An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

The mood at Dig­i­cel T&T is tense as the Dig­i­cel Group con­firmed that jobs will be made re­dun­dant as part of a de­cen­tral­i­sa­tion plan to re­main rel­e­vant.

In a state­ment on Tues­day, the telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions com­pa­ny said its de­cen­tral­i­sa­tion plan would im­pact some roles at the group lev­el, al­beit in sev­er­al mar­kets such as Cay­man, El Sal­vador, Haiti, Ja­maica, St Lu­cia, Trinidad, and the US, and that it had start­ed a con­sul­ta­tion pe­ri­od with staff.

Dig­i­cel said it “con­tin­u­ous­ly looks for ways to be more ef­fi­cient to al­low us to pro­vide even bet­ter ser­vice to our cus­tomers. The pace of change in our hy­per­con­nect­ed world is fu­ri­ous, and the onus is on us to evolve in re­al-time to en­sure we re­main rel­e­vant and com­pet­i­tive. Cen­tral to that is en­sur­ing we have the right tal­ent in the right places across and through our or­gan­i­sa­tion.”

A source told Guardian me­dia that last Fri­day LoopTT’s gen­er­al man­ag­er and chief busi­ness de­vel­op­ment of­fi­cer in Trend me­dia, which is a sub­sidiary of Dig­i­cel T&T, were giv­en let­ters that their po­si­tion would be­come re­dun­dant.

“The fir­ings on Fri­day were hush-hush and most em­ploy­ees found out through the grapevine. Last year they promised the re­struc­tur­ing would be over af­ter they sent home peo­ple. Now this hap­pened,” the source lament­ed.

In a memo sent to staff last Fri­day, Dig­i­cel’s Group CEO Marce­lo Catal­do said the com­pa­ny has its eyes firm­ly set on cre­at­ing a lean tel­co struc­ture that em­pow­ers the dri­ve for su­pe­ri­or val­ue cre­ation and puts its mar­kets in the dri­ving seat. At the same time, it has spent months care­ful­ly re­view­ing its or­gan­i­sa­tion to struc­ture and re-de­sign busi­ness to be fit for the fu­ture.

"This does im­pact some roles at the group lev­el and we have met with the af­fect­ed em­ploy­ees. We are com­mit­ted to as­sist­ing our peo­ple through this tran­si­tion and to en­sur­ing they are treat­ed with the ut­most dig­ni­ty and re­spect through the process. I ask you all to be sen­si­tive to this.”

“To those of you leav­ing Dig­i­cel, this is in no way a re­flec­tion of your tal­ent, hard work, or ded­i­ca­tion to the com­pa­ny. The world will nev­er stop seek­ing the qual­i­ties and tal­ents that you brought to Dig­i­cel and that con­tributed so much,” Catal­do de­tailed.

He fur­ther stat­ed in the memo that he un­der­stood that change is un­set­tling, but it's im­por­tant to un­der­line that with the right ground­work laid, the com­pa­ny will be pow­er­ful­ly po­si­tioned to go out and win in the mar­ket.

Dig­i­cel TT’s CEO Abra­ham Smith left the com­pa­ny last Wednes­day as he re­turned to the Unit­ed States to be re­unit­ed with his fam­i­ly.

Dig­i­cel's new CEO for T&T will be Pieter Verkade, the com­pa­ny's for­mer gen­er­al man­ag­er for the Aru­ba, Bonaire, and Cu­raçao clus­ter.