Airtel sends half of Africa staff to country bases
An Airtel shop in Nairobi. The firm has redeployed staff at its Africa headquarters to country offices. Photo/File
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Officials said those redeployed cut across all departments, including legal, finance, procurement, marketing and sales.
The move comes a year after the firm failed to secure land for its African headquarters from a parastatal although officials have not linked the two.
This is the first major staff overhaul Bharti Airtel has carried out at its Africa headquarters since it bought stake in Zain in 2010.
Bharti Airtel has redeployed 100 employees based at its Africa headquarters on Mombasa Road in Nairobi to country offices in what it termed as a move to strengthen its operations in Africa.
The move comes a year after the firm failed to secure land for its African headquarters from a parastatal although officials have not linked the two.
This has reduced the number of its employees at the headquarters by half. Officials said those redeployed cut across all departments, including legal, finance, procurement, marketing and sales.
However, some of the employees who did not want to change location due to personal reasons opted for early retirement, according to company officials.
“As part of strengthening our operations in Africa, we have over the past month redeployed close to 100 employees from Africa headquarters office to country operations in order for them to execute better and grow faster than competition,” David Ssegawa, chief human resource manager Airtel Africa told the Business Daily on Thursday.
This is the first major staff overhaul Bharti Airtel has carried out at its Africa headquarters since it bought stake in Zain in 2010.
The Indian firm in quarter one of 2013 said losses on account of global operations, mainly Africa, widened to 7.03 billion rupees (Sh9.7 billion) according to the Wall Street Journal.
The government had promised Airtel the land that would have hosted a huge backbone operation, but the deal failed to pass after opposition by the Postal Corporation of Kenya (PCK), the Attorney General and the then anti-corruption chief Patrice Lumumba.
The view was that a sale would have breached the Public Procurement and Disposal Act, 2005.
Mr Ssegwa on Thursday said employees at the Nairobi headquarters will now focus on governance and strategic thought leadership.
“This plan implies the need to enhance our country capacity and capabilities further by way of moving a good number of our experienced employees at the head office to the 17 countries we have operations where they will directly create value for customers,” he said.
On Thursday, Airtel confirmed some of the officials would be moved to the Indian telco headquarter. Nairobi will still be in charge of governance in Africa.
“At the same time we have also globalised some of the governance functions in order to build a truly global organisation that leverages global expertise, scalable platforms and standardised process.
“As a result some of the talent that was operating at the head office has also been moved to global office in New Delhi, India,” said Mr Ssegawa.
Opposition to the land sale arose despite Airtel having sought and won the backing of the two principals in the then coalition government — President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga.
Mr Kibaki had in July 2010 ordered the Finance, Lands and Information ministries to find suitable land for the African headquarters to host a regional call centre employing 1,000 people as part of a Sh12 billion investment.
But the sale of the 2.36 hectares effectively stalled in August 2011 after the Treasury tabled before the Postal Corporation board a rival bid to buy the same piece of land at nearly double Airtel’s offer.
With the collapse of the land deal, the Indian telecoms giant seems to have quietly dropped the idea and the redeployment of staff from Nairobi could make the policy makers rue the decision to let the offer lapse.
