Telstra restructures billing and credit management

A restructuring exercise at Telstra's billing and credit management division will lead to a small number of redundancies with an unknown amount of jobs being outsourced offshore, the telco said today.

In total, 166 positions will be made redundant in the billing and credit management team. Of these, 22 are currently vacant, a Telstra spokesperson told iTnews.

As 158 new roles will be created, the spokesperson said the net reduction in jobs will be limited to eight positions overall.

However, some of the jobs may be outsourced overseas.

"The proposal includes plans to expand some of the functions that our global industry partners perform that already has expertise and experience in performing this type of work but it will also create new roles for our employees in Australia," the spokesperson said.

The majority of the jobs affected are in Sydney and Melbourne and Telstra will consult with employees over the changes for approximately two weeks, the spokesperson said.

The restructuring exercise comes after the unification of the billing and credit management teams into one unit 12 months ago, the spokesperson said, and is driven by the need for further improvements.

Telstra expects fewer billing errors and customer complaints to result from the restructuring.

"We are shifting our focus to pre-bill and credit quality control. This will prevent customer billing errors, reduce complaints and eliminate the number of touch points to improve quality control and produce more accurate bills," the spokesperson said.

The telco is also proposing to merge its disputes and collections teams.