Spark workers say jobs outsourced

Spark staff say suggestions the telco is not shifting their jobs overseas are untrue.

Stuff reported on Wednesday that Spark was restructuring its ‘‘change’’ team which helps customers make changes to their accounts or move house.

A spokeswoman said fewer than 50 roles would be lost.

She rejected a suggestion people were being replaced with overseas workers.

But staff who contacted Stuff said that was not the case.

They provided records showing that in January, the change team had 98 staff members in New Zealand and 23 overseas.

By the end of October, there were 75 here and 120 overseas.

The consultation document given to staff showed Spark was considering 15 overseas roles as part of the changes.

One staff member, whom Stuff has agreed not to name because they are involved in the process, said a management restructure last year led to a new system where jobs were put ‘‘in consumers’ hands’’.

‘‘It was not made clear to customers that even an eight-outof-ten score was negative ... an average/somewhat decent experience would have had to be a nineout-of-10 and if staff didn’t meet a certain mark they got two warnings, then fired.

‘‘Ever since then, Spark made no effort to hire onshore staff to take their place. Instead they have hired 60-plus overseas staff.’’

The worker said that in the latest round of restructuring they had been given six days to decide whether to go into new roles with limited spaces and higher targets.

A Spark spokeswoman said she could not talk about numbers of staff employed. ‘‘We want our employees to be successful, therefore we always look to engage with them around their performance to help them grow and succeed. With customer-facing roles, customer feedback is an important part of this conversation, along with a range of other performance measures.’’

She said it was not relevant to compare targets directly because the new roles were slightly different.

‘‘These roles require some different skills and will allow our people to grow and move within the business by encouraging them to upskill and multi skill.

‘‘We are committed to New Zealand and continue to invest in the customer service areas of the company, both on and offshore.

‘‘Currently 70 per cent of our frontline staff (who are all Spark employees) are based in New Zealand and we don’t anticipate this changing ... We have hired roughly equal numbers onshore as offshore in the last 12 months.’’