Employee relations

At O2 we encourage dialogue and open employee relations

We believe in engaging our workforce and we work to ensure our employees are fully involved in matters that affect them.

O2 operates a European Works Council (EWC) which brings O2 representatives together at least twice a year to discuss business plans and strategies, and to consider the implications for people of developments within the markets where we operate.

Alongside the EWC, O2 operates a range of employee forums, where representatives can learn about and discuss Company matters with senior management. We also recognise a range of accredited trade unions for full collective bargaining.

We respect people’s rights to belong to a trade union, and our Employee Relations team works with unions in the UK to build respectful two-way relationships.

During the latest pay review in the UK, the Company’s offer began to link pay, which is already above the industry mean, with performance.  While negotiations were initially difficult, agreement was reached last autumn on a pay structure linking reward to individual performance and market rates.

In the UK, we announced an internal reorganisation that will create 1,500 new jobs in our new customer service centre in Glasgow and 500 new jobs in our retail stores, but included some 400 redundancies largely in non-customer facing areas. This was achieved through open and active communication with employee representatives and the individuals affected.

Since our business was acquired by Telefónica, some redundancies have been announced within central functions at O2 headquarters.

We aim to continually improve employee relations by providing the best information we can about how the business is managed, to benefit our customers, employees, shareholders and local communities.