Communications talent insight report

Global talent insight report For the telecommunications sector

IntroductionWe are excited to announce expand’s inaugural

talent insight report focused solely on the global

Telecommunications sector.

With 15 years’ experience recruiting for service

providers and carriers worldwide, we have a

wealth of data to share. The first edition reports

information on salaries, trends and strategies that

will help employers identify the factors which will

attract potential employees to their businesses and

help to retain them.

Our research combines the results from two online

surveys (an employee focused survey and an em-

ployer focused survey). The employee survey com-

bines a total of 500 respondents around the world

with data taken from our own internal records and

research. Our research also combines the results

from an employer survey with contributions from

over 60 Vice Presidents and CEO’s around the

world.

The research has clearly identified one key theme

which has been constant throughout our conver-

sations with the employees / employers involved in

this piece of work – the Telecommunications indus-

try has a real shortage of good quality candidates.

This is due to increased growth in the economy,

which has resulted in increased investment in

businesses, technologies and general connectivity

worldwide, the rapid evolution of services (through

the introduction of new technologies), and a surge

in exceptional candidates thriving within the

freelance market. It is clear that hiring challenges

are only going to deepen and are likely to impact

business performance. The insights we are provid-

ing as to the motivators of employees in this sector

will hopefully help businesses to optimise retention

and the attraction of new talent.

To continue and develop this theme further, given

current socio-political issues, we have also includ-

ed some information about the perception of gen-

der diversity amongst the respondents surveyed.

To be clear, this research piece has not focused

on diversity as a central theme as we wished to

provide more of a general overview of perceptions

across multiple issues.

We gathered data from respondents all over the

world and at varying levels of seniority. However,

we will be focusing primarily on North America

and Europe with some comparisons being made

with the Middle East and Asia where enough data

was gathered. We weren’t able to collect enough

data from Africa, Australasia and South America

to be able to draw meaningful conclusions in such

a way that we could directly compare and contrast

against the results from North America, Middle

East, Asia and Europe.

Global talent insight report

2 www.expandexecutivesearch.com

Talent retention and attraction challengesEmployers’ perceptions of the challenges they face when hiring

BRAND AWARENESS

LOCATION

COMPETITION

LENGTH OF HIRING PROCESS

TALENT AVAILABILITY

HIRING WITHIN PAY SCALES

0% 25%

22.6%31.1%

19.0%

12.9%42.9%

14.3%

9.7%37.8%

4.8%

38.7%57.1%

33.3%

83.9%97.3%

81.0%

44.2%

71.4%

67.7%

50% 75% 100%

Asia

North America

Europe

Clearly, talent availability is the primary issue for

employers across all of the geographies included

in the graph above. Interestingly, this is the only

consistent response found in Asia, North America

and Europe. Therefore, we are able to confirm that

skills shortages and talent availability really is the

biggest issue faced in the Telecommunications

sector today.

As highlighted by the graph, hiring within

perceived industry payscales is also a major

issue for businesses in each continent, however,

it is perceived to be far less of an issue in North

America. The second highest issue is the length of

the hiring process; essentially if employers can’t

expedite the process sufficiently with an attractive

offer talent will go elsewhere.

What we can conclude from this is that generally

businesses across the world feel that they’re

paying too much for talented candidates.

The other most notable contrast is the perception

of competition from other businesses for talent

in Asia and Europe (where the perception is low)

versus North America where the market is clearly

much more volatile and filled with companies vying

for the same talent. This could be explained by

exploring the statistic on location where again we

see North America perceiving this issue as being

more prominent than their Asian and European

counterparts, which is possibly due to the pure size

and scale of the North American continent and the

Telecommunications market that it contains.

Hir

ing

Ch

alle

nge

s

Percentage Of Respondents



Initiatives undertaken by companies to mitigate skills shortagesThe initiatives companies have taken to address potential skills shortages

INCREASED BRAND AWARENESS TO ATTRACT THE BEST WORKERS

RECRUITED WORKERS FROM OTHER INDUSTRIES

USED EXTERNAL RECRUITMENT COMPANIES

PIPELINE TALENT POOLS

RECRUITED WORKERS FROM OVERSEAS

EXTERNAL TRAINING (ALLOWED WORKERS TO STUDY

OUTSIDE THE COMPANY)

IMPROVED INTERNAL TRAINING

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%

North America

Europe14.3%

33.3%

42.9%

38.1%

71.4%

76.2%

23.8%

14.3%

19.0%

14.3%

33.3%

85.7%

81.0%

Over 80% of the companies we surveyed, both

in North America and Europe, have improved

their internal training to address potential skills

shortages. The emphasis on internal training is

very good and a welcome long term approach

to the issue. Interestingly, at least 70% of

respondents use external recruitment agencies to

hire new talent into their businesses. This is a short

term fix if done so on an interim basis, however, it

is a long term strategy if employers are taking the

time to secure the right skill set.

To bring in more diverse skillsets and ideas, it’s

clear that businesses in both North America and

Europe explore candidate profiles from companies

outside of the Telecommunications sector (43%

and 38% respectively). It is also interesting to

note that in North America there seems to be no

perceived need for talent pipelining despite the

fact that they perceive themselves to have the

most competitive market (see previous graph).

Init

iati

ves

To M

itig

ate

Skill

s Sh

ort

ages




Employer perceptions of salary vs. Employee perceptions of salaryThe results of this part of the survey came as a surprise

to us, in that it was somewhat expected that employees

would perceive their salaries as being below the

industry averages. However, what our data has shown

is that actually the perceptions of both employers

and employees are very similar. The interesting point

to take from this is that whilst both groups feel that

for the most part their salaries are in-line with their

industry average, amongst those who don’t agree (both

employer and employee) the consensus is that they fall

below the average rather than above - the perception

of being “well paid” in comparison to industry averages

is low in both groups.

What are the most important factors affecting Employees’ happiness?Employee responses when asked about factors affecting happiness

As the graph above shows, employees feel

that financial remuneration, work/life balance,

culture & environment, recognition, training &

development and diversity & inclusion are all

important or critical, as exemplified by the fact

that the black and dark blue sections of the graph

contain the highest percentages. Where these

statistics become particularly interesting is when

examining the in-hand and low priority results;

we can see that diversity & inclusion from an

employees’ perspective is less of an important

factor contributing to an employee’s happiness.

This is notable because diversity currently sits

at the forefront of employers’ hiring strategies.

As is also clearly demonstrated from the graph

above, financial remuneration remains king of the

factors dictating an employee’s happiness whereas

diversity sits in last place.

Lower 27.59%

Higher 10.34%

In line 62.07%

Employer perception of current salary against industry average

Employee perception of current salary against industry average

Lower 34.78%

Higher 14.78%

In line 50.43%

Critical Important In hand Low priority Not importantFactors Affecting Employees’ Happiness

100%

75%

50%

25%

0%FINANCIAL REMUNERATION

WORK/LIFE BALANCE

CULTURE & ENVIRONMENT

RECOGNITION TRAINING & DEVELOPMENT

DIVERSITY & INCLUSION

0.87%

4.35%

64.35%

30.43% 35.09%

53.51%

9.65%

0.88% 0.88% 0.88%

7.89%2.63%

20.18%

42.11% 50.88% 49.12%

25.44%23.68%

2.63%

34.00% 21.05% 18.42%

11.50%

39.82%

30.09%

16.81%

1.77%0.88%

Per

cen

tage

Of R

esp

on

den

ts



How do Employers rate factors affecting Employees’ happiness?Employer responses when asked about factors affecting Employees’ happiness

The employers’ data provides us with some

interesting comparisons in terms of the

perspectives they hold on key motivational

factors for employees’ happiness. Firstly, financial

remuneration for an employee was seen to be the

single highest contributor to their happiness which

is consistent with the employer findings. Culture is

rated higher by employees than employers which

is interesting given that culture plays a key role in

attracting talent to a business, as well as retaining

it. We had expected to see more similar results

between both groups.

We see agreement between these 2 groups

when examining the results for training &

development and diversity. For both employers

and employees, training and development was

seen as an important factor but not critical.

Given that it is recognised worldwide that skills

shortages are likely to worsen before getting

better, it is interesting to see that employers

are more concerned with attracting new talent

than upskilling their current workforce. Finally,

diversity features in both groups at around 40%-

50% critical/important, with 30%-40% in each

group believing that the issue is in-hand. The real

question here is whether or not this perception has

developed from a genuinely informed viewpoint

on either side about improvements to diversity, or

if both groups perceive the issue as in-hand due to

the level of media attention it has grown to receive

over recent years.

Critical Important In hand Low priority

RETENTION MAINTAINING CULTURE

DIVERSITY COMPETITIVE SALARIES

REWARDS BENEFITS

TRAINING & DEVELOPMENT TO BUILD SKILLS

Per

cen

tage

s O

f Res

po

nd

ents

100%

75%

50%

25%

0%

People Issues

3.23%6.90%

27.59%

51.72%

13.79% 20.69%9.68% 6.45%

64.52%

25.81%

3.24% 9.68%

29.03%

54.84%

6.46%

77.42%

9.68%

3.23%

20.69%

44.83%

13.79%

19.35%

51.61%

25.81%



Actual percentages of salary increases over the past 12 months achieved by EmployeesHow much Employees’ salaries have actually increased over the past 12 months

How should salaries be reviewed?Employee and Employer perspectives on when salaries should be reviewed

We can clearly see that employees and employers

have very similar perspectives on salary reviews

with the general consensus being that they

welcome salary reviews that are performance

based. Here what we see is that employers

are appreciating the need to retain talent, and

are therefore seemingly keen to ensure that

employees are recognised for their individual

performance.

15% +

11 - 15%

6 - 10%

1 - 5%

0%

0.0% 12.50% 25.00% 37.50% 50.00%

Sala

ry In

crea

se P

erce

nta

ge


5.36%

4.46%

7.14%

47.32%

35.71%

Ad hoc as required ie. Bonus for great performance

On promotion

Performance based (individual) over a period

Annual inflation based (company wide)

68.1%

18.1%

13.8%



Employee Employer

50.1%

8.7%

26%

15.2%

What non-financial benefits do Employees receive?What non-financial benefits are included in employment package offers

We can obviously note from the graph above that

enhanced maternity/paternity leave, subsidised

food and discounts from retailers are the most

common non-monetary benefits, and flexible

working, contributory pensions and private

healthcare are the least prevalent benefits .

When looking to retain the best talent, employers

should consider including extended holiday

allowance, travel subsidies and health and wellbeing

plans within their benefits package as these are the

most commonly sought after by employees.

100%

80%

60%

40%

20%

0%

FLEXIBLE / COMPRESSED / HOURS / HOME WORKING

HEALTH + WELLBEING PLAN IE: GYM

SUBSIDIZED FOOD CONTRIBUTORY PENSION

PRIVATE HEALTH CARE / DENTAL

TRAVEL SUBSIDIES ENHANCED MATERNITY / PATERNITY LEAVE

DISCOUNTS FROM RETAILERS

EXTENDED HOLIDAY ALLOWANCE

24.56% 31.53% 28.7% 19.09% 18.18% 38.05% 27.1% 26.17% 34.23%

65.79% 36.04% 22.22% 65.45% 68.18% 25.66% 19.63% 28.04% 28.83%

9.65% 32.43% 49.07% 15.45% 13.64% 36.28% 53.27% 45.79% 36.94%

Within current package Not within current package Would like to have

Per

cen

tage

Of R

esp

on

den

ts

Benefit Availability



What Employees believe would make their compensation package more attractive (additional

comments from employees that were surveyed - results consistent between both groups have been

highlighted in blue)

What do Employers believe represent the most attractive parts of their employment package to

potential candidates (additional comments from employers that were surveyed - results consistent

between both groups have been highlighted in blue)

HEALTH FAMILY / PERSONAL FINANCIAL

Wellbeing plan Flexible working hours / location Shares / Profit share

Health / sports club membershipFlexible holiday scheme where employees can buy or sell holidays.

Wealth Management and Planning

Cycle to work scheme Crèche facilities Better car allowance / company car

Commitment to improving work / life balanceHoliday with spouse or partner as part of rewards program

Better training & external education, (e.g. sponsored MBA programme)

Investment in new personal innovation (start-up on the side)

Child care vouchers Performance-based salary reviews

Pension from day 1 rather than post probation. Higher performance-based bonuses

Relocation package

Travel subsidies

Share incentive scheme (often reserved for senior management)

Free/subsidized car parking

BUSINESS FAMILY / PERSONAL FINANCIAL

International business operations and culture Diverse and innovative environment Performance based salary reviews

Innovative and international exposureEthical brand, intimate work environment, “challenger” mentality

Strong rewards & recognition program

Interesting industry, strong brand and international opportunities

Flexible working hours Very competitive compensation plan

Exciting company story High degree of autonomy All round offer is compelling and attractive

Flexibility to execute strategy Ability to develop professionally

Financially stable global organization and industry leader

Sales culture much more in-line with a fun energetic start-up

The ability to work globally with great people

It is interesting to note that we gave employees and

employers the same opportunity to comment on

additional facets of a compensation package that

could be included to make their employment offers

more attractive. Employees took the opportunity

to identify benefits that they would like to be

included in their benefits package in the future,

whilst employers simply listed what makes their

businesses attractive on a more general level. This

perhaps illustrates a disconnect between employees

and employers on the perceived level of importance

of having a competitive benefits package as well as

an attractive company proposition – both are vital.



ConclusionThe inaugural expand talent insights report set

out to research and explore key people themes

within the Telecommunications industry. We had

identified that the biggest challenge across the

world was a perceived skills shortage, and by

extension, talent availability. Our data showed that

this issue was the most prominent for employers in

Asia, North America and Europe.

We found that hiring within company payscales

was a consistent issue as businesses find

themselves having to pay over and above their

existing payscales in order to attract new talent

to their organisations. It is inevitable that this

will lead to accelerated salary growth if the

skills shortage continues. Therefore, either

organisations need to increase their payscales

to allow for the attraction of required skillsets,

or the skills shortage needs to be reversed to

put everything back on to a more even keel. It’s

also worth noting that this seems to be less of a

concern in North America.

On employee attraction and retention, we have

found that money still holds the most influence

amongst the factors we measured for both

employees and employers. Whilst there is now a

constant stream of new statistics and infographics

available on the internet that refer to the

differences between Baby Boomers, Generation

X and Millennials, we see that monetary

remuneration remains at the top of the pile. Yet,

as the demographics of the workforce change, and

the prominence of Generation X and Millennial

employees grows, it is expected that we will see

a rise in the influence of non-financial benefits

(especially in the case of Millennials). However, as

our data has shown, this remains seemingly distant.

Employers recognise that there is a distinct

skills shortage within their own workforces, as

well as the wider global talent pool. Logically it

would make sense for the first port of call to be

to ramp up training and development activities

aimed at current employees in order to upskill

their workforce, and consequently save the

costs associated with hiring new talent. In reality,

companies are greatly investing in training &

development to address the problem long-

term, yet are still engaging external recruitment

companies on a massive scale to address the issue

in the short-term. This serves to inflate salaries

creating the perceived issues around hiring

within payscales. Companies need to continue to

attract new talent to their businesses, but, they

should consider hiring at a more junior level and

upskilling those new hires with targeted training

and development to address the skills shortage.

This should address the hyper-inflation of

salaries which exists in certain verticals within the

Telecommunications sector.

Gender diversity is currently prominent as a sector

agnostic challenge - essentially all industries are

looking at new strategies to increase diversity

and inclusion throughout all levels within their

organisations. We perceive that the greatest

challenges which employers will face when hiring

new talent will continue to be skills shortages and

hiring within payscales, and offering appealing

financial remuneration will remain key in attracting

and retaining talent. Doing so whilst improving

diversity & inclusion will be more of a challenge

and will require significant understanding of, and

subsequent dedication to, the principles that

underpin improvements to diversity & inclusion,

namely equality and enhanced business performance.

To be notified of future reports, events, webinars

and roundtables on any of the themes we have

covered in this report please register your interest

with one of the Communications team. We are

also of course happy to share our own thoughts

on these specific issues, as well as solutions

that we have designed and implemented for

our clients (profiles and contact details of our

Communications team are on the following page).



Expand’s communications teamWe are proud to be recognised as leading global recruiters. Working collaboratively, our Communications

team have capacity to deliver individual strategic hires or to manage complex cross boarder recruitment

campaigns. With a candidate network that covers EMEA, Russia, The Americas, LATAM and APAC our

international reach and scale allows us to attract, recruit and retain premium talent, faster and more

efficiently than your competitors. Our project based services allow you to control recruitment spend

through economies of scale.

Our flexible solutions assure an unrivalled level of service to support talent management. This can

incorporate skills analysis, succession planning, role definition, market mapping, talent pipelining,

assessments, recruitment, onboarding, coaching and full project management. These services have been

designed without compromise to attract, recruit and retain the very best people.

With a global candidate network of 60,000 professionals in Communications and extensive recruitment

experience in your sector, you can quickly access even the most hard-to-reach individuals for specialist

and senior management roles.

Aidan Walker, Director and Partner

with over 15 years’ experience of managing

executive search and large scale recruitment

campaigns for technology organisations.

Over this time Aidan has successfully won

and delivered campaigns to secure significant

professionals for his clients.

[email protected]

Sam Howse, Senior Consultant, a headhunter

working exclusively in the worldwide

Telecommunications market, partnering global

clients including carriers, Service Providers,

MSP’s etc. to fill critical positions.

[email protected]

Oli Ciecierski, Consultant, 4 years’

experience managing executive search

campaigns globally with the last 2 years

having been within communications. Oli

has won and delivered campaigns in the

enterprise, consumer and wholesales

communications markets.

[email protected]

Matthew Bertenshaw, M2M/ IoT

specialist Consultant. Matthew is well placed

to deliver any search project, utilising his vast

market network.

[email protected]

Daniel Owen, Account Manager, supporting

the Communications team in the delivery of

International search projects. Dan has 3 years’

research and headhunting experince.

[email protected]

Mathilda Lucas-Box, Delivery Consultant,

Supporting the Communications team in the

delivery of International search projects.

[email protected]

João Vidigal, Researcher. Supports the

team in the delivery of projects with first

class market and candidate research



Contact

+44 (0) 1273 668700 (Brighton)

+44 (0) 203 7351630 (London)

+1 (646) 895 6990 (USA)

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @expand_exec

Communications talent insight report

Recruiting & HR