Clear advantage of right attitude

By VIKKI BLAND

TelstraClear, New Zealand's second-largest full service telecommunications provider, formed following the integration of TelstraSaturn and Clear Communications in December 2001.

Ken Goodwin, the company's HR manager, says its profile as an IT employer has changed over the past two years as it has made headway in the local telecommunications market.

"People used to ask us if we were going to last the distance. We've been through a lot and our identity is only emerging now. People like to work for a successful company and they love to work for a market challenger."

Australian-owned and locally managed, TelstraClear New Zealand employs 1200 people and recruits about 175 new IT staff each year. Next month it will publicise its first graduate programme, taking on 12 graduates with a target of 30 each year.

"Graduates will get a real job with us - we'll permanently employ them and put them through a special development programme," says Goodwin.

TelstraClear will also continue to pay employees a bonus for nominating a job candidate who is subsequently employed; a scheme Goodwin says is particularly successful in the company's call centre.

Compared with other IT employers, TelstraClear is surprisingly relaxed about the formal qualifications put forward by IT job candidates.

"We're interested in outcomes, not inputs. An employee's education can be acquired through a degree, a polytechnic diploma, or through working; academically we don't much care. We are looking for people who can do the job and who have the right attitude," says Goodwin.

Those who fit the bill will be pleased TelstraClear has a light redundancy record.

"Our strategy is to be stable. The message we want to put out there is that people's jobs are secure here," says Goodwin.

At 16 per cent, TelstraClear's attrition rate is less than the IT market average of 19.5 per cent. The company offers career paths including individualised learning plans and e-learning programmes, and spends 3 per cent of its HR budget on staff training.

"We help staff to acquire new skills and technical depth rather than focus on management progression," says Goodwin.

The company links base salaries to individual performance and market expectations rather than management progress.

IT job candidates with young families or health problems are likely to find TelstraClear an accommodating employer. For example, the company held a position open for two years for a staff member with intermittent health problems.

"We are not a 'soft' employer; we expect employees to deliver. But we also encourage managers to be flexible," says Goodwin.

Parental options include working four-day weeks or telecommuting for part of the week. TelstraClear also offers a financial incentive to new mothers who choose to return to work from maternity leave.

While these benefits are likely to appeal, IT workers with in-demand skills will possibly make more money elsewhere.

"We don't pay top of the line money, although I think we are on a par with other [telecommunications] employers. People are here because they want to be," says Goodwin.

Former TelstraClear employee Jin Wan would agree with that.

Wan says resigning from his job as mobile product manager for TelstraClear wasn't easy.

"I was presented with a new opportunity outside of the telecommunications industry. I wasn't looking for another job and it was hard to leave."

Wan says while working for a market challenger is always interesting, the initial integration of TelstraSaturn and Clear Communciations was unsettling.

"TelstraClear initially had trouble retaining top talent. This improved as its focus on getting the right people for the right job continued to unfold."

He describes TelstraClear's IT environment as challenging, creative and fast paced. "You do things for the customer that a company in an incumbent position might not think of. And you react faster."

When asked why an IT job candidate would want to work for TelstraClear, Goodwin is emphatic.

"We're the right size, with the right people, offering customers something really different. We're a challenger, not a 'me too' telco."

Profile

Company name: TelstraClear New Zealand Products/services: Telecommunications products and services

Locations: Offices nationwide

Number of employees: 1200

Employed: Project managers, application developers, network engineers, project administrators, LAN and WAN engineers, Unix administrators, call centre specialists

Stated values: Ownership, delivery, uncompromising excellence, commercial savvy, passionate dynamic people; trust, respect and integrity in all relationships

Telstraclear recruitment