Developing Relationships

I spent many years working at a large university in Philadelphia. One of our main gripes in the telecom department was that we always seemed to be the last to find things out – such as office moves, new building purchases, etc.

Inevitably, we would get a call on a Friday afternoon from some departmental secretary saying that her offices were moving into a new space and she needed 30 or 40 phones moved by Monday morning.

Another gripe we had (and I remember we had quite a few) was that HR never let us know when someone joined or left the University. We sometimes found that we were paying for cell phone calls for a person who left our employ months ago.

One way around issues like these is to develop a relationship with people beyond your own office. I made friends with a person in the Facilities Management group, and thereafter I would get phone calls weeks ahead of time when a department was moving. I would be included in planning meetings for construction of new spaces, so that the telephone wiring could be planned out and installed before the painting was done and furniture was moved in. Having a good relationship made all the difference. I found that it was not that anyone purposely excluded the telecom department, they just didn’t think about us. I am sure many of you are familiar with that.

A recent article in Network World talked about the same idea when discussing how to save money on telecom expenses. A woman at a large pharmaceutical company reported that developing a relationship with the department that manages property leases allowed her to keep on top of locations that were moving or closing. This information, when received in a timely manner, made her life much easier, and she was able to easily coordinate disconnects at the proper time.

At the University I made a friend in HR and could call her regularly to see who had resigned or retired so that I could cross check my databases for cell phones, authorization codes and voice mail boxes. Eventually, she started calling me when she thought the person involved was likely to have a device or authorization code I needed to know about.

Even beyond your own organization, it helps to make friends with the customer service reps who work for your carriers and other service providers. If you cut them a little slack once in a while when something is late, they may reciprocate. My carrier service rep soon came to know that when I said something was an emergency, it really was, and it was taken care of immediately. Of course, when it was not critical, I let her know that and she appreciated it.

Developing relationships not only makes your life easier; it saves your organization money and gets work done much more quickly and efficiently.