'The right people at the right time, doing right job at right cost'

Dionisia Tabureguci
The importance of having the right people at the right place at the right time and at the right cost has never been more real than in the telecommunications industry.

With the advent of new technologies evolving the business and its needs, companies in bigger economies have learnt their lessons on the need for the so-called "rightsizing" and where some have failed, the grinding axe of fierce competition had either cut them down to size or cut them off completely. In the Pacific region, this adage has become a very real factor as companies migrate to an IP based network where the technology change is also bringing with it an evolution in the human resource needs of a company.

In recognition of this, the Pacific Islands Telecommunications Association  (PITA) with the help of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) had been running a series of workshops for PITA members in an effort to get these organisations ready for impending changes.

In November, the third in this series of workshops was held in Suva, Fiji and it addressed the factor of Human Resources Rightsizing, a concept which is still new in this part of the world but nevertheless acknowledged to be a necessary component of change.

Human resource managers from PITA members in the Asia and Pacific region came together to share experiences, management tools and guidelines and trade solutions during the three-day workshop, which was described by all participants as being "very relevant".

Rightsizing, according to Jean-Claude Faure, has become the key word in the reform of the telecommunications industry worldwide because as information and communication systems become more efficient, there is lesser need for staff. It therefore becomes important to have the most efficient coordination by having the "right people at the right time doing the right job and at the right cost."

Faure is the Human Resource Administrator for the ITU and was the resource person at the Suva workshop.

"There is concern that when we talk about rightsizing the staffing schedule, people think we are talking about downsizing and there is nothing beyond that. They are wrong. 

"Indeed because of the evolution of technologies, we don't need so much technical staff as was required in the past.

"The performance of the Information system and the performance of these organisations has increased so much that the size of staffing schedule globally has decreased.

This does not only apply to telecommunication companies but to all industries.  However, when we talk about rightsizing, we try to work more on the deployment of staff, on the evolution of the skills so that the same people can match and address new challenges, match new objectives.

"So I think rightsizing is talking about rearranging staffing schedule in a positive way, to avoid creating catastrophic scenarios that rely mainly on downsizing processes," said Faure in an interview with ISLANDS BUSINESS.

For most companies in the region, things have yet to reach that stage but HR managers already acknowledge that the change in the air may even mean that the job that they do would need to be described in a new ways to properly reflect an evolved organisation.

"We used to have executive manager positions under the chief executive officer," said Tabanteiti Rokoua, Human Resources (HR) manager at Telecom Services Kiribati Ltd.

"What we have now are general managers. We used to have executive manager engineering but now, it is general manager network cooperation and the idea is to give the position more accountability," she added. 

Christian Nieng, manager HR and administration at Solomon Telekom Ltd, said the changes brought by new technologies such as GSM this year has meant that staff had to be re-trained and competency reassessed. 

The Pacific participants of this workshop did have something to learn from their Asian counterparts, who have been through most stages of the industry's transformation.

But what would perhaps be a very decisive point for telecom companies in the region would be their forced migration to New Generation Networks, which is lesser driven by the now seamless integration of voice, video and data over the IP-based network than the real need to upgrade as a result of manufacturers moving in that direction.

NGN, being a so-called 'hip' word for telecom companies worldwide, carries with it a vision of a truly transformed information and communications arena, where the lines between a telecom company and that of traditional media such as radio and television are blurred. 

Again, this is anticipated to impact the HR structure of an organisation but as such, the move to NGN must not be seen as one that would put pressure upon these organisations, said Faure. 

Instead, it should be looked at as an opportunity for a new professional life for people in the telecom business.

"Today, we are entering the multimedia era but we are still relying on digital techniques-so that is not such a big change. 

"But this also means that the power of the network has also increased so we can be very creative in terms of new services that rely on broadband techniques or IP-based techniques and this is a new challenge for the staff. But it is not the first one for the world," said Faure.