Given that the agreed merger period is around 18 months before Orange UK and T-Mobile UK come together, staff working at the two firms will have plenty of time to review their likelihood of being offered a role within the new company.
This uncertainty has prompted Vodafone to launch an aggressive campaign to recruit staff from Orange and T-Mobile, which has seen Vodafone positioning advertising vans outside the headquarters of the two companies.
With little attempt at subtly, the advertising vans' hoardings showed a woman, roller brush in hand, pondering the colours orange and pink--the respective colours of Orange and T-Mobile. A slogan asked: ‘Need another option? See Red.'
Vodafone HR director, Matthew Brearley, said the operator decided to ‘seize the moment' and launch a targeted recruitment campaign after ‘an influx of applications' from both Orange and T-Mobile staff ‘at all levels of both organisations'. Brearley said the recruitment drive did not contradict Vodafone's wave of redundancies last year, or further huge cost-cutting announced last week.
An Orange spokesman said of Vodafone antics: ‘It is a cheap tactic but we are not surprised.'
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