Sprint may be considering outsourcing jobs

So that is going to leave T-Mobile and Verizon as the only two big wireless carriers that do not outsource their positions. It comes to show you how very little the Dan knows about accountability and making the necessary changes to make its workforce be on the same page. The concept is simple "Put the Customer First" if a company can not get its work force to understand this simple concept then it is the duty of its management team to ensure that these employees are given the choice to leave or get with the program.

If Sprint does move to outsourcing customer care positions then this will move more customer escalation traffic to the stores, and with the amount of focus Sprint has on sales right now I know those retail sales reps are not going to want to deal with that. They already show this attitude already.

I would not outsource any employees if I was Sprint. We are in a recession and people will remember that Sprint sourced its employees when all jobs were needed in the USA. As a veteran of the IBM outsourcing all that happened was the re-badged employees lost their raises and bonuses for two years while Sprint had the highest pay out for bonuses ever. It just shifts the cost from one side of the books to the other side. You still have to pay the outsourcing company and they don't work for free.

Sprint's throwing in the towl? Are they toast? Why not sell WiMax spectrum and assets, cut debt, and then shutdown Nextel after migrating its subs to PCS?

The laughs and failures just keep coming from the old, tired and stuffy Sprint management. They can't seem to get it. No wonder Sprint and Xohm employees no longer care about the company. It's layoff and outsource/insource day in and day out.

I give Sprint 6 months and then, done.

Taken from newspaper at Sprints HQ. Seems the natives are not happy with the overpaid and underskilled management team at Sprint.

Cheap Indian Labor at Sprint
Submitted by Anonymous on November 19, 2008 - 5:48pm.
I hope that Sprint will walk out the cheap Indian labor before they outsource or fire Americans.

If not, I hope the employees at Sprint walk out on Sprint or continue driving the company into the ground. Either way, its time the get rid of the MILLIONS of cheap Indian labor that has killed the technology sector for American workers.

Dont believe me? Take a look in the cube beside you.

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Dan
Submitted by Anonymous on November 19, 2008 - 5:35pm.
Dan is head and shoulders above the past CEOs of Sprint. Under his watch, Sprint has improved customer service and introduced great rate plans and handsets. The top six phones (out of 10) for the holidays are Sprint phones, according to a leading magazine. Let's not forget that Nextel's Donahue called Forsee to talk about being acquired by Sprint. If Nextel was going so gang-busters, then why the call for a deal to be done? But Nextel's push-to-talk is the best in the industry, bar none. The main issue now is that Sprint doesn't have deep enough pockets to advertise as much as Verizon and AT&T. Sprint's plans are cheaper than both these companies but not enough people know it.

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Hide in your cubes
Submitted by Anonymous on November 19, 2008 - 5:09pm.
Hide in your cubes or work remotely. Don't answer the phone. It could be HR calling. My whole group was eliminated. Insane.

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Interesting how before the
Submitted by Anonymous on November 19, 2008 - 4:48pm.
Interesting how before the merger the iDEN business was sailing along doing financially well, customers were happy and employees had good morale.

Then we ran into Forsee who changed all that.

Maybe Dan is trying to change things, but outsourcing doesn't seem the way to go in order to serve customers or improve morale. Maybe someone should ask Tim Donahue for advice.

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Re: Totally Agree
Submitted by Anonymous on November 19, 2008 - 4:43pm.
I'm not sure what environment you're talking about, but from my vantage point the Nextel managers seem pretty well pacified or gone. From my vantage point, we delivered a new revenue stream of one million dollars over the cost of servicing customer handsets in 2006 (notice I said "My" I'm that invested in what we were doing.)
The leader of that organization was legacy Nextel. He had the respect of every single person I ever talked to in his organization, I'm legacy Sprint.
We had a direction and we understood our function.
2007 he was let go.
I asked the new leader why we didn't advertise our service. Any customer could bring in their broken phone and we would do our best to fix their phone. He said he didn't see the point. We brought in one million dollars the year before with this service.
Apparently, we didn't want one million dollars revenue when we still have to service our customer's handsets today.
When Sprint management took over we were sunk. That's all I see now. These are the same people who were running things in 2004/2005 when the Wall Street Journal wrote something to the effect of 'Sprint has Worst Customer Service in Wireless Industry.'
That VSP looks more attractive everyday.

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Totally agree
Submitted by Anonymous on November 19, 2008 - 3:46pm.
Amen to you.....no wonder we failed:

1. trying to sell world war 2 technology: IDEN
2. 10,000 managers(mostly NEXTEL) for 50,000 people.
3. Loosing CDMA talent every quarter due to slow bleeding

Now there are only IDEN yoyos and managers left....all waiting to just wait it out more so that they will get fat packages....

Well guess what "no money left"....so either take the package on Dec 3 or that's it....since Lucent and Erricson aint paying those....just 2 weeks and a kick on the ass.......

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RE: Out Sourcing will doom company / KC economy
Submitted by Anonymous on November 19, 2008 - 3:03pm.
Corporations exist solely to deliver profits to shareholders, not to employ people. If Sprint can't deliver profits, stockholders will go elsewhere, and that would suck.

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Sad to hear this
Submitted by Anonymous on November 19, 2008 - 1:58pm.
I voluntarily took a layoff package in March of this year. I continue to follow how Sprint is doing because my 13 years there meant a lot to me. Sprint was a leader in providing data services. The foray into wireless has been disastrous. I am in northern Virginia and worked a lot with Nextel people--all of whom saw the lifeblood of their company sucked out by the merger. I fear for the future of the friends I left behind since there doesn't seem to be a real captain guiding this ship.

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Relying on temps is never a good choice
Submitted by Anonymous on November 19, 2008 - 1:40pm.
I am not an employee of Sprint or an ex employee. I do own shares in Sprint and this move seriously concerns me as a long time investor. While going to college I worked as a temp. Temps are capable of handling more than typing and filing. Most are just as qualified as the permanent employees. The only difference is they don't have a stake in the company like a permanent employee. This is the main reason why I fear this decision will send Sprint into years of continue downturn and driving the stock down even further.

I believe reducing their head count is a necessity at this point, but cutting 5 to 10K employees and replacing them with 2.5 to 5K Temps who may or may not be previous employees would place their business in jeopardy.

Sprint is a service business, no matter how you slice it. It relies on the people supporting the customers and supporting their product (the network). When they provide less than quality of service to save a few dollars, it will cost them more in the long run from customer defection and trying to fix what they broke.

I belive what Sprint should do is cut 5% of their employees. Cut all bonuses. Stop hiring and fill in any holes by hiring a small percentage of temps or contract workers. This would not jeopardize the business, while cut some of the overhead.

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Winds of Change
Submitted by Anonymous on November 19, 2008 - 1:33pm.
Now we can see the mentality of the great unwashed. Does your parents know you think and talk like that in public? I'd bet not.
No wonder you no longer work at Sprint.

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I'll make you a bet
Submitted by Anonymous on November 19, 2008 - 1:19pm.
Sprint will reduce over 50% of its workforce by the year end 2009. Any takers for this bet?

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Can we outsource the management team
Submitted by Anonymous on November 19, 2008 - 1:15pm.
Why is it always the rank and file who are impacted. Can't we outsource the management of this company? Hell, the management team of Lehman, AIG or GM would do a better job than Dan boy!

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Out Sourcing will doom company / KC economy
Submitted by Anonymous on November 19, 2008 - 1:12pm.
If sprint outsource's again then there goes our customer focus and the moral of the folks left and the ones rebadged - they keep doing this and the company will crash they should just try to sell it now - they are destroying lives - the only ones this benefits are the stockholders/board members to have a few extra bills in there pockets

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RE:Winds of Change
Submitted by Anonymous on November 19, 2008 - 1:11pm.
Stop kissing Dans Buttox. You will still get laid off.

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The managers are responsible - dillrod
Submitted by Anonymous on November 19, 2008 - 1:10pm.
Hey dill rod boy...The employees of this company have been working their butts off from the beginning. Many have made it clear that the direction the company was heading was wrong. The executives of the company are responsible for the path we are on. This isn't any different than the auto industry situation, expect Sprint was given the chance to take advantage of a growing industry, a high tech industry. The captain of this ship needs to be thrown off the boat.

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Please leave Dan
Submitted by Anonymous on November 19, 2008 - 1:07pm.
What are you waiting for? Why don't you step outside your football length mahoganey office. Away from your lackeys and security guards and talk to the employees. You haven't taken the time to focus on anything but your celebrity or ensuring that your options are backdated to make sure your transition is comfortable.

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Thanks Dan
Submitted by Anonymous on November 19, 2008 - 1:07pm.
How about YOU take a pay cut so I can keep my job and feed my two kids. You already take home 28 million. If you and a few other OVERPAID exec's cut back on that maybe a few employees families will enjoy Christmas. We are the ones working 12/16 hour days here. We are not the ones to blame for this failure. Give us a break with the layoffs for one year will ya?

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Winds of Change
Submitted by Anonymous on November 19, 2008 - 1:05pm.
Oh all you former and disgruntle employees need have worked harder and smarter and the company would not be in the position it is today.

You all worked there and milked the corporation for years, now when times get tough you're the first to belly ache about the situation offering your pearls of wisdom with out having the "Big Picture" that Dan Hesse sees.

Cut the man some slack. it's your next to worthless contributions that has put the company in the shape it's in now, and you take pot shots at him for trying to rebound the company.....my lord people get a freaking grip.

Well opinions are like belly buttons, everyone has one, only most of the contributors here have chosen to be an "outie" rather than conform with the legions of others and who see a great man doing great things and keep their "Limited View" opinion inward and support the Hesse Acts that are moving the company in the right direction.

Three Cheers for the 'Hesse Genesis" and to the rebirth of a great company!

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Why won't things get better
Submitted by Anonymous on November 19, 2008 - 1:04pm.
I've lived through the years of forsee and the other goofballs in this organization. I held out for things to get better. They couldn't be worse. I won't even look at my 401k statement anymore. I bet you the Dan is flying over overland park in his private jet, sipping on a glass of champaign laughing his head off as he makes plans for this weeked with his man lover.

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Outsourcing - Dejavu!!
Submitted by Anonymous on November 19, 2008 - 1:01pm.
Well, it was bound to happen. Another CEO who thinks outsourcing employees to temporarily improve the bottom line to blow smoke in the eyes of shareholders and boost their annual bonus. I had higher hopes for the new Sprint Nextel exective managment, but what a fool I am. HELLO!!, Forsee tried outsourcing. It was a dismal failure that cost the company thousands of customers, and millions of dollars they have never recoverd from. I guess CEO's can't help themselves as long as there is a paying customer left.

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Sprint Uproar!
Submitted by Anonymous on November 19, 2008 - 1:01pm.
Dan and his kiss ass management team have been taking the shareholders and employees of sprint for a ride for years. Why would anything change. You promote or hire mediocre managers, you get mediocre results. For those of you blinded by the light in your little cubes in the corporate hell hole you call sprint, pull your head out of your ass and do something about the corruption, ineptness and irresponsibility of the management team.

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I agree for once with Goodriddance
Submitted by Anonymous on November 19, 2008 - 12:58pm.
What a surprise. This is the first of many money saving moves they will be implementing. It won't stop the bleeding. Customers have figured it out. The employees have either been living in denial or riding out things as long as possible. Once sprint is gone, the landscape of Kansas City will surely be a "fly over" city. Great job Dan!!!!

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Ways to pare expenses
Submitted by Anonymous on November 19, 2008 - 12:56pm.
I agree. Good leaders lead by example. Lavish pay, corporate jets and other elaborate quirps are bad especially when lower level employees have to take pay and benefit concessions. In addition, promtions based on buddy-budy system and/or meeting percentage of minority quota are bad if the person is not qualified. Also, communcation is important but is only of value if the person has back ground experience and/or education in the arena being communicated. Without associated experience the old saying applies and costs companies millions/billions: "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance then baffle them with bulls#$t". Is the above the CASE WITH SPRINT??!!

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will the out sourcing ever stop
Submitted by Anonymous on November 19, 2008 - 12:49pm.
I have worked hard for Sprint for 17 years and the constant layoffs and outsourcing (that didn't work before and they brought everyone back) are mentally hard to deal with - the hard workers get tired of this and look for another job - therefore they loose the good ones....I am one that is leaving now

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Outsourced
Submitted by Anonymous on November 19, 2008 - 12:46pm.
One poor decision after another….Sprint started making poor decisions after they acquired the OBSOLETE Iden Network, and here is just another example of how to run a thriving business into the ground. How any company could believe an OUTSOURCED employee would care more about customers and its network, than one that works directly for the company is beyond me?

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Sigh...please explain
Submitted by Anonymous on November 19, 2008 - 12:34pm.
I'm not sure if you people realize this, but Sprint is a multi-billion dollar business. Why, on God's green earth, do you think the CEO has time to worry about the entitlement culture at the temp level? You people seem to think this is a mom and pop shop. Try thinking a little outside of yourselves and be realistic.

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wow!
Submitted by Anonymous on November 19, 2008 - 12:13pm.
Sprint stock is now cheaper than gas!

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ways to pare expenses
Submitted by Anonymous on November 19, 2008 - 12:04pm.
Here is a cost saving idea for Mr. Hesse and the other powers to be at Sprint. It
may even be a first for a CEO working to get
there company back on track. Take a pay cut!!! Most people would be able to live on 14 Million which about half of what Mr. Hesse makes now. Mr. Hesse and the other exec's should show America how vestted they are in the company and the product. When Sprint is competing with Verizon again maybe then the huge pay check would be justified. Stop cutting the little guys income. Start at the top, maybe Sprint might have a chance. It is time for a CHANGE in the ways CEO's do business

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It's not the ex-employees
Submitted by Anonymous on November 19, 2008 - 11:49am.
It's not the ex-employees that are causing problems. The ones who walked away (without getting laid off), saw the fire through the smoke.

The problem with Sprint internally is that they promote the wrong people. They make people managers because he/she are buddies. It's not that they know the job or can do the job. They're just buddies!

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Come on now! The TEMPS ARE CARRYING THE WORKLOAD?
Submitted by Anonymous on November 19, 2008 - 11:22am.
The temps carrying the load my butt! The temps are no more than the run of the mill leach employee who expects 60K a year to be a project manager who manages 1 insignificant project. The TEMPs are wannabes who are good for getting coffee, filing copies of the invoices for bad business decisions and shredding documents.

If I were CEO, I would limit internet usage to an hour a day, allowing employees to do banking, check the news, etc...over their breaks and lunches. I would outsource much of marketing and fire almost every project manager, since there isn't capital for projects. I would reduce headcount by 10K to 15K...and ride out the storm...

No contractors, no temps, no corporate jet for two years, no first class travel...

No one is going to bail the telecommunications industry out, so Hesse has to do it by himself.

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RE: re: Layoffs
Submitted by Anonymous on November 19, 2008 - 10:26am.
Umm I think it was meant as a joke.
I am not sure but I have never heard of a company having layoffs as a benefit.

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re: Layoffs
Submitted by Anonymous on November 19, 2008 - 9:53am.
BS. That's not true and you know it. Are you the anonymous who posted that earlier and was unable to post an actual reference to the benefis package? You must be a bitter ex-employee because the ONLY people that ever complain about Sprint are exemployees. Sprint would have no problems if it weren't for exemployees.

The danger with this announcement is it will create more ex Sprint employees even if they keep their jobs with the new company.

Did this rebadge happen before elsewhere in Sprint so we can gauge its effectiveness? IT, wireline, anything? What does alcatel lucent know about running networks? Have they run anything as big as a Sprint network?

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6.7 RIF
Submitted by Anonymous on November 19, 2008 - 9:21am.
A spokeswoman for the communications company said that there have been layoffs already and gradual layoffs will continue as Sprint tries to streamline its operations. Sprint is looking to reduce its head count by 6.7% which is between 4 or 5K employees by years end.

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Rebadging = voluntary falling on sword
Submitted by Anonymous on November 19, 2008 - 9:12am.
If Sprint outsources all or most of the IT and Network operations, they effectively become an MVNO operator on they're own network.

This would leave the company effectively as a sales and marketing company. Two things that Sprint has done very poorly at.

I don't know about Hesse, but unless he has some totally dynamite marketing plan waiting in the wings, this may well be the last thing the company does as a going concern.

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Layoffs
Submitted by Anonymous on November 19, 2008 - 9:05am.
Layoffs are part of sprints employee benefits package now.

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Sprint
Submitted by Anonymous on November 19, 2008 - 8:18am.
Sprint wouldn't have to resort to outsourcing if they could get their core employees to work. Having done a stint as a temp at Sprint, I was amazed how little work core employees actually did. That includes managers and supervisors. The temps were carrying the work load while the core employees for the most part were outside smoking or somewhere else on campus visiting. Certainly there were some whose production was to be admired, but there were not enough. Some of the worst were the ones hired back in the mid-90s, longtimers who felt like they would always have a job. And the lack of respect that the temps were shown was enough to make one gag. And some of the contractors that I worked with I wouldn't have ever hired. I can think of one whose cube smelled like a brewery every day. She would be out clubbing in Topeka until 2AM and then come to work still drunk and she couldn't figure out why her orders always came back.

Dan Hesse should be looking longer and harder at changing the entitlement culture at Sprint that existed under Forsee and Esrey. Those core employees should be willing to take pay cuts just like the contractors have.

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Head count implications??
Submitted by Anonymous on November 19, 2008 - 7:53am.
Why are they continuing to hire? Take a look at their job postings. Sign up on their search engine and get daily eMails regarding open positions.

I have a personal fondness for Sprint, and I'm a Dan Hesse supporter. But he just hasn't been able to gut the foundation of the embedded culture.

Wow...reading this string is like watching people arguing aboard the Titantic. Think I'll ship me share allocation to VZW, Vodafone, and AT&T.

Let's examine this. Kathy Walker "manages" both the IT organization and the Network organization - and after all the time, money and effort she has spent she wants to OUTSOURCE? What the hell are we paying her for? Sure sounds to me like an abdication of her responsibility to shape the respective organizations into lean mean fighting machines. BOD should install a fighter and leader. There are good people on staff they just need to be managed. Outsourcing is a cowards way of ducking responsibility and rarely works out. Just an opinion from an insider.

they don't need to outsource they need to fire most of the management team. They are so busy trying to save their jobs that the upper management doesn't get the real picture. Sprint has middle management that has 3 and 4 direct reports and have a admin......... while the front line managers have 12+ managers.....

This company has lost 90 percent of its share value in the last year and a half. I hung onto my shares because I thought they had some good tech ideas like WIMAX but it was probably not something I should have done.

Wireless Internet in all its permutations is probably the wave of the future and Sprint in a technical sense is actually pretty good at it. This is being written on a Sprint wireless broadband connection. I kind of worry about how they will execute in the technical space moving forward because I think they are a seriously damaged organization. I am keeping my Sprint phone on month to month because I think Sprint may be out of business or acquired some time soon.

It would be great if Google would acquire them. Probably free ad supported wireless broadband and phone service. Maybe I would even get a few Google shares for my Sprint shares.

Current management couldn't run a lemonade stand in my opinion and I own 900 shares of this dog.

They have to think again . it will be the worse decision they have ever taken . Not sure what improvement they will have by doing this ?

I think this is a big mistake. As has been stated over and over contract workers have no incentive or stake in the company. I think Sprint could cut staff by about 5% or so but outsourcing is a bad idea. Has never worked, never will. I think they should extend the VSP offer until mid February but the truth is mostly the good talent will take it except for those who have some commitment to the company even if that commitment is one sided and ill advised.

This is not new news. A whole group was set up early this year for the sole purpose to outsource a large portion of engineering jobs at Sprint to India. As one who used to work under the leadership of this group before they were cardoned off with their new responsibilities it would be surprising if this did not occur given this group needs to find a way to cut costs and how else but to outsource. Big bonuses ahead for this organization no doubt. I don't think I would want to be known as the VP of layoffs and outsourcing though. The only question is how many and how deep. You can count on most tier one and tier two NOC types being gone and probably a good number of design engineering folks. After all if the outsourcing companies are so good at the lower level NOC jobs they MUST have great talent for design engineers. In other good bye all you subject matter experts and senior level certified folks. Thanks but no thanks.

I am a Field Tech for this damn company and it sucks! I am legacy Nextel and I can tell you that the technology maybe old and outdated but it was a cash cow until we came under the fold of Forsee and his cronies(Sprint). Sprint seriously need to do some sole searching and come up with a different business model that includes the care of the costumers and the employees alike. When I say employees I mean the worker bee types not the damn fat cat managers! Signed Angry Worker Bee

The current school of thought for telecom CEO's is to appear to be going gang busters so that some sucker will buy you out (re: Metrocall, AT&T, etc.). You and your boys get the golden parachutes and move on. Sprint took over Nextel when they had reached the holy grail of wireless. Lowest churn, highest arpu of any carrier. How did they reward those loyal Nextel customers? Give 'em a good screwing!! They have the whole emergency services market cornered. They could have gotten billions, billions I say from the government to build the network out for that vertical. Sprint has no clue what vertical markets are.

People seem to be forgetting the CFO that came in from retirement to take a 2 year contract under Dan. He's a big time supporter of the Jack Welch theory in managing... cut 10% of workforce every year... I'm sure he's overpaid just like Dan and likely so is Elfman who was put over Walker. Very odd to make Walker the head over IT and Network the bring this guy in to be over her... more of the buddy system, I'm sure. Will Dan and the exec team take a pay cut? Not likely... they'll take all they can get. And to reply to the yahoo that thinks shareholders receive any of the profit... are you kidding me? The only profit for a shareholder is when the sell their shares after the stock performance improves. Outsourcing has proven it's a flawed and failed approach that many companies have tried. I like Nextel and Sprint... they both had their strengths but the merger was doomed from the start. 2 incompatable netwroks means twice the cost to operate... duh. I think it was a easy way for Foresee AND Donahue AND all the other execs to get a huge payout... screw the shareholders and the employees and the customers. It's all about money... very sad but true. After many years of layoffs, and especially now during this recession, I would rather see Sprint force a 5%-10% pay cut to all the employees and a 30-50% cut to the senior management. If they want to keep the incentives... leave a bonus, but shift more of the compensation away from salary and to bonus' payout instead. Sprint will not provide BETTER service with FEWER employees... it needs people that are motivated and what better way than telling all employees from the bottom to the top... I'm shifting 20% of you pay to your bonus... you want it... work for it.

I think in a way they partially did the pay shift this past year. No merit increases but some bonus money. So likely no pay increases again this year which when you add two years of no increases together you get close to 8% or so that you lost out on. In reality a no increase last year was a paycut. Maybe this year that is not quite the case given the decrease in inflation but it is certainly not moving in the direction of higher wages. Some would argue that employees are overpaid but do you really think management is going to pay individual contributors more then they have to in a given market. No. Executive compensation is out of hand not only here but many other companies and shareholders need to finally step up and say ENOUGH! Is Dan and the executive team really worth so much, I doubt it. In my opinion no executive is worth more then 10X the pay of a senior engineer in the company if that. Pay cuts come in many forms from no increases to shifting the entire benefits package increases for a year to the employee so it is cost neutral to the company. You add it all together and you probably are getting close to the 10-15% range of pay cuts - just not done in an honest and straightforward manner. I would rather be laid off then re-badged but we will see. Your job loss is a larger bonus for the management team, especially the team mentioned above whose entire mission is to find outsourcing opportunities. It is a real division and hard at work in Reston. The Jack Welch management style has large faults including the total disintergration of any semblance of team work as you are forced to compete each year against your peers to stay employed. Jack claims cream rises to the top well sometimes it leaves in large numbers. I expect a much larger brain drain at Sprint this coming year. Those left after more lay offs are more inclined to leave on their own terms over the course of the year.