposals is as follows:

Integrating the central management and support functions across Customer Service.
Increasing investment in revenue and value driving activities in Sales, Loyalty and Self Service.
Realigning our shift rotas to find a better way to match our resources to call demand and improve service levels as a result.
Improving frontline team structures including the creation of a new coaching model.
Reducing our costs by making better and more efficient use of our buildings and accommodation.

The last of the proposals put forward is to significantly reduce our costs by consolidating our customer service sites so that we can make better and more efficient use of our accommodation. So a key part of our proposals has been to manage phased closures of our contact centre in Peterlee and also of a smaller BCS contact centre in Solihull (although other operations in Solihull won't be affected by this change).

The work from both these sites will be transferred to our other North East contact centres in Darlington and North Tyneside and staff affected by the proposal will be offered redeployment opportunities if this would suit their personal circumstances. Transport assistance and relocation support is being made available to help with this where appropriate.

These have been tough decisions to make but I have made no secret of the challenges that we face at the moment and as I have said, I believe these proposals are right for the business.

I am confident that working with ECON, Mike Hughes and his management team are making every effort to explain the background to these proposals and will be supporting our colleagues in CS to work through this complex transition process.

Many thanks,

Bernard