Profile: Tom Keeney

THE Gorbals in Glasgow were once known as Britain’s most notorious slum.

But everything that outsiders associate with the district is wrong, says Tom Keeney.

He describes the place where he spent the early years of his life.

“Strong community,” says Keeney, in a strong Glaswegian accent. “It was a large immigrant population, mainly Irish. It was great. Really happy. Played out a lot. The summers seemed a lot warmer than they probably were.”

Some say that growing up the Gorbals prepares you for anything in life. It certainly did for Keeney, who has risen to become director of workforce management at telecoms giant BT. He also leads BT’s Yorkshire board of 12 senior executives.

His Gorbals roots also gave him his lifelong love of Celtic Football Club. Keeney lives near York but holds a season ticket for the club. He describes himself as “quite a passionate” fan.

“I think I have got a good eye for a good player. I prefer teamwork to prima donnas. I like good football, no matter who plays it.”

I ask this HR man what makes a good manager.

“They need to understand people, number one. This is true of any manager that’s motivating a team. They need to play to people’s strengths and deal with weakness and support people to get better or move them on.

“They need to have clear values that come across not only to their players but wider than that, in the media etc. I think it’s really important that they set that example.

“I think as well as supporting the top players, they are seen to bring some of the lower to middle players to gel together as a team.

“There are parallels with business. The good leaders that I see they have strong people capabilities, strong values, they support their people, they develop their people, they demonstrate through their behaviours what they would expect from their team and where people are maybe struggling they help them along their way.

“They are all striving to get better. Unless you’ve won the Champions League, you’ve not achieved everything you can achieve. Good leaders are always looking to play in the top league and win it.”

Keeney’s journey to the top does not follow the conventional, predictable route of private school and top university.

Unemployment was high in Glasgow in the mid-1980s and after a short time at college he left Scotland in search of work in London.

He found it at the Heathrow branch of retail chain Allders as a senior sales assistant. Next, he got a job with British Airports Authority overseeing searches in departures.

Keeney says he was not majorly ambitious in those days; he saw a job as an achievement in itself.

But his time with BBA exposed him to unions, an invaluable experience.

Keeney recalls: “I was a young, naive manager, trying to coral a group of people who could have the airport clogged up back up to the M4 within about five minutes if they decided to search everybody. It taught me how to deal with a diverse team in a highly unionised environment,” he says.

Keeney has spent a large part of his career to date working with unions. They have been an important part of BT’s progress in recent years, he says.

He joined the group in 1988, working in customer service in the City of London, just after the Big Bang when newly privatised BT was facing strong competition for the first time.

With his union experience, Keeney moved into industrial relations at a time when the business was changing. Some parts were in growth mode, others were in decline. At the same time, BT was trying to rebuild relations with unions and increase the flexibility of the workforce.

He sees the key to achieving big change in large businesses is to make it meaningful for people and “making sure they understand what the narrative story behind why the change has to happen”.

Keeney adds: “You have to take some time in explaining that. You also have to listen as much as you explain. You have to be prepared to change when you get good ideas from people.

“Where I’ve seen or been involved with the most successful change programmes, we have had good people involvement at an early stage and we have been able to explain, even if it’s not short-term benefits, why there are longer term benefits for the people involved and the business.”

Keeney progressed up the HR ladder and gained a masters degree in telecommunications management.

He moved into operations with a job leading 2,000 engineers in Scotland.

He returned to HR to work on the creation of Openreach, BT’s broadband infrastructure business. In 2007, he was appointed to a group employer relations role.

Keeney helped the group address important changes to its pension scheme. He also helped manage programmes to reduce headcount from more than 100,000 direct employees in 2008 to around 90,000 today.

The majority was achieved through natural attrition and voluntary departures, says Keeney. BT redeployed more than 18,000 people, he adds.

“We had two or three big issues. One was around pension. One was about making sure that we were profitable and had cash to invest. The other was making sure we had the right cost base,” he explains.

“When our CEO Ian Livingston took over in 2008 he set out a very clear vision and strategy and I think we have had really good execution on the strategy and at the same time we have done it in the right way in trying to take people with us as we have gone through it.”

BT shares hit a near five-year high this month after the group reported a better-than-expected seven per cent rise in third-quarter pre-tax profit.

The group attributed the strong performance to demand for broadband and tight cost control, which helped to offset the combined pressures of regulation and recession.

BT is investing £2.5bn to take fibre-based connectivity to two-thirds of Britain by the end of 2014. Keeney describes the investment as “a significant milestone” for the group’s growth story.

“We are now an integral part of economic recovery in the UK,” he says.

“I’m interested in making sure we maximise employment opportunities in my role as director of workforce management, but also for my regional role,” he adds.

He says the expansion of superfast broadband will give businesses and consumers new capabilities.

On a deeper level, he believes that history will view fibre as being as significant to the UK’s economy as canals and railways were in the past.

“Having access to technology will make people think and work differently. I had to move to Glasgow from London to get a job.”

Tom Keeney Factfile

Title – BT Regional Director, Yorkshire and Humber

Date of birth – 19.01.65

Place of birth – Glasgow

Education – MSc in Telecommunications Management, UCL

First job – Salesperson in Heathrow Airport Retail

Favourite band – David Bowie

Car driven – Ford S Max

Favourite film – Anything with Robert De Niro

Favourite suit – Navy blue

Favourite holiday – New York

Most proud of – My daughter and my son