Telecom calls on Indian contractors

Telecom has brought in 38 contractors from India to plug gaps in its 630-strong technology team.

The contractors – employed on short term contracts that range between three weeks and six months – are being accommodated in hotels and apartments during their stay in New Zealand.

They have been supplied by Tech Mahindra, an outsourcing firm based in Pune, India's seventh largest city.

Tech Mahindra employs 22,000 staff worldwide and opened an office in New Zealand in 2005.

It is majority-owned by Mahindra and Mahindra, India's fifth largest commercial group, but British telco BT has a minority stake.

Tina Hammond, general manager of shared capability at Telecom, says the company still has 200 vacancies in its technology team despite staff numbers growing 40 per cent last year.

It is about to kick off a recruitment campaign to attract more staff from within New Zealand and from Britain, Holland, South Africa and Australia. The number of contractors supplied by Tech Mahindra may grow to 50.

Ms Hammond says there have been no redundancies at Telecom as a result of the use of Indian labour, but a few local contractors have been replaced by Tech Mahindra's workers after turning down permanent roles with the company.

"We have had some contractors with us for a long time, where we now have a team of four working from Tech Mahindra as a team. "We were contracting them as individuals, whereas with Tech Mahindra we contract them as a 'service', which helps with our overall management."

Tech Mahindra's contractors are mostly involved in testing handsets before they are released, and in software development.

Ms Hammond says the contractors are paid the same as those supplied by New Zealand-based consultancies, such as Beyond Recruitment, which is one of its preferred partners and from which it sources a lot of business analysts and project managers.

Telecom's preference is to recruit permanent staff, but if this is not possible it turns to partners and third parties, she says.

- © Fairfax NZ News