Telenor has a constant need for new talent. For years, the company has continuously developed new, creative strategies for utilising previously untapped talent resources. A near accident opened the door to one of those resources.
Like other hi-tech enterprises in the knowledge industry, Telenor is constantly hunting for new talent and expertise – not only in Norway, but worldwide. Norway is an arena in which they try out new approaches to this eternal resource hunt. Alarga is one approach, but far from the only one. (The company has three Alarga scholarship holders among its ranks.)
Telenor’s diversity strategy received a valuable addition when they bought the April Data company in 1996. The head of that company had himself experienced a near accident. He recovered by a stroke of luck, but the incident gave him a new perspective on those who are not so fortunate. The integration programme he started in his company has been carried on by its new owner, and today goes by the name Open Mind. Three times a year they take in people with a handicap and give them training, support and resources to use their competence and talent.
Håkon Sæther
“We don’t do this out of the kindness of our heart, but because we see it as a way of acquiring labour,” says Håkon Sæther, Telenor Norway’s head of Human Resources. “This programme also has the added benefit of giving the person a better self image, and we save society huge amounts of money. It’s a win-win-win situation: We get access to expertise, they get a job to do where it is really needed and the government saves public health and welfare costs.
“At the same time, the programme improves the working environment and boosts morale in a department. You don’t complain so easily knowing that the person next to you has to get up two hours earlier to have someone help him with his morning rituals,” says Sæther.
“The programme is a success. Through the programme’s twelve-year existence, the company has given some 150 individuals a chance to become a part of a pulsating work-life. Seventy percent of those who completed the programme went on to a permanent job, though not all of them at Telenor. This is an impressive figure and a frame of reference for everyone who talks about an inclusive work-life.”
And best of all for Telenor: The company has immensely benefited from this.
Untapped talent resources
The Norwegian telecom market is quite saturated, and so is access to expertise. But there exists more than one untapped talent resource in the Norwegian market, and wise companies are turning to those resources.
Students with a non-Nordic ethnic background – i.e. Norwegians with foreign parentage – are such a resource. These young people are often among the brightest in school. But the sad fact remains that many Norwegian recruiters still file away (read discard) applications with ‘funny’ names, without really evaluating the applicant’s qualifications.
It’s their loss – and the competition’s gain.
Among European telecom companies, Telenor has fared best in the domestic market in recent years. The company is, and will continue to be, one of the world’s biggest cell-phone operators. They currently have more than 170 million customers and 40,000 employees. Most of the customers and employees are outside Norway. But although Norway is a small part of the total market, it is still the locomotive.
“We work in an industry that drives changes in other industries,” says Sæther. “Our success depends on our ability to be better and faster than the competition. In that situation, we can’t afford to overlook talented people.”
Telenor has three Alarga talents: two at Telenor Group and one at Telenor Norway. The strategy regarding Alarga is simple:
“We believe – no, we know – there are exceptional people among Alarga’s target group. We look for people with expertise and a willingness and capability to make changes. Alarga is one of those places we know we can find such expertise. That is why we contribute to, and benefit from, Alarga – we are mutually beneficial.”
The third resource
But there’s also a third, untapped resource, one you have read about many times in the newspaper: the taxi driver with a PhD from a university in Sri Lanka who is not approved by Norwegian educational authorities; the cleaner with an engineering degree from an unknown school in Somalia; the computer nerd who masters eight programming languages, but only one human language, that being unfortunately neither Norwegian nor English.
“Norwegian society has failed to adequately exploit this resource,” says Sæther. “We believe there’s a gold mine here: high education, a demonstrably major willingness to change and an international mindset,” he says and breaks the news:
“We are now launching a brand new project involving the Open Mind model, but in a separate programme whereby we take in highly qualified people from other countries who don’t speak Norwegian.”
Initially they will take in five people in a pilot project. If all goes as planned, they will take in five persons three times a year. These persons will be contracted with Telenor for 15 months. In the first three months they will receive training and learn what it means to work at Telenor, and what it means to work in Norway in general. The Norwegian Labour and Welfare Organisation (NAV) will provide language training at the same time.
After the first three months, they will enter a 12-month period of practical work. Then it is up to them: If they have made themselves indispensable, their manager will fight to keep them. If they simply do a good job, they will receive good references.
And an attestation from Telenor can mean the difference between getting, and not getting, a job.
“We have had good results from the fact that this is a time-limited contract without a commitment in any particular direction,” says Sæther.
Exporting diversity
The diversity strategy created at April Data in its day has become an important part of the culture Telenor is building, and the Open Mind programme is now being ‘exported’ to a number of other countries.
“The aim of our internationalisation strategy is for the management of our operations abroad to comprise mostly local people. But we insist that our way of treating people shall be a part of the corporate culture in our companies. We believe in our Scandinavian management philosophy, where dialogue and flat structures are more important than chains of command.”
Telenor took the consequence of this when they built their headquarters at Fornebu. They tore down the divides physically by building everything around an open landscape.
“We want to have this mode of working because we believe it’s the best way to collaborate and promote change,” says Sæther. “Now, you’ll hardly find a headquarters built in Norway that does not follow the same pattern, and at Telenor the same is happening in country after country.”
This yields results. Telenor has become an attractive employer in the countries in which it operates. Telenor’s subsidiary in Bangladesh, Grameen Phone, is a better-known brand than even Coca Cola and is the country’s most popular employer. The diversity mentality is gaining ground also in countries like Serbia, Malaysia and Sweden, and the company is attracting many young and eager employees seeking a dynamic workplace where they can participate and make a difference.
Governing idea
“The corporate culture we build is crucial – perhaps our most important competitive parameter. Our competitors may copy technology, products, solutions and services, but they’re having a hard time copying our culture and way of treating people,” says Sæther, adding:
“The governing idea is diversity, originality and the certainty that you can miss out on something if you just think inside the box.”
