There will not be another Telenor

The merger of Telenor with Airtel was a marriage between unequals. There was a huge difference in everything starting right from the way of work, work culture , systems , processes and almost everything. While neither of the companies was a little more good or bad, each one was different.

I remember at Telenor we entered the office on a Monday morning in a pair of jeans and t-shirt and started work sharp at 8.30 or sometimes a little beyond that,  but 5.30 was the time of dispersal . At 5.30, the first one to go out of the office was the Circle Business Head , no doubt he was the first one to enter office too. He always said , “ If a leader wants to preach something to the team ,he needs to practice it first “

We followed timings but that didn't mean we worked less, because had we worked less, then from the 12th operator in the market , Telenor India couldn't have risen to the position of number 4. Office was a place every employee looked forward to going. We never knew phrases like Monday blues or work pressure. We all worked and we enjoyed working .And then suddenly the company got hit by the 2G scam which resulted in the closure of many circles . From 13 we contracted to 6 circles but the enthusiasm never died. We fought in the market, remained positive and kept growing . But a company with 6 circles could not afford the exorbitant spectrum prices and finally we were sold , sold to one of the biggest operators in the country ,Airtel. We were told that Airtel would absorb all employees from Telenor after which followed  the process of rigourous interviews to fill up the vacant places in Airtel. A little more than  150 employees out of 2000 got through the interviews and joined  Airtel at whatever positions and locations they were offered . Many found opportunities outside Telenor and the number left was 700. The senior management team and leaders at Telenor assured  jobs to these 700 employees post the integration approvals came.

 On 15th May the approval happened, there was a townhall and the then senior management team of Telenor along with the senior management team from Airtel said they would find the best possible opportunity for these 700 employees. Some were positive of getting a position with airtel but majority knew it would be some kind of a golden handshake and that's what happened . Airtel could not give a position to these employees but offered them severance package and consultancy guidance . Telenor was over. The team was shattered .

It would be wrong to blame Airtel for being unable to give jobs to these employees because they never promised one. Airtel gave us the best possible solution it could. We can’t blame Telenor too for it survived as long as it could and did not behave the way some of the operators did. by shutting operations overnight.

Today when I hear radio advertisements and see bill boards stating Telenor is now Airtel , it fills the heart with nostalgia.. it seems as if it's a dream and soon the Telenor team will be back together in the same office from where we began working a decade back .

The Telenor office was a home away from home and the team was an extended family . There were employees who belonged to places like Orissa, UP, Bangalore and spent more than a decade in Patna working at the Patna Telenor Office . They all went back home but none of them were happy going back home because they were not sure of what were they  going to do next !

In 2009 when Telenor was launched, it was one of the biggest launches in India, In 9 years it attained a customer base of about 40 million and earned the name of the being the cheapest operator (Sabse Sasta). It built a work culture where every employee loved and lived  being a part of this company. And today it’s no more. In a few years everyone will forget that there was a company named Telenor in India. As a matter of fact, Telenor never came to India to go away ,it came to stay ! Then what went wrong, who is to be blamed and who is suffering. Some of these questions have been haunting many of us.

Shri APJ Kalam said ," Love your work but do not love your organisation because you do not know when your organisation stops loving you.”

Well  I completely agree with this .We may not love our company but what about the attachment with the team we were together with for almost a decade , the love we  had for being a part of such a wonderful team ? After all a team is made of humans with flesh, blood and emotions and an organisation is made up of that team.