Telstra: staff must learn to bully!

Telstra has been accused of bullying staff and setting punishing sales targets to cut costs and increase efficiency.

A former Telstra team leader has told Four Corners that a management course instructed her to label union delegates as "dragons", inefficient employees as "submarines", and workers with a perceived negative attitude were to be called "savages".

Sales targets for call centre operators also doubled in one year and every minute of their shift was monitored.

In an interview to be aired at 8:30pm tonight, the former Telstra team leader says she quit when she realised she was bullying employees.

"That was just part of it and that was the way of the future," she said.

"My style was bullying because I had no choice, because if I wasn't doing it, I'd be getting it from up above, from my boss."

A Telstra executive has said the organisation must be run like a dictatorship if it is going to increase its efficiency.

In May, chief operating officer Greg Winn told a business meeting that the company had to be ruthless and underperforming employees had to be "shot" to get them out of the way.

"It's a cultural issue," he said.

"If you can't get the people to go there, and you try once, and you try twice - which is sometimes hard for me, but I do believe in a second chance - then you just shoot them and get them out of the way."