Union Office, British Telecom, Becket House, New Dover Road,

Canterbury, Kent, CT1 3BB

Tel: 01227 760311 Fax: 01227 815929 e-mail: cwumeridian@btconnect.com

Thursday 19 March

A message from Joe: Working Together

Working Together update for managers

Folks

This is to share an update on how we’re doing with our plans to build the Openreach of the future, guided by the customer.

The Working Together programme - launched in February – is about improving the way we work and moving towards Centres of Excellence for desk-based people supporting customers and our engineers. We are working on improving the very fundamentals of Openreach, building on the heritage of the last hundred years, but in way that sets us up to succeed for the next hundred.

Progress so far
Since launch, we’ve held multiple MD hosted calls and have updated the FAQs on the Working Together website as a direct result of the feedback we’ve been given. Additionally, we’ve trained over 450 managers, equipping them with the information, tools and skills to hold effective 1:1s with their people. This included 41 training days across six different cities. The training has been very well received, and has been seen as a good investment in helping our leaders lead change and hold productive conversations with their people. So far, over 1,500 1:1s have been held and we are determined to complete the remaining ones by early April.

We’re listening and our plan is evolving
The feedback is shaping and evolving our plans. We’ve already announced a satellite site in Ashton, and I’m now announcing that we’ve made a decision to create two more in Brentwood and Cambridge where we will keep teams focused on Ethernet work. To clarify, a satellite site is a location where a sizable number of people who cannot make it to a Centre of Excellence will continue to be based. Some people have asked more about what this means; particularly in the longer term. It is difficult to answer this question because no one can predict exactly how our business will evolve over the long term.  However, what we can say with confidence is that although these sites won’t be developed as Centres of Excellence, we have no plans to exit them.

Likewise, from our early announcements, we’ve been clear that if someone can’t work from a Centre of Excellence then they will continue in their current role, normally from their current location. Again, we cannot commit to what will happen in the future, particularly at the individual level. However, if changes are required in the future, we will talk to the people involved about this at the appropriate time.  

While we can’t be precise about exactly what every Openreach person will be working on in the future, we will continue to bring work to people, wherever they are located. Sometimes the right next step for a team might be a move into another part of BT to undertake a different role. As we’ve said before, if changes are needed we will talk to people and the unions about what this would mean and we will support people in being successful in the change. Let me be clear, we want people to stay in BT Group and wherever possible, with Openreach.

At the moment, we’re listening to the questions and feedback coming through various channels and are answering questions - as quickly as possible - by updating the FAQs on our Working Together website. As I said right from the beginning, the Working Together plan would evolve and, following the completion of 1:1s, we’ll take time to reflect back on what we’ve heard from our people and adjust our plan accordingly.

Our first Centre of Excellence moves
The first tranche of the building moves will take place in Q1. These will include

Edinburgh, Newcastle, Glasgow, Leeds, Exeter, Norwich, Southampton and Ilford.

Details of our building preparation schedule will be on the Working Together in advance of the buildings being ready. We are also working on sharing plans around functions, training and service assurance shortly.

Where possible, we have confirmed plans and made progress quickly. For example, we’ve already welcomed some of our existing New Sites planning teams into our first Infrastructure Delivery Centre of Excellence at Kiln House, Norwich. Joining them were new people to Openreach - moving across from BTB - who have strong customer service experience. They have now started training to become New Sites planners in Norwich, supplementing our existing team and thus increasing our available resource. The feedback from our people is that they like the improved office environment and improved training facilities and welfare areas. In Edinburgh, we’ve already started to retrain the field dynamics resourcing team into regional controls which will be completed shortly.

We are continuing to talk with the CWU and Prospect about our plans. We have a track record of working through major change programmes with the unions and it is my desire that we find a way forward on this too. On a personal level, I greatly value the union’s input through this process, and I am confident that we share the same ultimate objectives of providing brilliant service to our customers, and secure employment to our people.

What’s next?
The SMT will continue to make their site visits and offer visible support. If you’ve been involved in helping to lead  your people through this change, I’d like to thank you for your role in this and for feeding back your findings. These are helping to shape our plans.

We’ll continue to update the FAQs and will look to provide further clarity on the common questions raised by our people as soon as possible. We have the ambition that by the end of April, as close as possible to 100% of people  affected by Working Together will have a clearer view of what the programme means for them individually (ie. their role, their site).

It’s worth highlighting that our business units are at different stages of development in terms of their plans for Working Together. It’s important that our organisation moves at the right pace for our people, for our business and for our customers. We need to protect and enhance our customer service as we go. We need to handle every change with the utmost care and understanding of every individual’s needs.

I recognise that Working Together is a big change for our people and at the same time it is vital to ensure the continued long-term success of Openreach. BT has a recent history of leading bold change successfully. This change has enabled us to reinvent ourselves into the successful business that we are today. Now we need to focus on what we need to do to succeed tomorrow.

Joe