Telkom creates a website to update staff on retrenchments

Telkom announced on 9 June that it is planning to reduce its workforce by 7,800 people, creating a far leaner company.
The company said it has developed a website to facilitate communication between Telkom and employees.
Telkom told Fin24 it plans to cut 4,400 jobs through voluntary severance packages or voluntary early retirement packages.
It also confirmed that 3,400 employees will be transferred to outsourced companies.
The company communicated its plans to employees in a letter earlier this week titled: “Telkom 2.0: the next phase of our turnaround strategy”.
The letter – which discusses the first phase of Telkom’s turnaround, the separation of its business units, and the next phase in transforming the company can be view below.
Telkom 2.0: the next phase of our turnaround strategy
During the announcement of our Annual Results on Monday, 8 June the GCEO informed employees that, although the first phase of our turnaround has delivered some solid improvements, the challenges facing the business remain imposing.
We therefore have to fundamentally improve the way we do business by, among other things, instilling a high performance culture, strengthening the customer value proposition and, critically, reviewing our operating model by separating the Retail and Infrastructure & Wholesale businesses. This business separation will create three distinct and more autonomous business units.
The GCEO furthermore explained that Telkom will engage with organised labour to share specific proposals on how Telkom can transition to a more sustainable future. This approach will ensure that the next phase of our transformation journey is conducted in an organised and effective manner.
Telkom met with organised labour yesterday (9 June), to initiate further discussions on the business objectives, the process to follow in the coming months and how we can best collaborate to mitigate potential workforce impacts on our people.
Telkom proposed we undertake these working group discussions at the same time as we place Voluntary Severance (VSP) and Voluntary Early Retirement Packages (VERP) on the table.
The unions in attendance were not comfortable with this proposal. In another bid to work with organised labour to find a way forward to best manage this process, we have postponed the Company Forum meeting which was due to happen today.
We will reconvene the Company Forum on Thursday, 18 June 2015. Telkom remains committed to collaborating with organised labour in the best interest of Telkom and its employees.
Yesterday afternoon (9 June) the GCOO, CTO and Chief of HR also spoke with leadership via a DMS broadcast. The purpose of this interaction was twofold:
- to share the information presented to organised labour; and
- to provide feedback on the meeting with organised labour.
We would like to make this information available to all our Telkom people and it is available to you, now.
A Telkom 2.0 website has been created to facilitate communication between Telkom and employees. Employees will be notified as soon as the website goes live, which will be later today.
The website has a Q&A functionality which employees are encouraged to use. We will do all we can to answer your questions.
However, we do wish to caution that we are committed to working within the confines of the process we agree with organised labour. For this reason we will answer the questions we can, as soon as the consultation process permits us to do so.
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