Industries
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.
7 min readRead article
Telecom · Managed network services and network operations centres
HR for Managed Network Services and NOCs: Engineers, Shifts and Escalations
A managed network provider watches and fixes other people's networks around the clock, and its promise is only as good as the person on shift at three in the morning. Here is how to build rosters, skills and escalation that hold up.
Not sure what you need? Tell us about your business in six short steps and we will come to the first meeting prepared.
Share your requirementsA managed network services company or network operations centre monitors and supports networks for clients, or for its own business, across routers, switches, firewalls, links and wireless. Work is organised in tiers: first-line staff watch dashboards and log incidents, second-line engineers diagnose and fix, and senior engineers handle complex faults, changes and client reviews. The operation runs through the night and on holidays, and each client contract carries response and restoration targets. Engineers carry vendor certifications that clients ask for by name, and good ones are courted by competitors and by clients themselves. Shift work, alert fatigue and handover quality shape both service and attrition. See also HR for telecom.
- Plan
- Hire
- Onboard
- Manage
- Develop
- Perform
- Engage
- Retain
- Exit
- Improve
When HR is weak in managed network services and network operations centres, you may see
- Night shifts wear people down
- Handovers lose information
- Certified engineers are costly to keep
- Escalation paths are unclear
- Alert volume drowns the team
- Growth is a ladder without rungs
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 managed network services and network operations centres
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.
- First-line NOC monitoring engineers
- Second-line network engineers
- Senior and escalation engineers
- Service delivery and account managers
- Change and release coordinators
- Shift leads and duty managers
- On-site support engineers
- Pre-sales and solution architects
Where HR strains in managed network services and network operations centres
Night shifts wear people down
Engineers on permanent or long rotating nights tire, make mistakes and look for day jobs, and the rotation is often decided by whoever complains least.
Handovers lose information
An open incident passes between shifts with a few lines of notes, and the next engineer starts again while the client waits.
Certified engineers are costly to keep
Clients ask for named vendor certifications, the business pays for them, and a certified engineer who leaves takes both the credential and the training spend.
Escalation paths are unclear
When a fault passes first-line skill, the engineer is unsure whom to call, and a senior engineer is woken for matters a second-line person could have handled.
Alert volume drowns the team
Constant low-value alarms leave staff numb, and the real incident is noticed late. Complaints about it are treated as attitude, not as a design problem.
Growth is a ladder without rungs
First-line engineers see no route into second-line work or into customer-facing roles, so the ambitious ones leave within a year or two.
HR topics for managed network services and network operations centres
Start with the topics that matter most here: Organisation Design; Learning and Development; Retention and Attrition Management. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for telecom, not in general.
Organisation Design
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Learning and Development
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Retention and Attrition Management
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
HR Strategy and Workforce Planning
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Recruitment and Talent Acquisition
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
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.
Performance Management
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
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.
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 managed network services and network operations centres business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Design a fair shift rotation
A published roster with limits on consecutive nights, a rest rule between shifts and a clear way to swap, built with the shift leads.
What this coversHide
Design a fair shift rotation
A published roster with limits on consecutive nights, a rest rule between shifts and a clear way to swap, built with the shift leads.
What this coversHideA published roster with limits on consecutive nights, a rest rule between shifts and a clear way to swap, built with the shift leads. The attendance, shift and leave process holds the rules.
Standardise the shift handover
A fixed handover note with open incidents, client commitments and pending changes, and a short overlap between outgoing and incoming engineers.
What this coversHide
Standardise the shift handover
A fixed handover note with open incidents, client commitments and pending changes, and a short overlap between outgoing and incoming engineers.
What this coversHideA fixed handover note with open incidents, client commitments and pending changes, and a short overlap between outgoing and incoming engineers.
Map tiers, skills and certifications
A skills record by engineer and client contract, with the certifications each account needs and who holds them.
What this coversHide
Map tiers, skills and certifications
A skills record by engineer and client contract, with the certifications each account needs and who holds them.
What this coversHideA skills record by engineer and client contract, with the certifications each account needs and who holds them. The competency and talent management work builds it.
Define escalation by incident type
A one-page ladder showing who is called, when and how, with named backups, so seniors are woken for the right reasons.
What this coversHide
Define escalation by incident type
A one-page ladder showing who is called, when and how, with named backups, so seniors are woken for the right reasons.
What this coversHideA one-page ladder showing who is called, when and how, with named backups, so seniors are woken for the right reasons.
Create a visible progression path
Written criteria to move from first-line to second-line and onward, linked to certification and observed work.
What this coversHide
Create a visible progression path
Written criteria to move from first-line to second-line and onward, linked to certification and observed work.
What this coversHideWritten criteria to move from first-line to second-line and onward, linked to certification and observed work. Performance management carries the reviews.
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- Count how many consecutive night shifts each engineer worked last month.
- Read three recent shift handover notes and ask the next shift whether they were enough.
- List client contracts that require named certifications and who currently holds each.
- Note how many times a senior engineer was called outside hours last month and whether it was necessary.
- Ask first-line engineers what they would need to be promoted to second-line.
- Confirm with a qualified professional the shift, night work and employment obligations that apply to your network operations business.
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.
- Attendance, shift and leave
A published rotation, swap rules and rest limits for a 24x7 operation so cover does not depend on favours.
- Competency and talent management
A skills and certification map by engineer and client contract, and a path from first-line to senior work.
- Retention and attrition
A look at where engineers leave, at which tier and after how long, and what keeps the certified ones.
- Learning and development process
A plan for certification spend, study time and a sensible commitment from engineers who are funded.
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
Everyone reports to the founder: when and how to redesign the structure
A flat structure works until the founder becomes the only route to a decision. How to tell when you have passed that point, and how to redesign without a reorganisation.
8 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 Management
How to recognise and address employee workload problems
How to spot an unmanageable workload before it becomes an exit or an error, what to look at, how to talk about it and what to change, without guessing.
5 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Questions owners ask
Use a published rotation with limits on consecutive nights and rest between shifts, and avoid leaving nights permanently with the newest or most junior people. Ask your engineers what rotation they can sustain and review it every quarter.
Open incidents and their state, client commitments due, pending changes, known risks and anything unusual. A short overlap between shifts, and a written note both ways, prevents most repeated work.
Some firms agree a reasonable commitment period in return for funded certification. Keep it fair and written down, and ask a qualified professional before using any clause that recovers cost.
Write an escalation ladder by incident type, give second-line engineers the authority and runbooks to act, and review each outside-hours call afterwards to see whether it was needed.
Show them the next step in writing, give structured learning on real incidents and do not leave them on the least pleasant shifts for long. Most leave because they cannot see where they are going.
We would typically look at the shift rotation and night-shift load, how handovers and escalation work, and how certified engineers are kept and developed. A sensible first piece of work is a fair rotation and a standard handover note, followed by a skills map. Scope is agreed in writing before work starts.
More on HR for telecom
All 10 business types in telecom · Find another business type
Telecom customer care and call centresTelecom equipment installers and field service teamsSatellite and VSAT service providersTelecom tower and infrastructure companiesInternet and broadband providersFibre rollout and network contractorsOrganisation Design in telecomLearning and Development in telecomRetention and Attrition Management in telecom