The telecommunications market is ripe to take advantage of new workforce opportunities provided by the gig economy.
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Embracing new technology is a cornerstone of the telecommunications industry. The internet of things, big data, infrastructure updates, the ever-revolving door of smaller, faster, newer devices – they’re all top of mind for today’s telecom leaders. However, fully adopting these new technologies to drive revenue, reduce costs and offer the best connectivity solutions possible to customers is no small task.
Beyond the trends mentioned above, telecom companies are also facing very specific industry challenges – the development and deployment of small cell infrastructure needs to be handled more cost-effectively than mobile macrocells and revenues are no longer in line with the proliferation of mobile data traffic. Moreover, customers access cable, internet and telephone services differently than they ever have in the past. Despite evolving industry and consumer needs, traditional hiring practices have been slow to adapt to the agility required to confront such changes. In fact, many telecom businesses no longer have the right in-house talent to adequately address these new developments. Today, the network engineers who work in the field and install equipment are almost a thing of the past. The telecommunications industry of the future needs software developers who can identify, create and strategize around the latest developments in media and content. The question remains: where is this talent?
Posting a job ad, reading hundreds of resumes, conducting interview after interview, and then training and onboarding, along with other standard hiring practices, takes more time and energy than many telecom and wireless businesses can afford to spend. In short, the hiring process is standing in the way of innovation. And this is truer now than ever before as technology changes every few months, if not weeks. The workers that were hired and trained last month may not be applicable to the business tomorrow. Companies need to move faster to stay innovative. As a result, industry leaders need to develop a flexible workforce model that augments their existing staff and enables them to quickly and efficiently bring on the right talent for each project or task.
This is the “gig economy.” As Carl Tannenbaum wrote for “Advisor Perspectives,” “The relationship between firms and workers has been evolving to a more transient arrangement for at least a generation and gigs are merely the latest chapter in this long-running story.” Hiring workers for a specific length of time or for a specific project is a successful model no longer limited to consumer-facing businesses such as Lyft (car services), Rover (pet sitting), Gigwalker (mystery shopping) and others. The “Uberization” of the world of work is now extending up the market and into larger enterprises like telecom and wireless businesses. Many of these companies tap into this specialized, independent workforce using cloud-enabled talent-access platforms. Similar to how online services such as Fiverr have given creative people a place to shine (and pad their incomes), these platforms make external specialists immediately accessible to telecom businesses on an as-needed, project-by-project basis. This way industry leaders can access talented, professional workers no matter where in the world they are, who have specific knowledge in areas such as “5G” or near field communications; they can bring these experts in to tackle advanced projects that align with identified skills and expertise.
To get more done with small cell and other technological advances that require increasingly sophisticated work, businesses need to increase efficiencies somewhere and the workforce is the most likely place. Addison Group found that nearly all (94%) of hiring managers surveyed in June 2016 were more willing to hire temporary workers than they were just five years ago – and many of these hiring managers are using talent-access platforms to make the hiring process financially and operationally efficient. These data-based platforms are capable of matching people to projects and tasks based on work history and merits, and recognize that experts could be located anywhere in the world. Workers are vetted within the platform for each project based on past experience, demonstrated skills and client ratings, and they come to the task with enough operational knowledge to get started right away. Then, once the project is complete, they can move on to other engaging projects and easily be rehired for a future task if and when needed. This is creating an increasingly hybrid workforce where full-time and contract workers are collaborating together to help telecom and wireless businesses keep pace with demands and industry evolutions.
Skilled telecom workers benefit from this gig model as well. It offers them the freedom to work on projects they are passionate about on their own time, leading to a more engaging career experience and potentially higher take-home pay. And telecom/wireless is not the only industry benefiting from this model: Nearly one in three U.S. workers earns some of their income through independent contracting and taking on multiple gigs in a sort of “portfolio career,” and, as of 2015, nearly 90% of businesses across the country used freelance workers in some capacity. What’s interesting about this is that freelance workers and experts can bring either highly specialized industry expertise or a specific competency coupled with best practices from across industries. And, as the telecom industry continues to shift and adopt new models, both perspectives will become incredibly valuable.
As the telecom industry undergoes radical changes brought about by new technology and increased content consumption, the businesses leaders who best navigate these challenges will be those who think differently about how they access talent. When telecom and wireless companies connect with available, expert talent, they can approach real-time changes within the industry quickly, dynamically and at a lower cost. It doesn’t get more agile than that.
Chris Collins is the GM of the technology, media and telecommunications practice at Catalant Technologies. He frequently advises innovative technology, research and advisory services companies on driving dramatic growth and navigating change. Prior to Catalant, Chris served as the VP of the technology and telecom practice at Millward Brown Digital.
