Fear of Jobs Loss Grip Workers in Telecoms Sector

Tension is high in the Nigerian telecoms sector as workers fear losing their jobs due to the new approach of Business Process Outsourcing model being adopted by the telecoms service providers.

Due to this new approach in business model and a more competitive environment, telecoms operators have been implementing one form of restructuring or the other.

Sale of the assets especially base stations is part of the outsourcing model implemented by the telecoms firms to cut costs following dwindling revenues.

Although outsourcing of tower services is a global phenomenon in the telecoms business, operators in Nigeria are, however, leveraging on the business model now to cut down on their cost of operation.

Experts are of the view that this may be the second time that the sector will experience huge job losses, following the outsourcing exercise for the customer service section of the major operators four years ago, which saw a lot of employees in the industry losing their jobs.

Airtel Telecommunications had on September 30, 2011 sacked all their customer care staff numbering 3000 due to salary disagreement. But Airtel Nigeria and its Call Centre BPO services providers, Tech Mahindra and Spanco, denied the report.
With the outsourcing model, telecoms firms are expected to hands-off their involvement in the provision and maintenance of towers and instead allow companies with core competence in the area to manage such services.

Etisalat had announced a maintenance agreement pact across Africa with Huawei at recently concluded Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.

MTN Nigeria was in a media report said to have sacked 252 engineers who were responsible for the operation and maintenance of its base stations nationwide last week while Etisalat in another report was alleged to have carried out a mass sack.
The sacks in MTN followed dwindling revenue and the BPO business strategy as those staffs whose duties had been outsourced could no longer be retained within the organisation.

Though, the company claimed to have maintained its 55 million subscribers base but feelers in the last quarter have indicated that MTN has continued to lose customers as well as revenue due to deteriorating service quality. 
Scores of telecoms subscribers who spoke to Daily Trust expressed dissatisfaction over the poor service deliveries by the operators with particular reference to MTN.

One of the subscribers, Mr. Patrick Ofoye, said he had to drop his MTN SIM card to another one when the services were longer satisfactory to me.
He said, “You will load credit but you cannot call or receive calls conveniently, you try to make call, it will be reading but no conversation and the operator will charge for service one did not enjoy. Honestly, it was frustrating.”
Another subscriber, Mrs. Bimbola Badmus, said when the situation became unbearable to her on the Blackberry subscription; she had to removed her MTN SIM and put Etisalat in the BlackBerry.

Also, Mr. Kazeem Omoniyi, said all the networks are bad, “I can tell you categorically which network is good or the worse because I use all the networks with my four SIM Tecno phone but most times its MTN that is worst followed by AIrtel, Glo and Etisalat. Usually, anytime its rains then expect worse experience from Etisalat, he said.”

The General Manager, Corporate Affairs MTN Nigeria, Funmilayo Onajide, denied that MTN has not laid off any staff saying “Suffice to say that MTN have not laid off any engineers. We have entered into a managed service contract with Huawei and Ericsson to manage parts of our network infrastructure.”

She explained that MTN staff who worked in those areas are now staff of Ericsson and Huawei where they enjoy the same enumeration and benefits compensation packages.

Onajide added, “All relevant staff also got very attractive severance packages from MTN and juicy sign on bonuses from their new employers. Please note that their new employers are huge engineering companies with global spread, therefore these engineers are expected to enjoy great career opportunities going forward. Relevant Staff are very pleased about this development and the vast opportunities that have been presented to them.”

She noted further that managed services are the trend in the ICT/ telco environment globally and it is recognized as a panacea to current quality of service challenges describing it as is a win-win and a positive development for all parties.
Onajide who agreed that there is quality of service issues in some areas said there is no evidence that subscribers are moving away from the MTN network adding that “MTNs market share remain intact with over 55million subscribers and growing.”

She said the quality service challenge is an industry issue and not peculiar to any operator arguing that there is no verifiable evidence of a general decline in service quality across the country.

Onajide said, “There is quality of services challenges in specific areas from time to time for numerous environmental issues or network failure. However there is no verifiable evidence of a general decline in service quality across the country.  Please note the quality of service challenges are an industry challenge and it is not confined to any particular network. We all operate in the same environment and encounter the same issues that impact consistently good service.”

Source: Daily Trust