Glasgow Vodafone Staff Face Mass Move

More than 50% of Vodafone’s staff in Glasgow must move to England or face redundancy.

17:59 27 January 2019

Vodafone has informed 350 of its staff members in Glasgow that they have the option to work in England or face redundancy after it decided to concentrate the jobs in three main centres – Manchester, Stroke-on-Trent and Newbury in Berkshire. The mobile phone company says that although the workforce is expected to continue to rise, it needed to reorganise its UK workforce and operations.

 

Staff from its customer service and technology departments were told that the company was changing shape in response to competition from rival telecom and technology giants.

 

A Vodafone spokesman said: "This is a major step to us becoming the UK's leading digital technology and communications company, and reinforces our commitment to the UK.

 

"We recognise some employees will need to commute further and we are speaking to them individually about their specific circumstances to provide support and help them stay with us."

 

The news was not welcome by many employees. One said: “We were told staff were being let go in three phases, with two months notice in April, May and June.

 

"We were offered a redundancy package and if we wanted to relocate to Manchester, Stoke or Newbury there were some other options.

 

"We were then frogmarched back to the floor and told we still had our customers to serve."