In many ways, the wireless tower industry is experiencing the best of times and the worst of times.
Tower companies are reporting the wireless industry is building more sites than ever, and the buildout boom is expected to last at least for the next year, if not longer. But tower companies are finding they can’t take full advantage of all the available work because of a shortage of employees skilled in site acquisition and zoning, construction management and other tower-related disciplines.
“We have absolutely had to turn away work,” said Mike Matthews, president and chief executive officer of Berkshire Wireless, a full-service wireless integration firm based in Massachusetts. “Everybody is walking away from work right now.”
Industry watchers say the tight labor market has created a situation in which some employees are hopping from company to company, inflating salaries and frustrating employers. Tower companies, they say, must find innovative ways to attract and, more importantly, retain quality employees.
“Tower companies for the past few years have been growing at such a pace that they are constantly looking for people with wireless skills,” said Jim Ballan, director at CIBC World Markets. “Generally, they have been raiding the wireless carriers for individuals who are more entrepreneurial types and who have worked on the design and development of wireless networks.
“There has been a lot of competition for top-notch people and some movement between tower companies,” continued Ballan. “I don’t think there has been a lot of in-house wireless skills development at the tower companies simply because training is both expensive and time consuming.”
Greg Sweet, president of Acquire Telecom Services, which provides project management, training and recruiting services, called the situation critical. He said the quality of work is likely to suffer unless companies begin to provide meaningful training to new employees, a factor he said has become conspicuously absent during the last year or so.
“They are just giving them a cell phone, slapping them on the butt and saying, `Go get ’em tiger.’ “
Incentives to stay
“We think the way to go is train your own employees, develop people and bring them along,” said Rich Berliner, president of Berliner Communications Inc., a company that provides infrastructure engineering, installation and site-acquisition services. “If we just try to steal from each other and rotate people around, it’s never going to work.
“The answer is to take the time and spend the money to develop people and to bring new blood into the industry.”
Matthews said Berkshire focuses on showing employees a career path at the company and provides training and a variety of professional challenges that create a more well-rounded set of skills.
“We say 95 percent of the people who know what they want will get it, but only 5 percent know what they want,” said Matthews. “We try to invest something back into their career.”
In addition, the company tries to offer competitive compensation packages and has hired a full-time human resources person.
He said the company focuses on hiring the best top-level employees it can, which allows it to hire younger and less-experienced employees to fill in the ranks.
Other companies say that having found too few available skilled employees within the industry, they are looking outside the industry for employees with skills that can translate to the tower industry. Many companies also are hiring recent college graduates.
Ron Bizick Sr., president at Management Recruiters, a Florida-based recruitment firm focused on the telecom industry, said he is seeing demand for and shortages of all types of tower-related employees, and his company has tried to recruit employees from the commercial real estate sector as well as civil and structural engineers. However, in many cases, he said, tower companies have immediate needs and are looking only for employees with industry experience.
The buildout boom
Berkshire’s Matthews said wireless carriers started out with aggressive buildout plans, scaled back for a while and now are in an all-out sprint to get sites built.
“They’ve thrown the switch back on, and everyone wants sites built yesterday,” said Matthews, who noted many carriers have oversold their capacity and now are trying to catch up with demand. “The industry has just cranked up 10 times in the last six months.”
Companies that want sites built immediately often offer lucrative contracts, creating a tricky situation for tower companies that must walk away from large dollar amounts in order to fulfill existing commitments or risk overextending their work forces.
“There are two philosophies,” said Brian M. Barrett, managing partner at The Everest Group, a Chicago-based company that provides site acquisition and zoning, permitting and project management services. “Some companies are taking whatever work they can get. We’re trying to grow at a slow and meaningful pace so we can maintain our reputation.”
Tower companies also must be cautious about hiring too many people to meet the immediate buildout demands.
“The problem is we are in a boom, but it could be a window of opportunity, and it could dry up quickly too,” said Matthews. “Work tends to come and go in waves.”
In addition to building functions into his company’s portfolio that will sustain it if buildout slows down, Matthews said he plans to increase his work force deliberately to take advantage of demand while keeping an eye on industry movements and being careful not to go overboard.
“There’s a saying that bulls get rich and pigs get slaughtered,” said Matthews. “We want to be focused on the work at hand and not get greedy.”
