Telstra cuts 950 more jobs in restructure

Telstra has cut 950 executive and middle management jobs in a move to simplify company processes and reduce costs.

The job cuts followed earlier moves to reduce executive positions by 10 percent.

They were announced today by CEO David Thodey, who described the re-structured telco as a "sales and marketing company" that was faster to market and more customer-focussed.

"Telstra's simpler new operating model will shift decision-making from head office to local managers and allow our frontline employees to get results more quickly, with fewer steps and approvals," he stated.

The telco moved to combine its retail shop network with Telstra Country Wide to integrate its consumer model across regional and metropolitan areas.

Under the new model, 33 local area managers would be responsible for Telstra's 5,000 points of presence across the country. The group would be led by Telstra's former Head of Retail, Andy Ellis.

A newly established Innovation Office was to be led by CTO Hugh Bradlow, who would also join Telstra's Chief Marketing Office to ensure research was directly informed by customer behaviour.

The Chief Marketing Office was charged with innovation, product management, brand and strategic marketing, while Telstra Operations was to manage product delivery.

Telstra planned to create specialised product groups that matched its main revenue pools and targeted growth markets, flagging media, content, network-based applications and services as areas of interest.

It also consolidated four internal budgeting, performance measurement and forecasting processes to give the company a more consistent and coordinated view of its performance.

Thodey expected the restructure to improve customer service even with fewer employees, by simplifying decision-making, reducing process errors and introducing online self-service options for customers.

Employees were offered access to assistance programs and redundancy entitlements of up to 80 weeks pay, depending on how long they had worked for the company.