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Findings and Recommendations Final Conference
of the Project Analysis of the obstacles to the
development of the full potential of employment
in the telecommunications sector Luxembourg,
September 19, 2000 Dr. Erich Latniak
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The Project

• Design
• focus on new and growing business areas
  internet and mobile
• skills and competencies
• work organisation
• conditions (e.g. salaries, working times)
• described for 3 selected core functions

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• Method
• 25 interviews in 6 different countries
  (management, HR, employee representatives)
• literature

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The Project - Core Functions identified
Product Development Marketing

• Direct Sales
• Shops
• Call Centres
• Internet
• Key Account Managers (for business customers)

- Management - HR - Finance
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Information Support for the customer Help Desk
Technical and Support Network Infrastructure
Production
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The Findings

• Challenge 1 Far-reaching changes in skills
• Technical skills (e.g. equipment specific skills
  ltgt broad basic technical understanding)
• business oriented new mindset
• extended competencies in communication and
  interaction with internal and external suppliers/
  customers
• hybrid tasks - need to learn and adapt to new
  and unforeseen situations

Institute for Work and Technology

• Challenge 2 Work organisation
• unfolding individual skills potential,
  creativity, and productivity by enabling
  motivation, skills development, knowledge
  management and teamwork
• partly compensate skills shortage
• co-operation and co-ordination of different tasks
  and units

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The Findings

• Challenge 3 Shortage of highly skilled employees
• small group of employees (in terms of numbers)
  but crucial for the development of the company
• limited supply while demand is increasing
  crying need
• danger of burnout

Institute for Work and Technology
There is no immediate solution due to the limits
of the national education systems and the
increasing demand of the IT industries
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The Findings

• Shortage of highly skilled employees
  (estimations)
• 500.000 open positions in Europe in 1998 gt
  1.7 million in 2003 due to growth in net
  technology (IDC,1999)
• shortfall of 600.000 networking professionals by
  2002 in Western Europe (particularly in countries
  with high adoption rates and inflexible skills)
  (IDC/Boyd Rajah1999)
• 60 of the Executives in Global Companies say
  finding e-commerce skills is top issue (Forrester
  Report, Oct 1999)
• costs 380 billion Euro/GDP loss over next 3
  years, 100 billion Euro in wage revenue to be
  lost over next 3 years (Source Datamonitor)

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The Findings

• Danger of Burnout
• high pressure on teams limited time gt
  extremely long individual working hours
• uncertainty of success technical viability -
  economic success gt Nobody is sure of nothing in
  this business.
• continuous need of the same people in different
  projects (parallel/sequentially)
• co-operation and interaction for creativity
  different professions, close knit set of people
  gt well prepared for teams?

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The Findings

• Efforts to cope with the situation
• company internal labour markets
• internal training (internet colleges, corporate
  universities)
• insourcing
• co-operation with universities - bridging,
  induction process
• no immediate solution, need for mobilisation
• national labour markets
• headhunting poaching
• international labour market
• US-initiatives (115.000 greencards in 2000)
• specific tasks - cultures as limits

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The Findings

• Core Function Information support (Help Desks)
• people available on the labour market
• qualification needs underestimated
• trend towards outsourcing lower quality services
  (less growth but smarter jobs)
• uncertainty on substitution effects (internet
  based support, automated reply, etc.)

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• Core Function Technical support
• presently, no problem in finding people
• changing demand due to new infrastructures (UMTS)
• indications of beginning shortage (poaching)

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The Recommendations HRM

• Mobilisation of the internal skills potential
• growing importance - labour markets, specific
  tasks
• induction process of highly skilled staff
• careful use of people
• family friendly arrangements

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• Availability and portability of vocational
  qualifications
• stepwise learning, cumulative certification,
  modularity
• flexible internal career paths
• adapted reward systems

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The Recommendations Work organisation

• Improvement of work organisation
• enabling creativity and productivity by unfolding
  individual potential
• flat structures
• project work - horizontal careers
• adequate management styles

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The Recommendations Training

• Vocational training
• strengthen dissemination of IT-skills and
  internet-related user competencies (Lisbon
  Declaration)
• Learning at Work gt balance between production
  needs and individual qualification efforts
• intensify efforts in training for information
  services (Help Desks) and clarifying whether
  this type of work is a profession
• strengthen vocational training efforts for
  technical support staff in order to avoid
  shortages in the future (UMTS)

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The Recommendations Education Systems

• Universities
• specific education efforts necessary
  universities should be supported and encouraged
  to develop adapted technical curricula to
  increase the supply of skilled people for
  convergent sectors
• including an introduction to team work as a
  compulsory element in the education of engineers

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