John Linton
Exetel, like any sensible company (but my observation is that 'sensible companies' in this category are very, very rare), takes a lot of interest in helping its personnel develop their abilities and acquire new skills so that they retain a constant growth both in terms of what they are able to do in their professional life and how they can increase their financial rewards. Sometimes, as with all other commercial companies that pursue these practices an employee reaches the conclusion that Exetel isn't providing the career opportunities or financial rewards that other companies can do and they leave Exetel to pursue their career at a company that better appreciates their talents and abilities or who is better positioned to pay more for their services than Exetel can/chooses to do.
This is a relatively common scenario within the communications industry in Australia and any sensible employer factors it in to their planning.
A less common, but from what I hear from my acquaintances in the industry and from my own observations is becoming more common, are employees who reach a point at which they are happy to stay, at least for the current tme, and don't want to push their learning curve to acquire new or better skill levels and therefore advance their careers at the same rate they did previously.
Previously very uncommon, but now less uncommon than it once was, is the situation where an employee wants to continue in a certain career direction but the employer, for a variety of reasons:
No current vacancy
No current 'teaching facilities'
Doubts about the individual's suitability/abilities
Doubts about the individual's 'longevity' to make the investment worthwhile from the company's view
etc
doesn't decide to provide the opportunity.
Another, from my personal observations, increasing scenario, is the inability of many highly intelligent and ambitious people to take a longer term (2 - 4 years) of their career in terms of understanding what their current employer may be able to offer them and, far more importantly, what some unknown future employer may be able to offer them.
I base this on my own observations over several decades of employing new personnel and saying good bye to people I've employed and the applications for positions with Extel I've personally reviewed over the past year.
Exetel, is a fairly typical example of a small start up company that, either by luck or something else, not only survives but grows rapidly enough to constantly offer new opportunities to anyone who joins it. This situation is duplicated by companies that already have complex operations and who for one reason or another, lose valuable staff therefore constantly offering promotion opportunities to other of their employees.
In Exetel's case the remuneration development for a constantly high performing employee has been an average of 100% over 4 years (the notable exceptions to this are Exetel's directors who have averaged less than 5% a year over the past four years). Talking with my acquaintances in this or similar industries 100% remuneration increase over 5 years is around high average for an exceptionally performing employee in the last ten years. Obviously there are exceptions but really talented people in their first ten years in the communications industry are achieving that sort of remuneration increase.
For employees who perform well but aren't as able as the truly gifted an increase of around 10 - 15% has been 'average' - if there can ever be such a thing - and this is based on what I've observed in companies I've worked for and what my current industry acquaintances tell me about today's business planning assumptions in their own companies.
With constant pressures on margins and constant pressures on market shares delivering both career responsibility and remuneration expectations is now more difficult that it has ever been as far as I'm able to determine. More companies than ever before, at least in my recent experience and discussions, are actually actively pursuing policies of managing the amount of their total payroll downwards as a business planning assumption even when their business plans are based on significant revenue growth.
How is this 'magic' being achieved'? That would entirely depend on individual companies and their individual circumstances but, at least from conversations I've had over the past three months with various senior executives in a variety of different sized companies reducing the total payroll amount is a high priority for 2008 and 2009. I've also been asked about becoming part of a 'select' group of companies to implement the concept of providing names of employees who might become 'surplus to requirements' to facilitate the 'out sourcing' of employees who haven't got an acceptable career path within their current employer and therefore could be approached by another company without the time and cost penalties of general advertising or, heaven forbid, using employment agencies.
Exetel will be doing a six month review of each employee's career plans in January and it will be interesting to match the expectations with Exetel's abilities to deliver on them. Unlike my acquaintances we are in the fortunate position of being able, should we choose to, to pursue a steeper growth path than we have in the past (financial circumstances around the world permitting) but we also have more options in terms of how we do that than have existed previously.