TDS Telecom Reviews

Pros

Good Pay
Great Benefits
Great People
Solid Company
Good Advancement (when starting on the ground floor)
Education/Classes is important and favorable

Cons

Software/Process Improvements are completed with sometimes little input from the teams/people who will be using them
Processes/Perks used in some departments/divisions aren't available to everyone
Too many "one off" or home grown applicaitons with little or no support when they are broken

Advice to Senior Management

Involve the people who do the work in decision making of new software/processes and not just their management. Ensure that all systems, tools, etc. are built with a support infrastructure in mind. Too many times a tool that is used by someone breaks and there is no one to fix it.

Pros

Benefits, other employees, and dress code was business casual. TDS was good at laying out everything that you had todo to keep your job.

Cons

If you are looking for upward mobility and not based in Madison you can forget about it. Promotions where handed out only to those that brown nosed their way to it. One person was promoted to sales trainer right out of training although there was someone else that had over 10 years experience and wasnt even given the chance to apply for the postion. When asked i was told their managment experience at a coffeeshop gave them the necassary experience for the postion.

Advice to Senior Management

Employees like transparency and fairness. Give the people that are there a chance at promotions and not just because someone at the home office had a good converstation with someone.

Pros

benefits, dress code, location. Thats all

Cons

Middle Management often incompetent and clueless

Advice to Senior Management

Don't forget who does the work

Pros

The pay and benefits were above average. The people you are surrounded with are very talented and dedicated. Great team environment.

Cons

In my area there hardly any employee turnover. Therefore advancement opportunities were limited. Once you reach a certain level you can get stuck in a position for years.

Advice to Senior Management

Relations with middle management were better than with upper management. I would advise upper management to leave the corporate office more often and spend more time in the field.

Pros

Lots of interesting opportunities to reach out and to progress technical knowledge. Good & helpful colleagues and direct-report managers. Benefits are outstanding. CCW building in Madison is very convenient and has a parking garage.

Cons

The company had a huge drain of technical personal over the years. Many people left for the same reasons: Payment & paper work. Upper management just doesn't seem to care about issues of dpts. they oversee and keep themselves busy with alibi measures like surveys with sanitized results. Lower management is frustrated about this situation but has no chance to change anything.

Advice to Senior Management

Wake up upper management and realize that you employ very specialized technical staff. You should better keep them happy for the benefit of the company.

Pros

Generous personal, sick and vacation time and tuition reimbursement are a few of the perks TDS has compared to many companies. TDS is a medium sized company and is pretty stable at the moment, which is a plus in this economy. The telecommunications field is undergoing a lot of change, and so the company is always working on a number of new products and services (just, slowly, because that's the way the company works)

Cons

Employee recognition and rewards could be improved. As a conservative company TDS makes decisions very slowly, and this behavior carries through the whole company. Under performing employees are rarely shown the door

Advice to Senior Management

Increase individual employee recognition, make decisions more quickly

Pros

Good pay and benefits, overall great people to work with.

Cons

Micro management, do what management says or else. There must be a fall guy for bad outcome that management told you to do. Technical management does not have maturity, professionalism you would expect.

Advice to Senior Management

Hire the right management with appropriate education, background and experience, make sure they are leaders not micro managers that know how to treat people appropriately. There would be less politics with competent managers.

Pros

I've seen a handful of promotions since being there. The benefits are solid and the pay is decent. The work location on the west side of Madison is good too. The Monday through Friday hours are nice too.

Cons

Alot of micromanagement in my opinion from various levels (sales coach, seniors, supervisor). Also in my opinion there seems to be some inconsistency in how they handle unexcused abscences in my department which is frustrating, kills morale and has caused me to lose some respect for my immediate boss. In my opinion there also seems to be some inconsistent handling of employees that arent giving 100% effort and spend more time chit chatting with co-workers even while customer calls are waiting in queue.

Advice to Senior Management

Alot of micromanagement of employees would be nice. I feel like I am a child there sometimes with the amount of monitored calls, audits, etc and feel like management doesnt trust us to do a good job.

Pros

The time off is generous, which you need to keep your sanity working here.

Cons

Terrible leadership, MICROMANAGEMENT MICROMANAGEMENT MICROMANAGEMENT- you really get treated like a number not a name here. Performance is all numbers based. the only time management talks to you is when you have done something wrong. Absolutely no recognition for a job well done. But they are real quick to let you know when you have messed up.

Advice to Senior Management

CARE about your employees. LISTEN to them. We are not sheep.

Pros

Benefits are great. Some of the people who work there. If you need entry level experience it may help you in securing your next position.

Cons

Upper management likes to belittle employees. Don't criticize or bring new ideas to the table. The pay is on the low side.

Advice to Senior Management

Allow feedback from the trenches. The people actually doing the work. Get someone in the sales leadership role who isn't an accountant by trade.