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Why telecom employees leave and how to understand why
Why field engineers, network operations and installation staff leave telecom jobs, and how to ask about on-call, travel, targets and growth at exit.
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Telecom · Internet and broadband providers
HR for Internet and Broadband Providers: Installers, Support Desks and Local Partners
A broadband provider keeps customers by getting them connected quickly and fixing faults fast. Here is how to run the installers, support staff and local partners who deliver that.
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Share your requirementsAn internet and broadband provider sells connections to homes and businesses, from a small local operator covering a few towns to a regional provider with several branches. The team usually has installation and repair technicians, a support desk, sales and collection staff, and a network team that keeps the core running. Many providers work with local line partners and franchise operators who handle the last mile and are paid by connection or by subscriber. Customers judge the business by how soon a new line is working and how soon a broken one is fixed. Subscriptions renew every month, so collection and complaint handling run through the whole year. See also HR for telecom.
- Plan
- Hire
- Onboard
- Manage
- Develop
- Perform
- Engage
- Retain
- Exit
- Improve
When HR is weak in internet and broadband providers, you may see
- Installations queue up
- Repeat visits for the same fault
- Partners work to their own standards
- Support agents absorb the anger
- Incentives push the wrong behaviour
- Technicians learn by following someone
- Branch managers decide everything
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
Who does the work in internet and broadband providers
HR here has to work for each of these groups, not only the office. The set-up below is written with all of them in mind.
- Installation technicians
- Repair and fault technicians
- Customer support agents
- Sales and field marketing executives
- Collection and renewal staff
- Branch and area managers
- Network and NOC engineers
- Local line partner supervisors
Where HR strains in internet and broadband providers
Installations queue up
Customers wait for a connection because technicians are in the wrong area or off sick, and sales has already promised a date.
Repeat visits for the same fault
A fault is closed by a technician and reopens next day, and nobody knows whether it was skill, parts or poor records.
Partners work to their own standards
A local line partner's staff behave and dress differently from yours, but the customer sees one brand.
Support agents absorb the anger
The desk handles outage complaints with little information from the field, and the more upset customers are, the faster agents leave.
Incentives push the wrong behaviour
Sales is rewarded on connections and collections on recovery, so customers are signed up who then disconnect or dispute bills.
Technicians learn by following someone
New installers pick up the work from a senior colleague with no standard method, so quality varies by who trained them.
Branch managers decide everything
Hiring, pay and discipline are handled branch by branch, so practices drift and head office learns about problems late.
HR topics for internet and broadband providers
Start with the topics that matter most here: Performance Management; Learning and Development; Recruitment and Talent Acquisition. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for telecom, not in general.
Performance Management
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
Learning and Development
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Recruitment and Talent Acquisition
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
HR Strategy and Workforce Planning
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Organisation Design
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Onboarding and Probation
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
Employee Administration
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Compensation, Payroll and Benefits
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Career and Succession Management
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Employee Engagement and Experience
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Employee Relations
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
Policies, Compliance and Governance
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Health, Safety and Wellbeing
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Retention and Attrition Management
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
Exit and Alumni Management
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
HR Technology and Automation
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
HR Analytics and Management Reporting
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
HR Operations and Governance
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
What a working HR set-up looks like
The pieces a internet and broadband providers business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Standardise the installation routine
A short method for installing and testing a connection, taught to every technician and checked on a sample of jobs.
What this coversHide
Standardise the installation routine
A short method for installing and testing a connection, taught to every technician and checked on a sample of jobs.
What this coversHideA short method for installing and testing a connection, taught to every technician and checked on a sample of jobs. The learning and development process supports it.
Link technician records to jobs
Each visit tied to the person, area and outcome, so repeat faults can be traced.
What this coversHide
Link technician records to jobs
Each visit tied to the person, area and outcome, so repeat faults can be traced.
What this coversHideEach visit tied to the person, area and outcome, so repeat faults can be traced. The HR reporting and analytics work sets out the view.
Write a partner standard
A brief covering conduct, identification, response times and complaint handling for local line partner staff, handed to each partner and checked now and then.
What this coversHide
Write a partner standard
A brief covering conduct, identification, response times and complaint handling for local line partner staff, handed to each partner and checked now and then.
What this coversHideA brief covering conduct, identification, response times and complaint handling for local line partner staff, handed to each partner and checked now and then.
Rebalance incentives
Rewards that reflect connections that stay, bills that are paid and complaints that are closed.
What this coversHide
Rebalance incentives
Rewards that reflect connections that stay, bills that are paid and complaints that are closed.
What this coversHideRewards that reflect connections that stay, bills that are paid and complaints that are closed. The performance management and incentive design work covers it.
Give the support desk field information
A simple channel from field and network teams to agents about outages and expected fix times, with a script for what to say.
What this coversHide
Give the support desk field information
A simple channel from field and network teams to agents about outages and expected fix times, with a script for what to say.
What this coversHideA simple channel from field and network teams to agents about outages and expected fix times, with a script for what to say.
Start by checking where you stand
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These checks take an afternoon and tell you which of the topics above to start with.
Share your requirements- Check how long a new connection takes from order to working line in each area.
- Count the faults reopened within a week and by which technician.
- List every partner whose staff represent your brand and when you last met them.
- Read last month's incentive scheme and ask what it makes people do.
Confirm with a qualified professional. What applies to you depends on your business, your state and your arrangements, and it changes. This page describes practice. It does not state a legal position.
How GullyHR helps
The services below fit this kind of business best. Each starts by recording where you stand, and every later report compares against that. We do not promise outcomes.
- Performance management and incentives
Incentives for sales, collection and technicians that reward lasting connections and closed complaints.
- Learning and development
A standard installation and repair routine that new technicians learn the same way.
- Recruitment process
A hiring routine for technicians and support agents that can be repeated branch by branch.
- HR reporting and analytics
A view of installation times, repeat faults and attrition by area so managers know where to look.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Our HR transformation approach
- 1
Assess
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
- 2
Identify gaps
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
- 3
Design
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
- 4
Implement
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
- 5
Automate
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
- 6
Measure
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
- 7
Improve
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
Blogs worth reading first
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in telecom, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
HR Management
Why employees need clear expectations before performance reviews
A review can only judge what was agreed beforehand. How to set expectations that are specific, written and revisited, so the review stops being a surprise.
5 min readRead article
HR Process
The training calendar nobody attends: fixing the learning and development process
A calendar of courses, a budget spent by March and no record of what any of it changed. What a learning and development process contains when it starts from need rather than from the catalogue.
7 min readRead article
HR Process
Why new hires don't turn up on day one, and what to do between offer and joining
Candidates who accept and never arrive are usually lost in the silence between offer and joining. What actually causes it, and a contact plan that closes the gap.
8 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Questions owners ask
Many providers use both. What matters is that the customer gets the same standard, so set the same method and conduct rules for either, and confirm the contractual position with a qualified professional.
Record each visit against a person and a fault type, find the pattern and then fix training, parts or process accordingly. Guessing at causes rarely helps.
Usually because they take complaints they cannot resolve, on shifts that are hard to sustain. Better information from the field and a clearer escalation route make the work more bearable.
Start with a few clear things: written offers, an attendance record, a standard installation routine and a monthly look at leavers. Add more as the team grows.
They can, when pay depends only on signing people up. Tie some reward to connections that remain and bills that are paid.
Our first questions would cover how long a new connection takes from order to working line, how many faults are reopened within a week, and what your incentive scheme encourages people to do. A reasonable first job is a standard installation routine linked to technician records. We then set out the agreed scope in writing.
More on HR for telecom
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