KEY POINTS:
Telecom is proposing to move about 250 contact centre positions from this country to the Philippines during the next 18 months.
The company said today that when the process was complete, it would have around 1600 contact centre positions in this country and 700 positions outsourced in Manila.
Telecom Retail chief executive Alan Gourdie said that due to the length of the timeframe involved the number of redundancies was expected to be "very limited".
If the proposed model were confirmed then Telecom would work hard to ensure affected staff would be redeployed within the company or offered support to find other roles, he said.
The move followed almost a year of trials and research which looked at the impact on customer experiences from moving several Telecom contact centres overseas.
The outcome is that Telecom is proposing to retain its largest contact centre operations, 123 and *123, in New Zealand, mainly in Hamilton, with the approximately 250 positions being moved from a range of other contact centres in this country.
"In the case of 123 and *123 the trial data did not show us the consistent performance we needed to see in order to be comfortable with a large-scale offshoring of that operation, in which a detailed knowledge of an extremely varied set of products and services is all-important," Mr Gourdie said.
"In other areas, where specific, technical knowledge was particularly important, offshore staff have delivered strong results for the New Zealand customers they dealt with."
The proposal would see further moves of Telecom's broadband support helpdesk to its outsourced partners, where it had been found it was easy to recruit technically-skilled staff.
Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union national secretary Andrew Little said the union represents about 20 workers affected by the move.
He said with New Zealand's economy heading into a "difficult time", Telecom's decision is "unfortunate".
Mr Little said the country needs all the spending power it has and jobs moving off-shore will not help.
He said there could be more businesses moving jobs overseas this year as they review their businesses practices.
Mr Gourdie acknowledged the past year had been a time of uncertainty for staff in Telecom's New Zealand-based call centres, particularly those at the Hamilton operation.
"We have communicated openly and regularly with staff throughout the trials. Feedback on the proposed structure will now be sought over the next two weeks, with a final contact centre structure to be confirmed by early March."
- NZPA
