Login
Register
Member Insights
Why we need talent upskilling to address talent shortage in the telecom industry
The opinions expressed within this article are solely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of TM Forum.
With a dream to step into entrepreneurship, I parted my ways, or perhaps thought so, with the telecom industry in February 2018 by resigning from Amdocs, a trusted partner to several leading communications and media companies. To give a bit of context, I began my journey in the telecom industry in October 2000.
As I stepped down from my high-paying role at Amdocs and accelerated towards entrepreneurship with a focus on the recruitment industry, I was counting on the telecom industry and the connections I had built through it. I followed the telecom industry religiously for the next two years to attain the desired growth in my entrepreneurial journey.
And this continued even after joining iMocha, a SAAS HR-tech organization helping enterprises make intelligent talent decisions and building future-ready teams across the candidate to alumni lifecycle solutions, in January 2020. The reason behind this is that one of the top industries iMocha focused on was, as you might have guessed, the telecom industry.
While following up with the industry, I gauged that senior professionals in the telecom industry have several opinions. But these perceptions led to some confusions. Based on this, here are some observations I have formulated.
Similarly, CSPs and vendors are also facing multiple challenges. They include:
iMocha considered validating these challenges as a priority and focused on how we can help the telecom industry overcome these hurdles. We did so by participating in the TM Forum’s Digital Transformation World, Copenhagen in September 2022.
To cut a long story short, the three days at the DTW were interesting. From answering “Why we as a HR Tech / Skills Tech player are in the event?” to the attendees acknowledging the need for more skills tech/ HR tech in such events to help with the talent challenge in the telecom industry, we saw it all.
After the DTW 2022 concluded, I was going through an article by Nik Willetts, Dr. Steffen Roehn and Herbert Blum titled, “Telco talent, delayering, and greenfield thinking: Takeaways from DTW 2022.” Stressing talent as the hot topic, this article also mentions the need to address issues related to recruitment, retention, and reskilling due to the increase in the retirement cliff and high competition. The article also talks about the launch of the Inclusion and Diversity Score approaches by Jio and Rakuten to solve these challenges. It also highlights research and insights to tackle the low hanging fruit of attracting graduate talent.
Nonetheless, the most important aspect is the closing statement of this article, which states, “Across the conference, there was a recognition that everybody is facing the same issues, and we noted a renewed energy to work together to find innovative ways to address them.” So how can the industry overcome its shared challenges?
So, hoping to meet some of the telecom practitioners in Bangkok at iMocha booth #02.
References:
