Screenshots

Should DAWO, the Super CEO with multi-layers of CEO beneath him, think of another round of re-org at Telekom Malaysia, the target should be the heads who are in charge of Employees Relations and Corporate Communications.

They should quickly take a temperature check of the unhappiness and resentment currently brewing within the humongous organisation, and the HR and CorpComm are obviously not listening well.

'Surat layang'

Evidently, internal communications across the organisation must be very weak as the employees are making complaints against DAWO and they trust what Screenshots published more than what the HR and CorpComm guys have told them through their official communications channel!

It has since come to my attention that a group of low-ranking TM employees had sent an anonymous email, dated November 21, to the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Finance Minister, Deputy Finance Minister Awang Adek, the Khazanah Group CEO, and the TM Chairman.

The email appealed to the Putrajaya head honcho to have DAWO removed as the Group CEO of the GLC, accusing him of running TM to the ground with his management style.

To rub salts to the wound, DAWO and members of TM's core management and the Board were cc-ed a copy of the email.

And the substantiating documents, holy cow, were none other than three previous Screenshots blog entries, here, here and here.

It's against my principle to circulate a surat layang, but it didn't go unnoticed that employees are fighting on butter-and-bread issues that, when left to breed undeterred, will trivialise a whole good-looking re-org plan that GLC boys attempt to attempt. And for a blogger's entries -- I can assure you they were written based on available documents and facts -- to be cited as supportive documents to Putrajaya, I am both flattered (am I that 'influential'?) and saddened.

DAWO should have checked this internally. It shouldn't have happened.

But there are larger issues -- issues about a dysfunctional management regime -- that need to be looked at serious.

A triviality of employee woes?

Is DAWO failing to meet the financial KPIs and trying to scrap the bottom of the barrel to survive?

For example, from the documents I have viewed, the low-ranking employees -- mostly the backroom guys -- are complaining that they are now given targets to sell Celcom XPAC starter kits and TM Net Streamyx accounts when there are internal sales and marketing, and resellers, paid incentives to do the job

They are complaining that their monthly RM30 entitlement to free mobilephone calls will now have to be justified.

They are complaining that employees are being hauled up to settle old TM bills that date back to over 10 years ago, which had already been provisioned and written off.

Amidst the ranting, they are also complaining of too many outsiders cronied to DAWO -- some with lesser telecoms experience but tagged as 'young, smart, professional managers' -- have parachuted into TM, blocking the loyalists' upward mobility.

Astonishing! Past mismanagement and current mishaps, all in one. A perfect recipe for chaos!

Quick fixes, no pun intended

If DAWO is indeed scrapping hard the bottom of the barrel, let me offer him some better, less painful ways.

#1: Big money promo.

Before TM embarks on another million-dollar project, like the one that was commissioned to clean-up the customer database by giving away free cars and a jackpot to the end-users, make sure the success rate is not hovering around 50% with weeks left before the expiry date.

The implementing unit must provide a Plan B. Give the project vendors their KPIs, squeeze them if they failed to deliver. Demand a money-back scheme if the vendor's plans don't work.

That will fill-up the TM coffers much faster than squeezing the employees in the backroom for their monthly free-call entitlement and selling product packages.

#2: Decentralise the employees.

Menara TM, which looks good from CorpComm perspective, is expensive to maintain. There are far more cheaper premises out of the prime zones of real estates.

Sell off Menara TM and lease it back, the way MAS did to their aircraft, and the Treasury the sucker. Maintain the core management units within the building but rent out the excess space to more high-yielding corporates like DaimlerChrysler (Mercredes-Benz) and Unilever, who are already occupying the floors.

The rest of the employees can be sent back to where they work, the telephone exchanges.

If they have to account for the RM30 free calls entitlement, they won't complaint of a low-cost workplace. If there is industrial unrest, the HR and Employees Relation folks should function to kautim it.

Since most of the PSTN and network exchanges are on fibre and no more copper wire, internal communication no longer faces hindrance even on realtime.

Further more, it has been a mistake to relocate TM staff and centralise them in Menara TM. parking is horrendous not only for the employees, but the customers and business partners as well.

#3: Kill off TM Net.

First of all, hide and burn that Karamjit Singh/Lee Wei Lian article in the year-end issue of The Edge that says 2006 has been a poor year for broadband. Nobody sees it so nobody would know it.

TM has broadband as near-monopoly, so why worry? Forget about broadband, meeting the KPIs is top priority for DAWO, or so it seems.

Drop the idea of floating TM Net on IPO, TM Net's broadband business can now be re-aligned. There are perhaps about 160 TM Net staff in Cyberjaya and Kelana Jaya. Make TM Net Sdn Bhd a non-entity, strip down the head-counts, relocate them to Menara TM.

Adopt anti-competitive conduct and assert a predatory pricing on competitors who want wanted to leverage on the unbundled local loops. Zamzamzairani, with no CEO at TM Net and no COO at TM Wholesale, should have a freehand to whip up the cake and eat it.

#4: Off-load burden and 'share burden'

That's the mantra Putrajaya used when toll concessionaires increases their charges come January.

In the interim, staff housed at Menara TM could be moved to the TM annexe buildings at the neighbouring Menara Cygal. Rush the contractors to complete the remainder two buildings and start 2007 with bang.

Parking? Menara Cygal is currently charging RM3 a day, so they employees must have been fully conditioned and they won't complain.

BTW, by so doing, DAWO may help TM get some revenue from the staff again. Who says accountants know nuts about telecoms?

If Putrajaya is sincere and correct, it's the age of 'sharing burden' after all.