NBN Co to axe 800 jobs in major restructure

NBN Co is planning to shed at least 800 jobs as part of a major overhaul of its business structure.

The national broadband builder plans to reduce headcount from 6,300 employees to 5,500 by the end of the year. 

The announcement, which first appeared in Comms Day, also saw NBN Co claim it had, until now, managed its contractor workforce "in line with requirements to complete the final stages of the initial build".

The company also stated it had paused the majority of internal restructuring activities over the last six months to ensure its network building and support remained afloat during the "increased data and operational demands" stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Top line management will also be impacted with the company's chief customer officer for business, Paul Tyler, exiting the business by August. 

As part of a top-end restructure, residential sales and marketing will be merged with business sales and marketing, under the leadership of Brad Whitcomb as chief customer officer.

Known as customer, product and marketing, the unit is designed to "streamline prioritisation, decision making and investment", according to CEO Stephen Rue.

"Working in close partnership with our retail partners, this change will bring about greater focus on our key customer segments across residential, small-and-medium business, corporate, enterprise and government, and importantly, the most vulnerable members of our community," he said.

Meanwhile, NBN Co will create a networks, engineering and security business unit as Network Planning and Deployment moves to an "agile model that will integrate the design, execution and governance of all work that drives service delivery from build through to a live service".

This unit will be led by Kathrine Dyer as chief operations officer. In addition, its strategy and transformation division will be expanded to include the company’s legal, data and analytics functions. This combined business unit will be known as strategic services and will be led by Will Irving as chief strategy and transformation officer.

Recently, NBN Co admitted in a court-enforceable undertaking that it misled a select number of Canberra consumers into thinking their services could be disconnected if they did not move to the National Broadband Network (NBN).

In May, NBN Co sourced $6.1 billion from Australian and international banks to give it extra "flexibility" amid the coronavirus pandemic.