Optus to expand headcount by up to 700

Optus will expand its headcount from around 6800 to 7500 employees within 12 months as it scrambles to insource its call centre and network operations.

Chief executive Stephen Rue revealed the numbers during the parliamentary inquiry into the triple zero outage that hit its network last September, as he faced questions about the number two carrier’s recent decision to cut between 200 and 300 jobs.

Rue said the telco's overall headcount would actually increase despite the cuts, which were not concentrated in any particular area of the company but the aggregate of smaller losses from a wide swathe of the business.  

The growth in overall headcount would come from a combination of insourcing work presently performed in India, the decision to buy back its retail store network, and investment in specific business functions, including the carrier’s risk management, security, and legal and compliance capabilities, which Rue said were “in need of attention”.

Rue said the vast bulk of the carrier’s call centre functions were concentrated in Chennai where its network service provider, Nokia, employees 3000 staff to fulfil the contract.

Optus revealed late last year at its first appearance at the parliamentary inquiry that it would bring around 300 roles in its offshore call centre operations back to Australia.

At the time it also said it was accelerating plans to take its network management operations back from Nokia and in-house.

Rue today told the parliamentary committee that it completed a review of the Chennai-centred operation and already moved around 100 roles but that the removing the remainder of the staff would require more care and preparation.

“This has to be obviously done carefully … because you've got to train people onshore, you've got to have your systems in place," he said.

"We have brought back several functions already from the network operating in Chennai into Australia.

“That that started actually in October, and we did that progressively through December, and that's currently settling down.

"We are [now] looking at how we safely bring back the remaining part of the operations centre."

Optus was not yet able to confirm when the onshoring operation would be complete.

Escalation and services monitoring

The carrier is also tightening up its escalation and services monitoring procedures around triple zero calls in response to findings from its own internal review of the outage.

The review, by Dr Kerry Schott, uncovered a series of communication problems and misunderstandings which prevented the triple zero outage being dealt with correctly when members of the public first reported being unable to connect to emergency services.

Schott, who also gave evidence at the hearing today, said that listening to recordings of the calls was “distressing”.

Schott had found earlier found in her investigation that the call centre staff did not escalate the reports as they were hadn’t been made aware there was an outage. Instead, they told callers that the issue could be attributed to other factors such as problems at the callers’ end.

“[The callers] had been through considerable personal distress and were basically doing a public service by ringing up to say what was wrong and then to have people trying to discuss with them a technical fault at that time, the calls are just terrible to listen to with five separate callers,” Schott told the committee.

Rue said that the carrier had introduced automated call monitoring features to its interactive voice response system to instantly recognise issues related to triple zero for mandatory escalation.

The carrier has also introduced new and more granular triple zero call testing procedures designed to increase the visibility of emergency call faults earlier.

Optus execs in demand

Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, chair of the inquiry committee, said that parliament is currently attempting to recall the Australian Communications and Media Authority to make another appearance to give evidence in the hearings.

The committee also called for former Westpac chief executive and current member of the board of Optus’ parent company, Singtel, Gail Kelly to appear along with the Singapore-based company’s chief executive Yuen Kuan Moon.

Both declined to appear, the committee today revealed. Hanson-Young said that Kelly was offered the opportunity to appear remotely by video but declined.

Singtel chairman John Arthur today told the committee that Kelly was not able to appear due to busy schedule of board meetings in London.

Arthur said that Kelly "fully supports the work of this committee" and said that Kelly was prepared to provide written responses to questions.

The hearing continues.