Multiple sources have confirmed us that Wateen has fired at least 500 employees, posing recession as the root cause.
This rumor of downsizing at Wateen was in market for several days, until it matured yesterday when company reportedly fired 550 employees in total from almost all departments.
It is anticipated that Wateen has plans to downsize its workforce further in next phase, with equal value. Earlier, Wateen fired at least 200 employees three months ago.
Am employee at Wateen, (requesting anonymity)Â told us that staff is under high pressure, with no job security at all. He also confirmed that Wateen re-tested its employees through multiple interviews – and those who couldn’t justify themselves were fired.
We couldn’t arrange official words on this downsizing.
Wateen have poor human resource this is expected lot of fnf culture abt dahbi group companies
bad news !
check out the CEO’s Message ::
“”
At the start of each year, I have reached out to you to share our Wateen’s success story. Alhamodillah, I am delighted to communicate a similar one this year too.
Wateen has again delivered strong growth both in revenues of over PKR 1600 million and profits of over PKR 600 million which are comfortably the best in the telecom industry in Pakistan. We continue to be the largest VSAT service provider, retain our position as the second largest LDI and Broadband Company with Broadband internet connections expected to cross 100,000 shortly, and garnered another feather in our cap as the largest alternative enterprise data network provider in the country. Our ability to manage our costs, focus on revenue generation and continuous investment in technology, has delivered this success. But this achievement could not have been possible without the commendable collective contribution by you and all other Wateenites.
It has been a year of difficult economic conditions, security concerns across the country and the telecom industry facing a slowdown. In light of this we undertook some painful decisions of parting with some of our colleagues for the overall good of the company and held back on some investments that we had planned to venture into new businesses.
As we move forward, we remain optimistic about Pakistan and Wateen. I am absolutely confident, that we have the best of human resource amongst us which will propel us forward, and which we are committed to retaining the same. Our commitment will be to grow our business and sustain our position in the industry. For this we must endeavour to galvanise all our resources effectively to optimize our processes and systems, and ensure that you and Wateen remain the envy of the market and the industry.
I am confident that you and Wateen will add another page to our success story, this year. Inshallah.
I THANK YOU and to your family for your support and wish you the best.
Kind regards,
Chief Executive Officer
“”
Dear Miandad,
This is a regular message or email to employees from CEO. Tell me one thing, shall any CEO say that their company is going down. Its reality that Wateen Telecom is facing financial crises and it is downsizing the staff only and only for cost cutting because Wateen is payng heavy amount to FnF staff who absolutely unprofessionals. I am sure that wateen will no more in market within 1 year due its unprofessional policies.
We have thousands of new graduates being added every year in the market job cuts by company and no further investment by the companies mean we will have a huge talent lost at the same time that is bad
Yeah this news is confirm. Wateen is very bad in term of human resource … many people came and gone just b/c poor HR policies and poor managment. they dont fire people of high salary and high level even thoese who ……
[Comment Edited]
Not in terms of HR only, also in terms of service.
Services are not that bad. 1 Mbps in 700 Rs is quite attractive. while downtime is constant among all WiMAX and CDMA Broadband Service providers.
I share the feelings for those who ……… :)
Rabia??
Why were Rabis’s comments edited? Rabia can you re=phrase what you were commenting about!
Excuse me MISS…. that’s the reason to fire 500+ employees but you can’t say poor HR…. depends on the people how to tackle customers and i think wateen has made a good decision because some of the employee’s did’nt work well and some kind of corruption… so wateen has provided excellent services for customers and there is no doubt in it… HR is the main part of the organization but if the people are not well aware like you then firing of the employee is the right decision…
Regards,
Dear Zain,
Rabia is absolutely right. You are saying that it depend upon the performance of employees and some employees were not showing good performance that’s why they are no more there in Wateen. It is only your opinion.
Rabia said that there are number of people who are there till now and they are not willing with their work and have not any professional worth, even they are involved in corruption. I now number of people who are fired by wateen and they were 100% committed with their work and many from them were there since start of Wateen.
I also will say that it is only and only poor HR and Admin policies and decisions. I think the authorities makes policies on bed in night and implement these in morning very next day.
No doubt that wateen is trying to deliver good services to customer but it is badly failed to achieve their goals………
i also second that it has nothing to do with the performance. as their are many highly paid employees who were left untouched.
At the same Time i believe HR is helpless in this regards. they can not point at FnF (same Sect as the CEO) if they want to continue their job. and above that most of the key Positions were held by the same group so wateen is going no where.
The CEO’S SECT IS WELL RENOWNED FOR SUPPORTING POOR AND HELP LESS PEOPLE AS A TRADE TO ISLAMIC PRINCIPLES AND AQEEDA KHATM E NABUWAT. SO CORRUPTION IS A SMALL WORD FOR THAT
Exact figure is 580.
A Very sad news for those..who were running there kitchens on wateen salary. All those guys who lose their jobs..do not give up and be hopefull. Your Rizq is not in hands of Wateen. Its like you have been tested by the almighty, believe me you will get reward very soon. Just Be hopefull.
Wateen Telecom, should improve their HR Policy and kick out FNF of Abu-Dhabi group from their rows. If they dont then not even a 3 room company will buy your shares. One more thing to add, after this Abu-Dhabi group will sell out wateen’s 51 % or some more shares and they will be able to achieve this target only if they improve their HR policies, regarding Salaries, Grading system and hirings.
Its been a sound reality that companies are not run by Longhauls, Access networks etc, it is actually Quality minds which run the company.
I am very much dissappointed by this news. If all of Wateen GM’s and CEO just cut there salary by 5% for only 1 year things could be much better. I am sure now people in Wateen will don’t see them secure and things will be quiete different in next few months.
It happens every where in the world. when organizations reach crisis they used to make haphazard decisions and this is among one of many that wateen have made so far.
I Agree with Madam Rabia on this. although i have left Wateen last year but i have always been a well wisher.
the thing i have never understood about wateen is their long tier of managers. in wateen they have Senior Executives, than Team leads, than Asistant Managers, Managers, Senior Managers, Regional Managers, than they have country Managers above that they have Head of Departments and above them they have General Managers… i hope i am not missing any one :)
To me for running smooth operation one General Manager and Three Regional Managers and below them multiple Team leaders are enough.
The figure of over 500 suggest that they have cut down their work force employees with lesser salaries. and this huge tier stays as it is.
the most funniest thing is that at one point when i was a young engineer in Wateen. i thought i should take over their HR department and fix every thing by my self as a result i still remember that day when i was setting right in front of their GM HR at that time Mr. Saleem Hussaini he is the most gentle person i have ever meet he communicated me his wisdom and I found out that HRM is not that easy. and HR people can not make every one happy so basically MR. Tariq Malik the CEO is not the one who is taking these painful Decisions rather he and his Friends are making it painful for the HR department to take such decisions.
i hope no one will take these comments seriously; as they have never took it seriously before :)
For those who have lost their Jobs i can only pass my best Wishes and my message is do not stay at home for long time start some small business or go for Teaching Industry. and if you are still young than go for Higher Education. Alhamdullilah every one is well educated and well trained by Wateen Telecom so Inshallah i hope every one will get a better placement.
Best Regards;
Abdul Ali M Iqbal ( Ali Iqbal )
very well suggested!!
very bad news i hope no one will take these comments seriously; as they have never took it seriously before
:d:d:d:d:d:d
i must suggest those employees who have been fired forcefully should consult labour court.
Labour Court are use less in Pakistan. try to force your voice infront of these nonscence HR people
what do you think that those HR people who are involved in the downsizing will listen…..
Dear Guru,
People cannot approach there in labour court because they are offering one month salary at termination/resign by labour laws. Due to this action they are save in every constitution. Wateen has played a big game with all them who are fired. They are only and only offering one month salary and also deducting huge amount from their these funds.
Wateen:
The prevailing condition of wateen “disgruntled employees, irritated customers ” …..They should NOW pack their bags and return.
The lower level employees are out, what about the major salary holders?
most of fired staff are driver,labor,Cable gaurds and supervisors.
wheres Managers,Assistant managers,Executives ETC ????
Salary of labor 7500rs
driver 9000rs
Cable Gaurd 9000rs
Supervisor 18000rs
what you say about managers .a manager etc who takes salary in lakhs…????
Its more like a family and friends network, nothing more the same for warid check it out and fully justified. from engineering to products , to sales to customer engineering to finance——–> to pockets
Tarik Malik is going to be removed from ceo position soon as there are vast corruption and miss management charges.
i must say that today some more lower staff have lost thier job specially in wop department. It is very sad that one of the guy who got injured on the field and now he is useless for wateen that he cannot perform hard work for his whole life. he has served for the company and company left him alone. It was also observed that those who have been fired were mostly competent and those who are not were incompetent and loved by their bosses.
600 M profit
500+ jobs cut …..
now ITCN ……. minimum 5 to 10 lakh rupees will be showered on that event and all the last ones ……
sharam to ateee heee nahee hogeee …..
aur atee bhee hoge tooo Akram Durrani ko dakh kar bhag jatee hogeee ….. coz gate par joo bethaa hai …..
aur Us ghar mai Faristay nahee hotee jahan kuttay honnnnn
guru is right ….
a tea boy who is deaf and dumb, work also as a photocopier in Centrum …..
could any Manager or Assistant manger tell me what he had done wrong … why he was fired also …
max his salary was 7000 …. 4 to 5 stomach was with him ……
aray kuu gahriboo kee baduaee lainay par tulayy hooo …. khas tor par asay logo kee … jin ko pata bhee nahe kai woo bhe niklay ja saktay hain coz a tea boy work is to serve others…….. but he was served in this style ……
salute to all Wateenites !!!
i feel chootay loogun k sath sach maen bura huwa….
hopeing that the CEO also gets fired with his entire group of friends…..
Mr furrukh i pray your wishes may come true.. but what will happen to those lower and middle managers who had given the names of those who were worth while while fnf still serving…
U r absolutely rite as i was working in centrum and i no the name of that person.. we all called him (bhadai).
but kya karain yaar CEO ko apna khandan bi tu chalana hai……..
do any body know the reasonsss
This is too bad…. I pray for those who have been fired.
Guys (who have been fired), Please ‘Tawakel Allah’ he is the best and Raziq !!!
Well, its very unfortunate , this sort of problems are everywhere…favoritism and bla bla…
if u just look on the Email from CEO Wateen..he is confessing about cost savings & revenue enhancements…Then where does the chance of firing left????
or on the other side, he is trying to save his self and his buddies from the same wipes in front of BOD (Board of Directors)????
HR is been evolving in Pakistan, and unfortunately, its not been handling very well like it should be handled..i don’t know, Such cases remind me of Post World War I & Pre World WAR II conditions for labor rights and bla bla…
this is my request to all of HR professionals , that please behave in a way like u studied the practices and follow your instructions but in a tactful way. if you don’t know the solution for this cause then pls dont bother to sit on HR ceat. because HR core function is develop 2 Way relationship among companies and employees.
But favoring Top Mgmnt just for saving your ends will help you in your current situations but will never help you in long term.
i think cost saving initiatives can help companies to lower down the costs they are incurring like
Abandoned the use of following stuff in offices instead of firing :
1. Use of tissues on every employee table
2. only 2 pen for 22 working days i.e. one month
3. lighting sensors to save light for unoccupied areas
4. Strict Office timings i.e. 9 to 5 pm
5. only one writing pad for one month instead of 6 for whole month in which 3 went in drawers of employees.
6. Use of IP phones VOIP techonology , even on the GO
There are lot more you can think and innovate to save the cost instead of disturbing 100 lives without any reason.
Per do you all know what is the problem???
We people left empathy, empathetical practices “put ourselves in other shoes”…Buss this is the reason…
Just start talking about ISLAM…lot of people will give you lot of reasons for stopping stuff..but noone will give you such islamic rules to be practice by us daily , which is been practicing by everyone except Muslims i.e. Us !!!
Please promote empathy…always put yourself in other shoes..like all of the above commenters are doing…
Thanks!!!
Buddy! The Wateen HR GM Akram Durrani already possess a very bad repute in the coporate world when he fired several people in KESC. I dont believe when he was hired what was the actual criteria of hiring him. Also R.Tariq Malik cant see the lost list of GM in one such small company (15 GMs if i am right) having big salaries and his blunders of wasting huge revenue on some areas. It simply looks that he is hiding his mistakes by firing staff. Every body in wateen knows that how much he has been involved in benefiting his fnf.
Wi-Tribe & Augere can really learn from this.
Advices:
1. Do not built empires to prove u are a ‘big’ company.
2. Outsource, develop franchises at no-cost to you. Built relationships (talk to me if u want to)!
3. Outsource Customer services.
4. Out source maintenance of network.
5. Witribe and Augere, without LDI all that you need is 250 people to manage business in 10 cities.
Good Luck Witribe & Augere.
Wateen can still reel back from lost reputation as it has a infrastructure in place. I suggest concentration is needed on F&F factor. Normally in the world F&F at 10% is tolerable, anything above that can be a disaster. It has been observed in multiple cases….
I agree with Tariq J Qureshi. Tariq also add Qubee(new WiMAX) operator.
Well, i am agree with every point except outsourcing of customer services. because, you cannot put service delivery / recovery on outsource shoulders.
They will put you in pathetic mode of customer care. Decline in outsourcing is one proof for the argument.
Thx
Qubee is name of Product and Augere is the company both are one and the same. and Augere have acquired Supernet. so it already have all the specialized resources.
well outsourcing Customer Services and Maintaenance of network is always a good idea. because in that case a company will not be paying Number of Employees and a long chain of managers. rather they will be paying a fixed amount in terms of Out Sourced Services
you can always discuss such prospects with companies like AMZ Technologies we will always be their and welcome such offers.
I agree with Bits.
Outsourcing Customer service is not a better idea. Believe it or not Wateen Operations is the best in the market. Turn over time for resolution of complains and installation is really good and efficient. The bulk of complains and deployment which Wateen operations recieve every day is huge and the way they perform their job is brilliant. So big NO NO to outsource Operations.
what do yousay about the turnover time of consumer complains and installation. consumer customers waits for more than 2 days and even one week to get resolution of their complain buddy and for installations they even have to wait for one month. Ali that seems that wateen is similar in service with ptcl…
Most of you know who I am so let me help built a understanding in these very unfortunate circumstances
So let give you the justification of outsourcing model, from the carriers, vendors and workers prospective.
1. Firstly outsourcing is managed by companies who provide the network equipment and are knowlegable about the equipment, considering learning curves vary from 6-24 months for carrier employees(e.g. Huawei, Motorola, ZTE etc). This way technical staff is on vendors pay-roll instead of carriers payroll.
2. Vendor companies can economize or same set of people are used to service multiple carriers with a small core team on 24/7 standby for each carrier.
3. This allows the cost of service delivery to be reduced, and allows the flexibility to the carrier to manage upswings and down-turns in sales, to avoid drastic lay-offs as happaned in Wateen, Warid, PTCL and Mobilink.
4. One key factor that will evolve in Pakistan is development of domestic applications and support infra-structures, and that will be he new job market.
5. Yes I agree with most of you that Pakistan lacks corporate culture. Except for banking sector, other Pakistan business sectors have not seen professional corporate cultures either, and it was more of a mix of Seth and Corporate culture. Yes F&F is a major issue, but F&F cannot save the company either. Sooner or later experienced people have to be bought in. If you look at Telenor, it does have a robust corporate culture as F&F is not there.
6. CEO’s tend to bring in their own team of trusted sub-ordinates, so a weak CEO will develop a weak team, and that is the receipe for disaster. I assume in Telecom sector the top 4 companies are Telenor, Zong, Mobilink & Ufone.
7. Somebody talked about labor laws and courts. I am sure that when employees are hired, there is a contratual letter which says that either party can break the employment contract by giving a notice of 1 month, and I assume all companies who laid off people follow the rules. However all perks promised at time of hire (in written) have to be honored. Some companies give better exit packages to retain employee loyalty even when they are laidoff.
8. Please do understand that layoffs are a disaster for any company. Lot of money is spend on a employee when he joins and when a employee is laidoff or leaves, a valuable asset is drained.
9. The term of layoff also has a legal implication. If the same job is recreated, the person who was laid off has the first right to it. Please understand layoff and getting terminated is NOT the same thing.
Regards
TQ is 100% correct. i totally agree.
and i think we are dragging this topic a little too far from possibilities. most of it will never be considered. it is like talking in front of a Wall.
The management of wateen should now realise one thing that ‘cost cutting has also some cost’ which it has to bear in future. The companies cannot survive only by cutting its cost, this is the revenue which boosts up the companies in the industries and wateen should now think why it is being fail to increase the revenue.
The mostly layoffs are of lower grade employees who are never be involved in policy making, they are just executors of flop policies. The bad thing for wateen is that the wrong policy makers are still there.
hey is there anyone who is or has been employee of wateen telecom ?
pl let me know or send me cell phone contact of someone in HR i want to know about some employee of wateen!!
ali
03315673933
Now Wireless operation department will be outsourced.
Sajid Dastagr which was the head of Operation divison, currently running his company in side. he is doing work which was outsourced.
next when offically outsourced
CEO Sajid Dastagir
Rabia Azfar will be the Head of that company
Jawaid Miandad so called Manager larkaoo ka faida utahanay kai layaih.
Durrani Assistant Manager …. Bharam marnay kai layaih aur larkoo kai future sai khalnay kai layaih ….
kisi rozz miloooo phar batata hon kai faida kasay uthaya jata hai …..
Hey, i thing this is going way to far… dont mix your emotions in professional life please..
I have confirmed it from my sources that nothing of this sort is hapening.. so please do not drag this topic any further.
AOA
Anyone who wants to connected with Wateen Wimax… Contact:
– 0322-8898008
– 0322-4848558
Just call on above numbers. Now a days 60 % discount on upfront charges.
So Hurry… It’s golden chance for you people….
Is Wimax really being outsourced? Thats very interesting. can somebody from Wateen’s GM’s confirm?
I will be interested…remember its all back to starting point!
We don’t have confirmations, however, such rumors are sailing from Wateen’s camp lately. Also there is this Australian company interested in buying Wateen or running it on leased basis.
To Sir TQ,
Sir I still work in Wateen an di remember meeting you in 2005 when you were GM in Wateen sitting in EFU Bilding an dyou told me that a novel tech WiMAX is coming. Basically it was your brainchild.
Now coming to the point of outsourcing, I work in Engg div and I am proud that by taking the services in house our department saved almost 89M PKR in one year. Vendour was costing us a fortune for things. We did the same job by using local subcons at 25% cost.
To ALL. FnF culture is not present in Engg and Fianance (two div who work) at all.
Its in marketing and products.
Re. Firing: Firing happened in all cadres, so GMS also fired, Heads too, Senior managers too, Its is obvious that percentage make higher counts on lower cadres, so 30% of 800 executives and 15 GMs has different counts.
To Sana F….are you still at wateen or not?
HR or any department is helpless, its only CEO.
Sir TQ! can you advise a way forward for young professionalz in current telecom market? And wat are the chances that some money would be put in by investors in Pak Telecom.
Shahid,
Thanks for the compliment of Wateen being my brain child. You all are also to be complemented for its creation. Today, Wateen is still not lost. When a war is lost, the General take the blame, when a war is won the glory is shared by the entire army.
In 2005, Wateen had 3 key advantages that were to be used to launch the company. Unfortunately none of them were used. Wateen had (s) Warid cellular as a partner (b) had Warid Distribution channel and (c) Had Bank Al-falah as a internal partner and a distribution channel.
The soft-launch was to last for 6 months for first 3,000 connections, implementing 500 links for Warid franchise channels, and all Bank Al-falah branches in 22 cities were to move to Wateen giving 2500 links.
After 6 months, once the network was stable, we would offer the network to Banks (MCB, UBL, Habib etc .etc), insurance companies, manufacturing companies, small businesses in 22 cities- Total 95000-100,000 connections. The company was to have no more then 500 people. Wateen was to use Warid’s distribution channels.
We were to only go to consumer sector in year-2 when we would have increased the number of base stations by 3X as the price of infrastructure was to reduce by 30%. I assume the strategy was changed. Another thing that has changed is that in 2005 PTC, was a sleeping sick giant.
I joined PTCL in January 2007 and Vfone and DSL were launched in in June 2007 with EVDO to be launched in June 2008. PTCL is now fully awake gaint!
WHAT NEXT?
It’s a million dollar solution. Literally- I repeat a Million Dollar solution, and the company can be profitable in 12 months, and be the competitor to PTCL. It’s up-to the Board-of-Directors of PTCL to let it sink or sell it out!
Sir i think Wateen have to do alot to survive. just increasing the coverage cloud will never work in Pakistan… Practically i am not a very big fan of going Wireless whether it is 802.11 or 802.16 non of them can support unlimited clients.
So my Suggestion would be to implement their plans of DSL as quickly as possible. as i know that it is in their plans from a long time.
Secondly selling Internet is also not a very profitable business they have to focus more and more on local-loop traffic.
lastly i think they should introduce some VoIP Phones which connects directly on 802.16 network. because VoIP is the best use of available bandwidth and the most profitable of all.. only 64Kbps required for uncompressed G.711 and i am sure they will not want to use G.711 as G.723 and G.729 takes much lesser bandwidth as low as 8Kbps … more over mobile Video phones can also be introduce which would be First time in Pakistan H.323 Video or SIP Video traffic takes roughly 128Kbps to 384Kbps so it will be the real business and company can be profitable in 6 to 8 months…
Abdul understand 2 aspects of telecom business….
1. Voice is so cheap on cellular (Rs 2/minute), that unless you give it as unlimited for $2/Month for on-net, it will not sell.
Next what is the cost of Wimax handset for voice Vs cellular handset? Just look at what is being offered on Worldcall on-net CDMA. You will know whether or not voice will sell.
Here is USA two companies are giving VoiP unlimited calling within USA for $1.70/month (That is cheaper then PTCL line-rent). If you take the magic jack and put in on computer with broadband anywhere in the world, you are talking (like Vonage) to USA free of cost.
There is no money in voice…. VoIP with Broadband is only way!
http://paklandnet.blogspot.com
Check out this new way to call for free
I am too young to match any experience but what i am suggesting is 100% practicle 2$/month is 160Rs/month line rent for only 20Kbps of Bandwidth…
Magic Jack of Broadband Internet cost minimum 500Rs/month and consume alteast 256Kbps of Bandwidth… it can be a package of 800Rs/month for 1Mbps on DSL Broadband.. but just analyze following figures
1Mbps is equal to 51 x 20 Kbps.
so if we give a voip connection only for 1$/month which is 80Rs/month for Unlimited calls than we will get roughly 4000Rs/month for 1Mbps…
and offnet call charges will also be applied…
we hv to find vendors who are making 802.16e compatible mobile phone set i am confident that they will not be too expensive…..
dear all:
All higher managements are fail to serving the company now action take a owner of company. they take new intrwiev and geting new hiring and get fresh candidate’s .
Sir TQ,
Are you aware of Wateen going IPO?
2ndly any chance of you joining Wateen?
Has anybody contacted you? Professionally
it should’nt be an egoistic problem I can say.
Shahid
wateen is not a good sarvise. very very bad.
Indeed it is. With Naeem Zamindar as CEO and Zouhair Khalique on top you expect a lot worse. Qubee and wi-tribe have already taken the market. Remember both these chaps are friends from Mobilink.
Ali Imam
How many employees in total does Wateen now have…any idea anyone?
So 580 were fired (as mentioned above), but how many remain?
Assalam-O-Alaikum,
I am a young man of 21 year and possess good physique. I hope my application will receive your favorable consideration and you will give me a chance of interview. Seeking a position to utilize my skills & abilities in the (IT) Industry That Offers professional growth while being resourceful, innovative & flexibly. To join a dynamic organization in a position that requires Both Innovative development and quality assurance management
To diversify my knowledge with having a blend of managerial and Technical skills.
Yours faithfully,
Zeeshan Ali Kazmi.
Mobile No: 03468610288 – 03006189482
After all discussion the things remain the same ….. Wateen absolutely sucks…..
I sincerelyhope that Mr. Naeem Zamindar will have the wisdom to bring Mr. Saleem Husaini back and allow him to run HR the way it is supposed to be run. Poor Mr. Zafar Iqbal has no clue of HR.
Aziz