Over a five‐year period, AT&T Consumer Services experienced radical structural change, in preparation for US deregulation of the telecommunications and information‐services markets in 1996, and afterwards. This had far‐reaching internal impacts, including waves of downsizing, growth and...

Vodafone’s change from a command and control culture to one based on coaching and collaboration has helped the company to top the league table of mobile‐telephone network quality. The company culture of the mid‐1990s, which had its roots in the manufacturing facilities of Racal, had caused...

Many companies which consider teleworking do not immediately think of the human resource management side first. They are enticed by reports that teleworking can lead to productivity increases of up to 30 percent, a halving of sickness levels and a widening of the pool of skilled people who might...

A telecommunications company, trade union and university are involved in one of the most ambitious examples of workplace learning undertaken in Britain. BT plc, a company considered to be at the forefront of partnership working, has teamed up with the Communication Workers’ Union (CWU),...

A US supplier of networking information technology (IT) has only 5 percent annual turnover of IT staff, compared with an industry average of 15 percent. SoftwareCo’s success in attracting, developing and retaining these key employees is based on understanding that they need a challenging and...

Telecommunications giant Cable and Wireless adopted a three‐prong approach to slimming down its in‐house HR, which Ian Muir, vice‐president of group human resources, described as “too big, too expensive and with a cost base that was fixed rather than variable”. First, the company began...

With more than 50,000 employees at 16 factories in nine countries, and research and development facilities in 11 countries, Finnish‐based Nokia is the largest maker of mobile telephones in the world. Nokia’s people policies have played a key role in helping the company to reach its 40...

When Telefonica, the leading telecommunications operator in the Spanish and Portuguese‐speaking world, decided on root‐and‐branch reform of its employee training, it unsurprisingly opted to give a key role to information and communication technology.

How does a fast‐growing company with a regional structure, resulting from the rapid coming together of between 20 and 30 separate businesses, shift the focus to a national corporate culture that emphasizes common best practice and drives quality through consistent messages? That was the...