T-Mobile CEO commits to uphold Sprint’s legacy, keep major jobs presence in Kansas City
Even after the end of the Sprint brand, T-Mobile remains committed to upholding the storied company’s legacy in Kansas City, CEO Mike Sievert said.
He said T-Mobile will remain a major employer in the area. T-Mobile closed its merger with Overland Park-based Sprint Corp. in April. This week, it completed much of the work of phasing out the Sprint brand, moving stores and customers under the T-Mobile umbrella.
Throughout lengthy merger talks, T-Mobile pledged to keep a second headquarters in Overland Park. Some industry experts are skeptical of that promise, but in a statement to The Star, Sievert said that’s still the plan.
“We’ll absolutely continue to be a major employer in the region as Sprint’s campus in Overland Park becomes T-Mobile’s second headquarters,” he said.
At its height, Sprint was the area’s largest private employer, with more than 20,000 locals on the payroll. But after years of spin-offs and reductions, its presence diminished. Since the merger, T-Mobile has already cut more than 500 local jobs, with about 5,000 employees now based out of the Overland Park campus.
But Sievert said some legacy T-Mobile employees are relocating to the Kansas City area. And he said the company plans to expand its local retail footprint.
“We don’t take being a major employer in any region lightly. It comes with a responsibility to the community,” the CEO said. “This is a priority for us in the Seattle area, and it’s a priority in Kansas City as we build on Sprint’s history of support for the local community.”
As part of the merger, T-Mobile committed to adding 1,000 employees to a new customer experience center in Overland Park. But company leaders did not respond to The Star’s questions about the status of that effort.
Sievert’s statement pointed to the company’s recent rebranding of downtown’s Sprint Center. Now the T-Mobile Center, he said the venue will add “extra perks and surprises” for T-Mobile and legacy Sprint customers once it reopens to the public.
T-Mobile has phased out the Sprint retail brand, moving customers to the T-Mobile brand of stores and products. But Sievert said the Sprint name still holds value and the company “will find appropriate ways for the Sprint brand to continue.” Officials said that means the name may live on in some stores or products on a smaller scale.
“When we started this merger process, we knew it was going to be a great combo, because together, we’ll take the best from both companies, build a network second to none and change wireless for good,” he said.
Commitment to the community
Aside from its employment status, officials say Kansas City can expect an active corporate citizen and philanthropist in T-Mobile.
“I think they absolutely should expect to see T-Mobile just as present, if not more than Sprint was in the past,” said Deeanne King, a Sprint veteran and now executive vice president and chief human resources officer at T-Mobile.
The T-Mobile Foundation will match employees’ charitable giving up to $2,000, King said. And it will donate $10 for every hour employees volunteer at nonprofits. Sprint previously offered similar programs, but ceased them because of financial difficulties, she said.
Sprint, its foundation and employees have played outsize roles in the community over the years.
“We’re all hopeful that the merger will result in the same kind of community support we have received from Sprint in the past,” said Brent Stewart, president and CEO of the United Way of Greater Kansas City. “They have been a very strong philanthropic partner to many nonprofits across the region.”
Sprint employees for years were among the top five givers to the United Way’s annual campaign, Stewart said. He pointed to 2012 as a recent high water mark: With Sprint’s then-CEO Dan Hesse leading the local campaign, employees contributed $2.1 million.
Outside of United Way, Stewart said Sprint’s workers have actively supported all manner of nonprofit and civic groups. And the Sprint Foundation has invested its own dollars into the arts, disaster relief and efforts to bridge the digital divide.
“There are a lot of agencies that have done well and continue to do well because of the investments that the Sprint Foundation made with those organizations early on. They’ve just been tremendous,” Stewart said.
Blending two cultures
As merger talks dragged on for years between the two firms, Sprint officials implemented special perks like minimum cash bonuses as it worked to retain employees at a time of ultra-low unemployment.
Since the merger closed, King said employees of both T-Mobile and Sprint have participated in surveys and focus groups to help leaders weigh the separate cultures.
“Both legacy companies actually have really healthy cultures, which is really, really good as a starting point,” she said. “And often when mergers go awry and you’re trying to integrate two legacy companies it’s when they’re not so healthy or one is really strong and the other’s not that you seem to have more problems.”
Analysts often cite the two disparate cultures as a cause of friction in Sprint’s ill-fated 2005 merger with Nextel.
King said the surveys also found that employees largely shared the same values around innovation and disruption in the industry, diversity and inclusion and focusing on customers.
“So I think we’re starting culturally from a good spot,” she said. “Of course, there’s a ton of work to do. And culture isn’t built in a day.”
But there’s no question that the coronavirus pandemic has made the work of bringing two teams together more difficult.
“It got super complicated,” King said. “I never thought I’d be, you know, running an 80,000-person organization from my kitchen.”
She said the merged company’s leadership team has yet to meet together in the same room since the deal closed. Big kickoff events had to be put off, though the company plans some giveaways and other programs to help employees celebrate the move.
“We’re doing our very best,” she said. “We worked on this thing for two years...Just getting it across the line has been a huge accomplishment.”
