About 300 staff has accepted Dialog Telekom's Voluntary Resignation Scheme (VRS) as at Friday, according to Dialog’s senior management. “This is less than 10% of our total workforce. This brings down the structural dimensions of the company (in terms of cost),” Dr Hans Wijesooriya, CEO Dialog told The Sunday Times FT.
He said that out of the 4,000 employees, the VRS scheme was offered (on April 6) to those who were above the level of executives, such as middle and senior management. When asked why this was done, he said from August last year the company had started cost re-scaling in a bid to keep to the current economic situation.
“From the third quarter of 2008 we started adjusting our cost base to the realities of the external environment,” he said. He added that since then the company went on a comprehensive cost re-scaling programme in terms of energy saving, space reduction, etc. and that staff reduction was one of those.
“We have re-scaled various contracts with our service providers and we are doing the same to some of our variable costs,” he said.
He said that the senior management has also taken a voluntary payout. “From September last year I have taken a 50% paycut. We believe in leading from the front. This is the main reason for a paycut," he added.
Dr Wijesuriya said that in 2006 and 2007 Dialog made some bullish investments and that this was done in a bid to capture opportunities. “At that time we felt that we needed some bullishness, but now we feel we need to pause a little,” he noted.
He said the measures to re-scale cost were done also in the interest of the shareholders. “When profitability fell last year, we had to take some rapid action. We want to bring in more returns for them,” he said.
The company will be focusing primarily on building its network, reach and looking after the customers, the Dialog CEO added. |
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