Case Study: T-Mobile – Intensifying the Learning Gain

T-Mobile, US, is a part of T-Mobile international, one of the top three global wireless carriers and a proud subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom AG. ‘In a world full of busy and fragmented lives…wireless communication can help’. This is what T-Mobile believes. With its headquarters at Bellevue, Washington, T-Mobile reaches 268 million Americans, with the support of a 29,000 strong workforce. In the year 2006, T-Mobile introduced Smart phones with solutions and received the highest ranking in wireless customer care by J.D. Power and Associates. They continued to receive such high ranking in wireless customer care for several consecutive years. With the back up of learning organizations, principles, and practices, T-Mobile is truly emerging as a world-class wireless communication organization for others to emulate.

T-Mobile’s customer service division is a compelling place to work in. People enjoy their work and get continuous opportunities to learn and develop. The focus on customer services at T-mobile is not just limited to sharing information, but also to adding value for customers through knowledge acquisition. Their philosophy is to support the learning of their employees not just by training and development programmes, but also by creating a mutually supportive happy work environment.

T-Mobile’s customer contact centers are standardized and have cyber café and free Internet service availability to all staff members, learning development centres, relaxation and recreation rooms with table-top football, play stations, vending machines, air conditioning, vibrant color schemes, space age design, ample room for each employee, and a subsidized cafe/restaurant. T-Mobile encourages its staff members to make use of both the learning development centers and the cyber cafes for their own personal development and recreation. With such backup, training, and development support, T-Mobile could excel in its customer services. T-Mobile believes that learning can take place best in formal and informal technology-based, self-managed methods.

The learning process at T-Mobile starts with seminars and workshops for team managers to refresh their managerial skills and concepts. Then they extend it to the next stage, partnering with the ‘mind gym’, to offer high-impact, 90-minute sessions in over 60 topic areas. Each face-to-face session involves up to 20 people learning and practicing new techniques and ways of thinking. After the session, the delegates receive weekly e-prompts that remind, refresh, and entertain. Individuals also provide open learning workbooks to back up the programmes and to promote self-development and accountability.

The workouts received excellent feedback, and a wide variety is now offered to each contact centre, so that each centre management team can play for the key development requirements of its managers. Interestingly, middle to senior managers who have experienced the courses have welcomed the approach and managers outside of the Customer Services Directorate (such as technology managers) have submitted requests for being allowed to join the future sessions.

Further development has concentrated on the design of seminars and workouts for customer service advisors, both as ‘refreshers’ and to implement ‘toolkits’ for new items as required. The toolkit concept has been developed further so that rather than the training advisors leading all sessions (which are no longer than 2 hours), Team Managers can use the material and integrate them into their team briefings or in development sessions. This has helped to develop the team manager’s skills and develop responsibility, freeing the training team to facilitate and design future programmes.

Issues and Developments

Design concepts - delivering shorter sessions has meant that the trainer (or Team Manager) has to encourage and involve the participants more quickly, in order to ensure that they cover the objectives of the session and the delegates reach the desired outcomes. This has meant a review of design techniques and an increasing focus on accelerated learning techniques and neuro linguistic programming (NLP) methodology.

E-learning – A key project is now underway for developing modules for the Customer Service Advisors that will make induction training more effective. This form of development can be delivered in short burst modules of 10, 20, and 30 minutes. This form of development also supports information communication technology (ICT) skills development.

Skills developments – T-Mobile has also been a key partner in the Tyne and Wear DfES Skills for Life Pathfinder, led by the Tyne and Wear Learning and Skills Council. A week long in-company event to promote skills development and learning among staff consisted of events such as a T-Mobile Directors ‘Desert Island Booklist’ hosted on the intranet, a book swapping scheme, and a national T-Mobile Intranet literacy competition for the entire staff.

On-going evaluation – The new approach will continue to be evaluated in order to ensure that it successfully meets the company’s needs, develops new skills, and enhances performance, whilst fostering a motivation to learn among the staff.

Questions and Answers:

1. Discuss critically the T- mobile case and explain the learning culture prevalent in the organization.

2. Can you outline the learning model in T-Mobile? Highlight various learning organization qualities in any Indian corporate office.  
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