The new boss of mobile phone company Everything Everywhere marked his first day in the job by wiping out half of his management team including two senior HR executives.
Olaf Swantee, chief executive of the company, which was created out of the merger of Orange and T-Mobile last year, announced yesterday that he had hacked back the top team from 26 to 10. A former non-executive board member, he took over from former leader Tom Alexander who left the firm suddenly in July.
The restructuring led to the immediate resignation of six senior managers and the effective demotion of 10 more. Those leaving the company include Ian Pitcher, vice president of HR and Linda Kennedy, chief change officer, who were both on the executive management team.
Richard Moat, Everything Everywhere’s deputy chief executive and finance director, who was passed over for the top job this summer but widely viewed as Alexander’s natural successor, is also to go.
The firm’s new head of HR, Francoise Clemes, who previously worked at Orange’s parent company France Telecom with Swantee, will now develop and lead its people strategy.
Swantee said that the aim was to “build a more simplified structure for the company” as it was “important to me and shareholders to build a smaller team”.
He added that he had also begun a strategic review of the firm, which was likely to lead to more job losses. Everything Everywhere has already axed more than 1,200 posts since the merger.
The company came in for criticism of how it handled the cuts after it came to light that many workers were informed of their imminent redundancy by the display of a colour-coded “traffic light” scheme at mass meetings.
Red, yellow or blue lights were used to signify the level of risk attached to different positions. Middle managers and back-office staff were given a red light, indicating that they were at most risk, for example, while those on the receiving end of a yellow light had to reapply for their jobs.
The company also told 40 call centre workers in Darlington that they could only keep their night-shift jobs if they moved to offices based in the Philippines. It was later forced to apologise.
