Rumor and Reality

As I mentioned earlier this week, on September 21 I will transition from Sprint to Ericsson. This transition was not a shock, in fact it could have been the worst kept secret at Sprint for the last year.The trade press was regularly commenting on the rumor. Sprint vendors were offering their knowledge of the matter very freely. This abundance of unofficial information only served to increase the uncertainty with the employees.

Sprint employees have had a rough ride since 2001. The cycle of lay off rumors, lay off announcement, lay off effective date, coming to terms with a lay off, and functioning with a smaller group of resources repeated each year, including 2009. The outsourcing rumors only served to increase fear and concern within the employee base.

On July 9th Sprint and Ericsson formally announced the plan to "rebadge" 6,000 Sprint employees to Ericsson. Since then, a steady stream of information has come from both companies. It is now a good time to compare the rumor to the reality. Employee fear and concern was largely due to the unknowns. For each unknown, we would fill in the blank based on our own understanding. These fears were largely unfounded.

• Rumor: For Sprint to save money by handing day to day operations, Ericsson would need to lay off people, cut salaries and benefits to become profitable.
• Reality: No lay offs are planned.
• Reality: Salary for each employee remains unchanged.
• Reality: Benefits package is at least as good as Sprint's was, and in some cases better.
• Rumor: Laid off employees would not receive a severance package.
• Reality: Any former Sprint employee laid off during the first 1 year of the agreement would receive the generous package that Sprint provides. After the 1 year anniversary, the Ericsson package of 1 week per year of service will apply.
• Rumor: Ericsson does not provide 401k or retirement plans.
• Reality: Ericsson provides a 401k plan with same matching benefit (0%).
• Rumor: The Ericsson outsourcing business model was to do the same with fewer people.
• Reality: The Ericsson outsourcing business model is leverage their investment in work flow systems and gain efficiencies Sprint could not. With that efficiency, they plan to bring on additional network services clients.
• Rumor: Ericsson plans to take the Sprint work overseas.
• Reality: Ericsson has create a new subsidiary in the United States for services business and based it in Kansas City.

And there are many more examples. The point is that all rumors I heard were false, other that the actual outsourcing. We tell ourselves stories in uncertain times. Those stories are based on what we think is true, however we have no way to tell if it is actually true. Rarely does the reality match the stories we tell ourselves.

It's like my grandmother always said, for every 100 things we worry about, 99 will never happen. She would have liked Bobby McFerrin. "Don't worry, be happy".