Planning Coordinator

Planning Coordinator

Helios Towers is a leading independent telecommunications infrastructure company, having established one of the most extensive tower portfolios across Africa. It builds, owns and operates telecom passive infrastructure, providing services to mobile network operators. Helios Towers currently operates in 8 markets in Africa and Oman in the Middle East.

Overview

As Planning Coordinator within the Smart Operating Centre (SOC), you will support the Planning Manager in ensuring operational plans remain coherent, achievable, and governed across Fuel, Preventive Maintenance (PM), and Site Works (SWO) activities. You will play a key role in coordinating, validating, and dynamically adjusting plans within the Workforce Management (WFM) platform to reflect real site conditions, resource constraints, and operational risks.

By maintaining planning discipline while adapting to changing site behaviour and risk signals, you will ensure that execution remains aligned to SLA requirements, safety standards, and operational efficiency objectives.

Role Responsibilities

As Planning Coordinator, you will be responsible for:

• Building and validating Fuel and Preventive Maintenance (PM) plans within WFM, ensuring alignment with SWO requirements, tank measurements, sequencing logic, and available resource capacity, while highlighting conflicts and overloads to the Planning Manager.
• Monitoring and dynamically adjusting operational plans based on risk signals such as grid deterioration, autonomy degradation, recurring alarms, and instability patterns to preventing execution failure and SLA exposure.
• Updating and maintaining site configuration and application codes (grid/solar/hybrid changes) in the core database to ensuring planning logic reflects actual site conditions rather than outdated assumptions.
• Coordinating and validating cross-functional plans with the Energy Desk, SOC, Maintenance Managers, and Maintenance Partners (MPs) to confirming executability and alignment with operational constraints prior to plan release.
• Ensuring and enforcing WFM planning discipline by applying correct task types, scheduling logic, dependencies, bundling rules, and accurate data inputs, while flagging discipline gaps that undermine plan quality.
• Supporting and contributing to automation and continuous improvement initiatives by refining planning rules, templates, and bundling/sequencing standards to reducing manual adjustments and last-minute rework.
• Preparing and supporting governance cadence activities, including Standard Days and operational forums, by tracking plan adherence, deviations, and replan drivers, and surfacing actionable insights for corrective action.

Requirements for the Role

To succeed in the role, you will be/will have:

• At least 3 years experience in operational planning, maintenance coordination, or SOC/NOC environments within telecom or infrastructure sectors.
• Solid understanding of Fuel, PM, and Site Work Order (SWO) operational processes.
• Analytical capability to interpret risk signals and operational patterns.
• Experience working in SLA-driven environments.

Desired Skills

• Strong analytical and planning discipline mindset
• High attention to data accuracy and detail
• Structured problem-solving approach
• Cross-functional coordination capability
• Digital fluency (WFM, RMS, operational dashboards)
• Clear and concise communication skills

Key Deliverables

• Validated Fuel and PM plans aligned with SWO, site constraints, and resource capacity
• Updated and accurate site configuration and application codes
• Proactive replanning proposals triggered by operational risk signals
• WFM planning quality checks and discipline issue logs
• Structured inputs to Standard Day and planning governance reviews (adherence, deviations, trends)

KPIs

• SLA 6 plan adherence (scheduled vs executed)
• Scheduled versus executed variance
• Replan frequency (reactive vs proactive balance)
• Planning data accuracy (site configuration and task correctness)
• Reduction in last-minute plan changes and emergency replans

Helios Towers is committed to promoting equal opportunities in employment. You and any job applicants will receive equal treatment regardless of age, disability, marital status, pregnancy or maternity, race, colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin, religion or belief.